Since the start of science operations in 1993, the twin 10-meter W. M. Keck Observatory (WMKO) telescopes have continued to maximize their scientific impact to produce transformative discoveries that keep the U.S. observing community on the frontiers of astronomical research. Upgraded capabilities and new instrumentation are provided though collaborative partnerships primarily with the Caltech and University of California instrument development teams and through additional collaborations with the University of Notre Dame, the University of Hawaii, Swinburne University of Technology, industry, and other organizations. This paper summarizes the status and performance of observatory infrastructure projects, technology upgrades, and new additions to the suite of observatory instrumentation. We also provide a status of instrumentation projects in early and advanced stages of development that will achieve the goals and objectives summarized in the 2023 Keck Observatory strategic plan. Developed in collaboration with the WMKO science community, the Keck strategic plan sets our sites on 2035 and meets goals identified in the Astro2020 Decadal Survey.
The payload of the Faint Intergalactic Redshifted Emission Balloon (FIREBall-2), the second generation of the FIREBall instrument (PI: C. Martin, Caltech), has been calibrated and launched from the NASA Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. FIREBall-2 was launched for the first time on the September 22, 2018, and the payload performed the very first multi-object acquisition from space using a multi-object spectrograph. Our performance-oriented paper presents the calibration and last ground adjustments of FIREBall-2, the in-flight performance assessed based on the flight data, and the predicted instrument’s ultimate sensitivity. This analysis predicts that future flights of FIREBall-2 should be able to detect the HI Lyα resonance line in galaxies at z ∼ 0.67, but will find it challenging to spatially resolve the circumgalactic medium.
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