Sloan Digital Sky Survey. V. Pioneering panoptic spectroscopy

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey V (SDSS-V) is pioneering panoptic spectroscopy: it is the first all-sky, multiepoch, optical-to-infrared spectroscopic survey. SDSS-V is mapping the sky with multiobject spectroscopy (MOS) at telescopes in both hemispheres (the 2.5 m Sloan Foundation Telescope at Apache Point Observatory and the 100-inch du Pont Telescope at Las Campanas Observatory), where 500 zonal robotic fiber positioners feed light from a wide-field focal plane to an optical (R ∼ 2000, 500 fibers) and a near-infrared (R ∼ 22,000, 300 fibers) spectrograph. In addition to these MOS capabilities, the survey is pioneering ultra–wide-field (∼4000 deg2) integral field spectroscopy enabled by a new dedicated facility (LVM-I) at Las Campanas Observatory, where an integral field spectrograph (IFS) with 1801 lenslet-coupled fibers arranged in a 0:5-diameter hexagon feeds multiple R ∼ 4000 optical spectrographs that cover 3600–9800 Å. SDSS-V’s hardware and multiyear survey strategy are designed to decode the chemodynamical history of the Milky Way and tackle fundamental open issues in stellar physics in its Milky Way Mapper program, trace the growth physics of supermassive black holes in its Black Hole Mapper program, and understand the self-regulation mechanisms and the chemical enrichment of galactic ecosystems at the energy injection scale in its Local Volume Mapper program. The survey is well timed to multiply the scientific output from major all-sky space missions. The SDSS-V MOS programs began robotic operations in 2021; IFS observations began in 2023 with the completion of the LVM-I facility. SDSS-V builds on decades of heritage of SDSS’s pioneering advances in data analysis, collaboration spirit, infrastructure, and product deliverables in astronomy.