NASA's Roman Telescope launches Sunday

NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket this Sunday. The launch is set for 7:26 a.m. ET from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The $4.3 billion program, in development since 2016, will send the 18,000-pound observatory to the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point (L2). It will orbit one million miles from Earth, sharing its orbital neighborhood with the James Webb Space Telescope. Deployment of the telescope is scheduled for 31 minutes after liftoff.

Mission Profile and Specifications

After launch, the spacecraft will deploy its solar panels and sunshade. Over the following days, it will deploy its antenna and aperture cover. NASA expects to release the telescope's first images by early 2027.

When fully deployed, the observatory will be over 42 feet long and over 14 feet wide. It is designed for a primary mission lifetime of five years, with the potential for an additional five-year extended mission.

Scientific Instruments and Capabilities

The Roman telescope carries two main instruments. Its Wide Field Instrument (WFI) is an infrared camera with a field of view 100 times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope's. NASA said this wide view will allow the mission to capture a broad view of cosmic ecosystems and pinpoint rare objects.

The agency stated that such a large field of view will "offer practically limitless opportunities for astronomers to conduct a broad range of additional science." This includes studies of the outer solar system, exploding stars, growing black holes, and billions of galaxies.

The telescope's second sensor is the Coronagraph. NASA described it as a system of optics, masks, self-flexing mirrors, and sensors. The agency said it will demonstrate the most advanced technologies ever flown in space for directly imaging planets around other stars.

Industry Contributors

Several major aerospace firms contributed key components to the observatory. BAE Systems designed and developed the Wide Field Instrument's Opto-Mechanical Assembly.

L3Harris refinished the telescope's primary mirror, which was originally constructed for another mission. The company also built hardware to accommodate both the WFI and the Coronagraph instrument.

Teledyne Scientific & Imaging supplied 18 infrared sensor chip assemblies. According to the source, these form the largest infrared focal plane ever built for space or ground-based astronomy.

The mission is named for Nancy Grace Roman, NASA's first chief of astronomy. Its scientific goals include providing observations of dark matter and dark energy, in addition to exoplanet research.