Key facts
- NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, costing $4.3 billion, launched Sunday from Kennedy Space Center.
- The telescope was launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.
- Roman's mission is to study dark energy and dark matter, and to provide a field of view 100 times wider than the Hubble Space Telescope.
- The observatory is named after Nancy Grace Roman, NASA's first chief astronomer.
- It uses a 7.9-foot-diameter telescope mirror originally built for a US government spy satellite.
- The telescope is expected to discover tens of thousands of new planets and billions of galaxies.
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, a $4.3 billion observatory, successfully launched Sunday from Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. The mission aims to expand our understanding of the universe, particularly focusing on dark energy and dark matter.
The Roman telescope boasts a field of view 100 times wider than the Hubble Space Telescope and is designed to complement the James Webb Space Telescope's work. It is the second NASA-led astrophysics mission launched this century, following Webb in 2021. Unlike Webb, Roman was delivered to the launch pad ahead of schedule.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman praised the mission as a success story for the agency, highlighting its timely and on-budget completion. He stated that Roman will provide a new atlas of the universe and push the boundaries of discovery.
The SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket lifted off at 7:25 am EDT from Launch Complex 39A. The observatory, weighing approximately 20,000 pounds fully fueled, was deployed on a trajectory to reach the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point, nearly a million miles from Earth. The launch director noted the flawless performance of the Falcon Heavy.
Roman will take about three months to reach its operational orbit, during which ground teams will activate and calibrate the observatory. Scientists expect the first science images to be ready by the end of the year.
The mission is named after Nancy Grace Roman, NASA's first chief astronomer and a key advocate for space-based telescopes, including Hubble. The observatory's primary mirror, measuring 7.9 feet in diameter, was originally built for a US government spy satellite and donated to NASA by the National Reconnaissance Office. Engineers spent nearly a decade adapting the mirror for Roman's specific optical needs and operating temperatures.
Nicky Fox, head of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, described Roman as a versatile telescope capable of surveying 12 percent of the sky, significantly more than Hubble. Roman is anticipated to discover tens of thousands of new planets, billions of galaxies, and tens of billions of stars, operating at a speed approximately 1,000 times faster than Hubble.
Cosmologists are particularly interested in Roman's potential to shed light on dark energy, believed to constitute about 70 percent of the universe and drive its accelerated expansion, and dark matter, which makes up over a quarter of the cosmos. The telescope's discoveries may also challenge the current Standard Model of the Universe.