The Full-Sky Astrometric Mapping Explorer – Distances and Photometry of 40 Million Stars

The Full-sky Astrometric Mapping Explorer (FAME) is designed to perform an all-sky, astrometric survey with unprecedented accuracy. It will create a rigid astrometric catalog of 4 × 10 7 stars with 5 < m V < 15. For bright stars, 5 < m V < 9, FAME will determine positions and parallaxes accurate to < 50 μ as, with proper motion errors < 50 μ as/yr. For fainter stars, 9 < m V < 15, FAME will determine positions and parallaxes accurate to < 500 μ as, with proper motion errors < 500 μ as/yr. It will also collect photometric data on these 4 × 10 7 stars in four Sloan Digital Sky Survey colors. NASA selected FAME to be one of five MIDEX missions funded for a concept study. In October 1999, NASA selected FAME for launch in 2004 as the MIDEX-4 mission in its Explorer program.