The Latest Update on America's Newest Space Telescope...

NASA

NASA Checks Roman Guidance System, Takes First Coronagraph Observation (News Release)

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s fine-guidance system, which allows the observatory to lock very steadily onto its targets during observations, passed a spate of tests from September 15 to 21. Then on September 22, the mission’s Coronagraph Instrument opened its eyes to cosmic light for the very first time.

The team assigned a small part of each of the 18 detectors in Roman’s primary instrument, the Wide Field Instrument, to rapidly observe a separate guide star — stars with well-known positions used as reference points. When Roman’s attitude control system gets the spacecraft pointed in the right direction, information from the fine-guidance system then helps hold it steady throughout each observation so that it doesn’t drift off target. Using only the attitude control system, Roman’s images wouldn’t be as crisp.

“Every Roman observation relies on its ability to stay precisely pointed at the correct region of space long enough to collect an image, which can take from minutes to hours for a deep exposure,” said Begoña Vila, Roman’s guiding instrument systems lead at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “The fine-guidance system reports the positions of the guide stars about four times each second to the attitude control system, which can move the observatory a tiny amount to counter any drift as needed. Our tests confirmed that we are able to keep the observatory very stable for science operations: better than 1/100,000 of a degree for half an hour at a time for Wide Field Instrument observations or for eight hours at a time for Coronagraph Instrument observations, which take much longer. This was a very exciting moment for the team.”

Roman’s current stability is roughly equivalent to focusing a laser beam on a U.S. dime from about 150 miles (about 240 kilometers) away. The team aims to improve this even further by tuning the guidance system, boosting the distance in the analogy to about 230 miles (370 kilometers).

Roman also has a new type of guiding that hasn’t been attempted before.

“Roman doesn’t have a separate guider instrument, like other space telescopes do,” Vila said. “Instead of tracking only a star’s point-like appearance, it will guide on detailed wavelength patterns called spectra. Because Roman is already equipped to measure spectra for science, it can use that same information to precisely position the telescope. We are looking forward to validating this spectral guiding mode in the coming weeks.”

Coronagraph captures first glimmer

Next, on September 22 and 27, the team tested out the fine-guidance system with the Coronagraph Instrument, which will demonstrate cutting-edge technology to block starlight and view planets and dusty disks around nearby stars.

“Roman’s coronagraph also has its own internal stability process, making it much more stable even than the Wide Field Instrument,” Vila said. That’s critical because even tiny vibrations or pointing errors could let starlight leak through, washing out the faint planets that scientists are trying to see.

The coronagraph woke up on September 1 and stretched its digital, electronic and mechanical “limbs” mid-month. Once the team confirmed that the fine-guidance system was holding the Coronagraph Instrument steady, scientists adjusted the focus so it could take its first bleary-eyed look at space that will help scientists fine-tune the instrument’s view.

“This observation confirms that the instrument can produce a focused image,” said Vanessa Bailey, a Roman Coronagraph Instrument scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “It’s a very limited test that kicks off a methodical process of increasingly complex tasks that help us prepare for the instrument’s future observations.”

For this step, the Coronagraph Instrument captured a faint star in a neighboring galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud, with “noise” seeping through because the detectors have been kept at a warmer temperature than they will ultimately operate. That helps to ensure contamination does not stick to the detectors.

“We were kicking the tires, making sure light goes through the system,” Bailey said. “The second step, on Sunday, was an observation that confirmed our pointing. The team cooled the detectors down for better sensitivity, and we observed a new location in the Large Magellanic Cloud where we expected to see many stars in a single image. And we did! We’re breathing a sigh of relief!”

Source: NASA.Gov

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Caltech / IPAC – SELab / Isabel Swafford

Photos of the Day: Meeting Harry, the Novelty Shop Guy in OBSESSION...

"Yea yea yea, you made a shitty wish and now you wanna reverse it. But you can't come in here with this energy, man!"

So a week ago today, I met Darin Toonder...who played Harry, the laid-back novelty shop clerk who gave Bear (Michael Johnston) grief for coming into the store—Spoiler Ahead—completely wrecked by the death of Sarah (Megan Lawless) at the hands of Nikki (Inde Navarrette) in Obsession. He's a really cool guy in person!

Toonder's photo op and autograph signing took place at the Goth Mall event inside The Cathedral in downtown Pomona, which is only around 2 miles from where I live. Imagine how stoked I would be if Navarrette, Lawless, Johnston, Cooper Tomlinson (who played Ian) and/or writer-director Curry Barker made an appearance in my neck of the woods as well! Happy Saturday.

The Latest Status on America's Newest Great Observatory...

NASA

NASA’s Roman Team Confirms Ground Stations Receiving Data (News Release)

NASA has now confirmed that all ground stations supporting the agency’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope are ready to receive the mission’s high volume of data once science operations begin by early 2027.

Observing the far reaches of the cosmos wouldn’t be possible without a network of ground stations strategically located around the world serving as a tether between Earth and space. Ground stations from NASA’s Near Space Network in New Mexico, ESA (European Space Agency) in Australia, and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) in Japan will receive the science data at extremely high data rates, up to 500 megabits per second.

Recent testing ensured that these stations will be able to receive approximately 1.4 terabytes of data that Roman will downlink each day, the highest rate of any NASA astrophysics mission so far, from Roman’s location a million miles away in space.

To confirm this capacity, scientists began drawing down “housekeeping” information.

“This is real, operational data starting with details about how the instruments are doing, things like temperature, power draw, and preliminary image data,” said Bob Kalogerakos, a radio frequency engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The Roman team started with JAXA’s Misasa Deep Space Station in Saku City on September 7. Engineers tested out the station’s antenna and confirmed that it can receive data at rates up to 500 megabits per second throughout most of the year. The rate will vary with Roman’s distance from and elevation relative to Earth as it orbits the Lagrange point 2, or L2.

“This was our first time downlinking data at Roman’s maximum rate,” said Matthew Wasiak, an advanced systems engineer at NASA Goddard. “There was also a typhoon in Japan during the test and conditions were not perfect, which makes this a particularly rigorous test.”

Adverse weather can create a major obstacle for drawing down space telescope data because raindrops are not much smaller than the radio wavelengths Roman is using to send its data. That means they can scatter or weaken the signals.

“Because of this, we have a diversity of ground stations, from the subtropical island of JAXA’s ground station in Japan to the arid Western Australian desert to summer monsoon-prone New Mexico,” Kalogerakos said. “When weather and rain do interfere with our signal, our automated ground systems will determine what data didn’t downlink properly and ask the spacecraft to re-transmit from its onboard solid-state recorder in a few hours.”

After the Misasa Deep Space Station passed the team’s tests, their focus shifted to the Near Space Network ground station and its backup in White Sands, New Mexico, from September 8 to 11. Both antennas successfully downlinked data at the rates the team tested.

Finally, the team tested the ESA station, located near New Norcia in Western Australia, on September 17. Again, engineers cycled through different rates, and the ground system successfully downlinked even the highest.

“These ground stations are Roman’s primary conduit to get our data down to Earth, and the team is thrilled with their exceptional performance,” said Jeremy Perkins, Roman’s observatory integration and test scientist at NASA Goddard. “It’s great news for a mission that will send back data at an incredible pace.”

Bringing Roman’s data to the ground is an international effort. NASA’s Near Space Network ground station in New Mexico receives Roman’s science data in partnership with antennas from ESA in Australia and JAXA in Japan. Managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, the agency’s Deep Space Network stations in California, Spain, and Australia provide critical tracking data, observatory telemetry, and command.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA

A New Space-based Observatory Is on the Horizon...

NASA

NASA Selects Far-Infrared Telescope as First in New Mission Class (News Release)

NASA announced on Wednesday that a mission to explore the history and evolution of the Universe, PRIMA (PRobe far-Infrared Mission for Astrophysics), is advancing to the next phase of development. This space telescope is the first in a new class of NASA astrophysics missions, called Probe Explorers, within the agency’s longstanding Explorers Program.

“The PRIMA mission is humanity’s next window into the deep Universe. It will unveil the obscure across cosmic time to better understand the formation of planets, stars, black holes, and even how water on Earth came to be,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in Washington.

NASA selected PRIMA to move into Phase B, the stage of development that advances the preliminary design and technology development for the mission. The mission is subject to a confirmation review, based on technical, programmatic, and cost performance, to determine its readiness to begin implementation in Phase C. If confirmed, PRIMA’s project cost is capped at $1.2 billion, not including launch and other non-project costs.

The observatory will be targeted to launch in 2033, for a planned five-year mission.

With a 5.9-foot telescope, PRIMA will conduct deep, sensitive surveys of the Universe in far-infrared light, helping bridge the gap between existing infrared observatories, such as NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, and radio telescopes. By studying radiant energy that only emerges in the far-infrared, PRIMA will address a wide range of questions about the Universe. This includes the origins of planets outside our Solar System, how galaxies and their black holes have grown and evolved over cosmic history, and how dust and heavy elements have built up in the Universe over time – all helping paint a better picture of why the Universe looks the way it does today.

“A single mission alone can’t probe all the Universe’s mysteries. But by extending the survey capabilities of our fleet into far-infrared wavelengths with PRIMA, we’re enabling an incredibly comprehensive look at the cosmos,” said Shawn Domagal-Goldman, director, Astrophysics Division, NASA Headquarters. “With our Webb and Roman space telescopes, we set a cadence of launching premiere-class missions in both halves of the decade. We’re going to keep that up and kick off the next decade with PRIMA, as part of a pipeline that will consistently have missions of this caliber ready to go.”

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s 2020 Decadal Survey, Pathways to Discovery in Astronomy and Astrophysics for the 2020s, recommended that NASA establish this new Probe Explorers mission class. NASA selected PRIMA for development after detailed evaluation of concept studies for Probe Explorer missions, based on their scientific merit in alignment with the Decadal Survey’s recommendations, feasibility of their development plans on cost and schedule, and use of technologies that could support the development of future large missions.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California will manage the PRIMA mission. Other partners include NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The PRIMA mission will also have contributions from international partners: CNES (Centre National D’Etudes Spatiales), ASI (Agenzia Spaziale Italiana), DLR (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt), CSA (Canadian Space Agency), KASI (Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute)/KASA (Korea AeroSpace Administration), JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), and the UK Space Agency.

The Explorers Program is the oldest continuous NASA program designed to provide frequent, low-cost access to space using principal investigator-led space science investigations relevant to the Science Mission Directorate’s astrophysics and heliophysics programs. Since the Explorer 1 launch in 1958, which discovered Earth’s radiation belts, the Explorers Program has launched more than 100 missions, including the Uhuru and Cosmic Background Explorer missions that led to Nobel prizes for their investigators.

The Explorers Program is managed by NASA Goddard for the Science Mission Directorate, which conducts a wide variety of research and scientific exploration programs for Earth studies, space weather, the Solar System, and the Universe.

Source: NASA.Gov

Whose House? A Great Monday Night Victory at the Rams House!

Welcome back, Aaron Donald!

The Super Bowl-winning defensive end came out of a 2-year retirement to help his former team, the Los Angeles Rams, emerge victorious against the New York Giants with a 28-6 win at Inglewood's SoFi Stadium tonight. The Rams are 1-1 in the new NFL season after a 27-7 loss to the San Francisco 49ers in Melbourne, Australia, on September 10.

Next up: The Denver Broncos...who are 1-1 as well, but will have home field advantage against the Rams on September 27. Here's hoping that Matthew Stafford, Aaron Donald, Davante Adams, Kyren Williams, Blake Corum, Trent McDuffie and Co. will carry today's momentum to that Sunday matchup in Empower Field at Mile High.

Going to baseball, the Dodgers' final game of the 2026 MLB regular season—against the San Francisco Giants—will be on September 27 as well. I have no respect for team owner Mark Walter, but I'm rooting for the National League West division champions to win the Fall Classic again. Carry on.

Photos of the Day: Freaky Nikki's Final Outfit...

Richard T. Par

A week ago today, I went to Universal Citywalk in North Hollywood to check out the final attire worn by Nikki Freeman (Inde Navarrette) in the climax of Obsession.

The black dress was displayed next to costumes worn by Demi Moore in 2024's Oscar-nominated horror film The Substance, and Thomasin McKenzie in 2021's horror flick Last Night in Soho, respectively.

The costumes were on display in a separate room to the left of the main lobby at CityWalk's Universal Cinema AMC theater, so I had to buy a movie ticket in order to view the three outfits up-close. So which film did I buy a ticket for, you ask? The romantic comedy Finding Emily...which I already saw at a local Harkins theater on September 2.

No, I didn't stay to watch Finding Emily again. But yes, I enjoyed that rom-com (even though its ending was unsurprisingly predictable) very much.


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Status Update #2 on America's Newest Great Observatory...

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Tyler Desjardins (STScI)

NASA Activates Roman’s Primary Instrument, Checks Out Coronagraph (News Release)

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team has successfully activated the Wide Field Instrument, a 300-megapixel infrared camera that will allow scientists to explore wide swaths of the cosmos very quickly without sacrificing exquisite detail.

Roman’s planet imager — the Coronagraph Instrument — also stretched its digital, electronic and mechanical “limbs” as part of an initial test after waking up earlier this month.

These steps are part of a months-long series of calibrations and tests, as Roman continues its million-mile journey to its destination at the second Lagrange point, L2.

Sky-scanner comes online

Each image taken by the Wide Field Instrument, or WFI, will capture a patch of the sky bigger than the apparent size of a full moon with all the sharpness of space telescopes like NASA’s Hubble. Its sweeping cosmic surveys will help scientists discover new information about planets beyond our Solar System, untangle mysteries like dark energy, and map how matter is structured and distributed throughout the cosmos. The mission’s broad, crisp view will also produce an exciting new resource for a wide range of additional scientific studies.

“After years of effort to build and test the instrument on the ground, we now have confirmation that it is operational in space. This is a huge milestone for the team at Goddard, our industry teams at BAE Systems, Inc. and Teledyne, and our science centers,” said Josh Schlieder, the Wide Field Instrument scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “There is much to do, but we are on our way to groundbreaking science.”

Before the team could activate the WFI, they had to let it rest for 10 days to dry out and decontaminate the detectors at a relatively warm (compared to their final operating temperature) -85° Fahrenheit, or -65° Celsius. On the morning of September 11, they turned off the instrument heater and let the WFI cool down to -225° Fahrenheit (-143° Celsius), at which point they could activate Roman’s 18 infrared detectors, which combined have a sensing area about the size of a laptop screen.

Later that night, the team activated the calibration system, which they used the next morning to start sending test data through the instrument and down to engineers on the ground. On Saturday evening, the focus shifted to the element wheel — a system of filters, prisms and other optics used to tune the wavelengths of light that reach the detectors and spread light from cosmic objects into individual colors — as engineers tested it in the absence of gravity for the very first time.

Finally, on Sunday morning, the team made sure that the WFI’s focus mechanism functioned properly — an important step since it will be used to focus the hundreds of thousands of images the instrument will take. While these activities were happening, the detectors continued to cool to their final temperature of about -300° Fahrenheit (-183° Celsius).

All of these assessments confirmed that the instrument is working as expected. The mission remains on track to release Roman’s first science images by early 2027.

Coronagraph in tip-top shape

The Roman Coronagraph is a system of optics, masks, self-flexing mirrors, and sensors designed to demonstrate the most advanced technologies ever flown in space for directly imaging planets around other stars. It will block the glare from stars and make it possible for scientists to see the faint reflected light from planets in orbit around them.

Scientists and engineers at the Coronagraph Commanding Center at Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, California, confirmed that they can communicate with all of the instrument’s components: software, thermal control, mechanisms, cameras and the avionics which drive all of these. Essentially, operators on the ground ensured they could remotely flip all of the switches that allow them to control the instrument, like the movable mechanisms that hold all of its masks, color filters, lenses and prisms.

The test also involved confirming that the thermal control is performing as expected, warming the hardware to operating temperatures — a balmy 72° Fahrenheit (22° Celsius). Aside from the detectors, the coronagraph is designed to work at near-room temperature to make it easier to test and to match the material properties of the deformable mirrors.

“Now that this test is complete, we’ve been decontaminating: sitting idle with our detectors warm so anything that’s stuck to the surface, such as water or trace chemicals, will tend to leave it,” said Eric Cady, an optical engineer leading commissioning efforts for the Roman Coronagraph at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “This will continue for 30 days, with occasional stops to do other early calibration activities.”

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA / Chris Gunn

The Latest Status Update on America's Newest Great Observatory...

NASA

Fuel Savings Double Potential Lifetime for NASA’s Roman Mission (News Release)

The results are in: NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s very accurate first mid-course correction, along with other fuel savings, are expected to more than double the mission’s potential operational lifetime.

“As a result of exquisite planning by our orbital dynamics team, brilliant execution by the operations team, and a precise launch from SpaceX, Roman has fuel for at least 22 years of potential science operations,” said Jamie Dunn, center director at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The added life comes from the first mid-course correction’s accuracy, extra fuel added prior to launch, and anticipated results from Roman’s upcoming second mid-course correction and orbital insertion.

Original projected mission lifetime: 10 years

Roman was designed for a five-year primary mission, plus a five-year extended mission — a 10-year fuel budget in total. Because fuel is the observatory’s primary consumable resource, any fuel savings could enable additional years of observations beyond the 10-year design life.

First burn results: +4 years

The Roman team executed its first burn on August 31 to adjust the observatory’s trajectory towards its final orbit and has since been analyzing its effects on the mission. In addition to being executed with more than 99% accuracy, the maneuver required less than 10% of the fuel that the team had budgeted for: about 40 pounds (18 kilograms), down from the allocation of 441 pounds (200 kilograms).

Bonus fuel at launch: +4 years

Extra fuel loaded at launch could enable roughly four more years on top of that. This launch surplus exists because Roman launched lighter than planned: The team had budgeted fuel using a conservative maximum weight of 21,605 pounds (9,800 kilograms), well above the observatory’s actual weight of 17,760 pounds (8,056 kilograms). The lighter spacecraft needed less fuel for the mid-course correction, and its lower weight also left room to fill the propellant tanks beyond what the 10-year mission alone required.

“A spacecraft’s mass changes throughout the design and build process, so we base the propellant budget on a set maximum value so we won’t come up short,” said Alison Rao, the Roman propulsion lead at NASA Goddard. “We track the propellant needed based on actual mass throughout integration and testing as well, to make sure we have wiggle room. Since Roman’s was lower than we budgeted for, we were able to fill the propellant tanks to their capacity rather than only filling them as much as we needed to for the 10-year requirement.”

Upcoming burn, orbital insertion: +4 years expected

Thanks to the first mid-course correction’s success, the second burn is expected to be very small and save even more fuel. The team can also wait longer to conduct this follow-up burn, now planned for later this month. It will give the observatory the last bit of energy required to achieve its targeted position prior to maneuvering into its final orbit at L2, approximately 100 days after launch, or about early December.

According to current projections, both maneuvers will use less fuel than planned, potentially saving even more for future science.

Once in orbit around L2, Roman will only require periodic station-keeping burns roughly every 28 days.

Source: NASA.Gov

Artwork of the Day: Optimus Prime in the Heat of Battle...

Richard T. Par

To honor the late and great Peter Cullen—the voice of Optimus Prime, Winnie the Pooh's Eeyore, and the vocal effect behind The Predator—here's a drawing of Optimus that I completed a week ago today.

It was actually a challenge to illustrate the Generation 1 (G1) version of Optimus Prime...as I wanted to make sure that I got all of his iconic features and color scheme right. I ended up looking at different artwork and photos of toys to add as much detail to Prime as possible without negating his G1 appearance. Imagine if I tried drawing the live-action version of the Autobot leader from the Michael Bay movies!

Speaking of Bay's Transformers, here's a clip of that memorable scene where Sam (Shia LaBeouf) and Mikaela (Megan Fox) meet Optimus Prime and his fellow Autobots for the first time in one of the highest grossing films of 2007. Happy Sunday!

A Quarter Century Later, We Have Not Forgotten...

It has now been 25 years since 2,977 innocent people were killed by 19 terrorists on one of the darkest days in America's history. We continue to honor them...even as the United States faces new kinds of challenges and threats, most of them homegrown, to our 250-year-old democracy today.

The World Trade Centers fell... The Pentagon was damaged... 40 souls (not including the four cowardly hijackers on that flight) were lost in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. But heroes emerged at all three sites of tragedy on that fateful day in 2001.

Never Forget.

If you were young in 2001, or weren’t even born yet, it can be hard to imagine what 9/11 felt like. The shock of that beautiful, cloudless morning. The heartbreak of the families whose loved ones were taken with such swiftness and cruelty. The realization that the forces of…

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) September 11, 2026

Twenty-five years ago today, we lost 2,977 souls and in the years since, thousands more to illnesses caused by the attack on our country.

This morning, Jill and I hold close the families who carry that loss every day. We honor the heroes of September 11th: the firefighters and… https://t.co/r7NJSS5kJb

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 11, 2026

25 years have passed since September 11, 2001. A generation has grown up in the years since, but our responsibility to remember has not changed.

We remember the people who went to work that morning and never came home, and we remember the families who have carried their memories… pic.twitter.com/mINuTlwQk2

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) September 11, 2026

25 years ago, terrorists killed nearly 3,000 people, including 2,753 New Yorkers.

As we remember that terrible day, let us also remember the first responders, office workers and strangers who ran toward danger to help each other. Let us remember the extraordinary compassion,… pic.twitter.com/AO4RFEOZA2

— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) September 11, 2026