  To meet the scientific goals of the Thirty Meter Telescope Project, full
diffraction-limited performance is required from the outset and hence the
entire observatory is being designed, as a system, to achieve this. The
preliminary design phases of the telescope and the first light adaptive optic
facility are now approaching completion so that much better predictions of the
system performance are possible. The telescope design and instrumentation are
summarized in this presentation, with a brief description of some of the
scientific programs that are foreseen.
