Progress and plans of the United States Extremely Large Telescope Program (US-ELTP)

The United States Extremely Large Telescope Program (US-ELTP) is a joint initiative of the organizations building the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) and the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) and the NSF National Optical and Infrared Astronomy Lab, NOIRLab. The US-ELTP will provide the US astronomical community with open access to observing and archival science with the GMT and TMT via a user services platform supporting the entire lifecycle of scientific inquiry. In this contribution, we summarize the status of the development and design of the program’s components, highlighting key advances and remaining technical challenges, and describing the next steps in bringing this initiative to fruition.