Of Hst Telescope Allocation Committee ( Tac ) Actions and Procedures Being Coordinated by Stsci

Observing time with the Hubble Space Telescope represents an invaluable resource to the astronomical community. In the early 1980s, NASA took the bold step of charging a community-based entity -the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) -with implementing, managing and maintaining a process for selecting proposals and awarding observing time. This approach has proved highly successful over the first decade of HST operations, and indeed has served as a model for time allocation on other major space observatories.