Commissioning Data – Who and Why? All LSST Data Rights holders (US, Chilean, and named international contributors) will be offered equal rights to LSST data products, including commissioning data. The commissioning data policy aims to balance the mutual benefits of early data dissemination with realistic resource limitations, as well as balance the benefits of maximizing early science w/ the need to ensure equal access to all data. The pre-operations team will put structures in place to ingest and react to feedback from the community, on a best-effort basis.

Commissioning Data to the Community A several month period at the end of each of the three commissioning phases will be used for data vetting, data processing, early implementation of some data release procedures, and implementing a system to react to community feedback. After this period, data will be shared w/ community on a best-effort basis, by the pre-operations team. Strawman Timeline For Distributing Commissioning Data (assuming construction schedule, as-of August 2017) ComCam data ~early 2021 Full Camera Phase I data ~Fall 2021 Mini-Surveys Phase ~Early 2022 Data Release for first 6 months of full-survey data: Late 2023  

Commissioning Data to the Community The criteria for the release of both images and calibrated data products will be defined and implemented by an early instantiation of the Data Release Board of the Operations team during the first few months of commissioning observations, in consultation with the Science Advisory Committee. As with full survey data, both engineering and science verification data will be classified with data quality flags indicating known limitations.  

Commissioning Data Distribution The data access and analysis services that LSST will be able to support for data dissemination during commissioning will be limited relative to the services to be provided during full operations. User capacity will also be limited. The minimum data products expected to be made available would be through flat files (e.g. FITS images and tables). We will flesh out details of data distribution after first light.