Oral title: NIRPS – An infrared HARPS for La Silla  

Oral abstract: The Near-InfraRed Planet Searcher (NIRPS) is a new ultra-stable near-infrared 
spectrograph that will be installed on ESO 3.6-m Telescope in La Silla. Aiming to achieve a 
precision of 1 m/s, NIRPS is designed to find rocky planets orbiting M dwarfs, to measure the mass 
of transiting planets orbiting cool stars and to characterize exoplanets atmosphere via transmission 
spectroscopy. To achieve its science goals, NIRPS is an adaptive optics assisted fiber-fed 
spectrograph operating in the Y-, J- and H-bands with continuous coverage from 0.97 to 1.8 μm with 
a spectral resolution of 100,000. It will ensure high radial velocity precision and high spectral fidelity. 
It will be operated simultaneously with HARPS and will complement the ESO state-of-art exoplanet 
finding facilities. The NIRPS consortium will be in charge to maintain and operate the instrument 
and to manage a GTO program corresponding to 40% of the 3.6-m Telescope time for five years. In 
order to be in phase with space missions such as TESS, CHEOPS, JWST and PLATO, NIRPS is 
being developed on a fast track with a first light scheduled for end 2019.