Introduction
As a successor to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) is being planned for a launch around the year 2007. The scientific case for a telescope with an aperture greater than 4m working principally in the spectral band between one and five microns was described in the "HST and Beyond" report available from our documents page. In addition to the active studies being carried out now in the USA, The European Space Agency is negotiating with NASA and soliciting its own technological studies in preparation for a joint HST/NGST agreement.
