When the Coordinate Metrology Society (CMS) gathers for the 42nd annual conference this July in Dallas, one of the most anticipated talks won’t be about machining tolerances or inspection gauges but the cosmos itself. Sandrine J. Thomas, associate director for Summit Operations at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, is delivering a keynote that connects the meticulous art of measurement on Earth with the vast scale of the universe beyond.

Thomas leads the team responsible for acquiring all data for the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), an audacious decade-long astronomical project that maps the entire southern sky every few nights using the largest digital camera ever built. At 3.2 gigapixels, the LSST camera can detect objects 100 million times fainter than what the human eye can see—a cosmic extension of the precision disciplines CMS has championed for decades.

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