The European Southern Observatory will continue development and delivery of state-of-the-art infrared instrumentation for the VLT, through its first and second generation instrument programmes, to supplement the existing IR instrument complement (ISAAC, VISIR, SINFONI and NACO).
Two major new instruments will be delivered within the next year to complete the suite of first-generation instruments. CRIRES, the 100,000 resolution 1-5 micron AO-corrected spectrometer is currently in the integration and test phase, with first-light anticipated in a few months. HAWK-I, a 1 to 2.5 micron imager which uses mirrors and is equipped with a mosaic of four Hawaii 2RG detectors to achieve high throughput and a wide 7.5 arcminute square field is expected to achieve first light in early 2007.
Beyond 2007, other major new projects have been funded and are under development by external consortia as part of the second generation instrument programme. X-shooter is a simultaneous UV-to-K band intermediate resolution spectrometer, using high-efficiency dichroics to split the wavelength ranges. KMOS, due to be delivered in 2010, will combine 24 independently deployable IFUs with three spectrographs to gain a major multiplex advantage in IR spectroscopy. Planet-finder will be developed to use extreme-AO and coronagraphs to isolate planets around nearby stars and study them with spectroscopy and polarimetry.
In addition, the Adaptive Optics Facility project has been approved. This is a major project to develop a multiple laser-based system with a deformable secondary mirror for one unit telescope. By reducing the number of mirror surfaces required to only two, the facility will be ideal for thermal infrared work. At first light, the AOF will be used with HAWK-I for GLAO correction of the full field.