In June 2016, ESO Council decided to bring forward the first light of E-ELT Phase 1 from 2026 to 2024, even in the eventuality that Brazil does not join and a loan is required in the future to balance possible cash-flow.
E-ELT News
Published: 07 Jul 2016
E-ELT first light in 2024 is extremely important for synergies with future ground-based and space-borne facilities. In particular, a temporal overlap of a few years with the James Webb Space Telescope (to be launched in 2018 with an expected science operation of 10 years) is crucial to guarantee strong scientific collaborations. First light in 2024 will also allow the ESO community to exploit fundamental synergies with other facilities, such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) to be commissioned in 2022, and upcoming major ESA missions like Euclid (dedicated to the study of Dark Energy and Dark Matter) and Plato (dedicated to exo-planets) to be launched in 2020 and 2025, respectively.