The Astropy Project: Sustaining and Growing a Community-oriented Open-source Project and the Latest Major Release (v5.0) of the Core Package

TL;DR

The paper details the recent major release of Astropy v5.0, highlighting its features, ecosystem support, and future challenges in maintaining a community-driven open-source Python project for astronomy.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of the latest Astropy core package release and discusses strategies for sustaining and expanding the community-oriented project.

Findings

Major updates in Astropy v5.0 core package

Enhanced interoperability with astronomical observatories

Discussion of future challenges and community growth

Abstract

The Astropy Project supports and fosters the development of open-source and openly-developed Python packages that provide commonly needed functionality to the astronomical community. A key element of the Astropy Project is the core package $\texttt{astropy}$, which serves as the foundation for more specialized projects and packages. In this article, we summarize key features in the core package as of the recent major release, version 5.0, and provide major updates for the Project. We then discuss supporting a broader ecosystem of interoperable packages, including connections with several astronomical observatories and missions. We also revisit the future outlook of the Astropy Project and the current status of Learn Astropy. We conclude by raising and discussing the current and future challenges facing the Project.