The Local Volume Mapper (LVM) is an optical integral field spectroscopic survey that will study the Milky Way, the Magellanic Clouds (Large and Small), and other galaxies in the Local Volume. LVM will use newly built telescopes and spectrographs covering a wavelength range between 3600 and 10000 Å, with a spectral resolution of approximately R\~4000 (based on the design of the DESI spectrograph). This new instrument will collect approximately 20 million continuous spectra across 2,500 square degrees of the sky, including the mid-plane of the Milky Way, Orion, and the Magellanic Clouds, observed from Las Campanas Observatory in Chile, as part of SDSS-V. If funding permits, the survey also plans to include observations of the Milky Way’s northern hemisphere, as well as M31 and M33.
