SIRTF Studies of Galaxy Formation and Evolution

The Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) is a cornerstone of NASA's Origins program, and will complete NASA's family of Great Observatories when it is launched in December 2001. SIRTF will provide imaging with point source sensitivities ranging from a few microjanskies at 3.6 microns to several millijanskies at 160 microns, land spectroscopy of sources brighter than a millijansky over the 5 to 40 micron range. Over 75% of observing time during SIRTF's expected 5 year lifetime will be available to general investigators from the international community, with the first call for proposals in July 2000. I review SIRTF's capabilities and plans for the study of galaxy formation and evolution. This work was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.