April 30, 2020 -  On April 22nd, the US Department of Energy (DOE) announced to the Rubin Operations team that DOE, in coordination with the National Science Foundation (NSF), will put out a Financial Opportunity Announcement (FOA) for the US Data Facility (USDF) for Rubin Operations. During operations, the USDF will operate and maintain the systems which are being developed during construction to produce and provide Rubin Observatory scientific data products to its community.

The FOA process would:

• Define a scope of activity to be responded to in exchange for funding of that activity by DOE
• Be open to all institutions: academic, government labs, universities, commercial interests
• Lead to an agreement (contract or cooperative agreement) between the winner and DOE
• Require the winner to be functionally directed by Rubin Observatory management even though the winner would be accountable directly to DOE

The FOA release date is not yet set, but will be communicated broadly when the FOA is ready.