How do I get started as a new Fermi user?

Start at the New Fermi Users section of the Fermi Portal (fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov), which the site describes as "a starting point for first-time Fermi users." From there, the practical path is to learn the data products, install the Fermitools analysis software, and work through the available analysis resources. If you can plan ahead, the Fermi Summer School is the most structured training opportunity mentioned on the portal.

First stop: the New Fermi Users page

The portal's homepage groups its main entry points into a few audience-based links. For someone new, the relevant one is New Fermi Users, labeled "A starting point for first-time Fermi users." Two related links are worth knowing about at the same time:

• Science Community — "Access data, tools, and resources for scientific research with Fermi."
• About Fermi — background on the mission, useful for context before you dive into analysis.

The portal also links to Fermi Research Highlights for "discoveries and latest breakthroughs," which is a reasonable way to see what kinds of science the data support before committing to a specific analysis.

Typical first steps

A workable order for a new user:

1. Understand the data products. Fermi's main instrument for most beginner analyses is the Large Area Telescope (LAT). Before downloading anything, get familiar with what the different data levels and file types represent, since analysis choices depend on them.
2. Install the Fermitools. This is the standard software package for Fermi data analysis. The portal's announcements show it is actively maintained — for example, Fermitools 2.5.3 was released on July 31, 2026, with user-reported bug fixes, a move from Python 3.11 to 3.12, and a replacement of the Xerces-C XML parsing interface with the header-only rapidXML interface. That release also fixed a critical bug affecting the accurate generation of radial gaussian and radial disk source maps, and patched a performance issue in Fermipy analyses present in version 2.5.2.
3. Run a tutorial analysis. Once the tools are installed, work through an end-to-end example rather than starting from your own science target. This is where you learn the input files, the configuration, and what a successful output looks like.
4. Check data quality before high-precision work. The portal's June 5, 2026 announcement describes a data quality flag issue in the LAT spacecraft position and history files: after the March 2026 migration to a new SLAC computing cluster, flags set during data quality monitoring were not propagated into the spacecraft files, so intervals of poor timing resolution were not correctly flagged with DATA_QUAL=2. Eight periods across March 17, 20, and 29 and April 5, 8, 16, 20, and 26 should have been flagged. The issue is resolved and correctly flagged data are available from the FSSC, but if your analysis needs high time resolution — pulsar studies, for instance — re-download the spacecraft files and reanalyze.

Tools and analysis resources for beginners

Note that the portal's announcements reference release notes for Fermitools updates — check those when you install, since backend changes (Python version, XML parsing interface) can affect existing scripts.

Training opportunities

The portal lists the Fermi Summer School as running May 26 to June 5, 2026, with a link from the Events section. For a new user, this is the most direct route to structured instruction, and it is worth planning around if the timing works for you.

A note on data availability

LAT data processing was fully restored after the Level 1 pipeline migration to the S3DF facility at SLAC, and the backlog collected during the processing pause has been cleared. According to the March 27, 2026 announcement, all LAT data and products are up to date on the public server — so a new user starting now is not working around a data gap.