NASA’s Roman Space Telescope Enters Final Commissioning Phase (News Release)
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope mission has now entered the science commissioning phase, having successfully completed a comprehensive checkout and refinement of the observatory and primary instrument performance.
“We’ve established that the observatory is fully functional,” said Julie McEnery, Roman’s senior project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “The telescope can guide and take exposures, data flows appropriately, and we can slew from one place to another for observations. So now we’re drilling into the fine details of the quality of the images we’re collecting.”
Thus far, the commissioning process is going smoothly, and the observatory has already undergone several challenging activities. For example, scientists thought Roman might have difficulty observing places that are chock full of stars, or nebulae that are shrouded by dense dust.
“The way Roman locks onto a target is by holding steady on individual stars found in the direction it needs to point,” said Tom Barclay, Roman operations project scientist at NASA Goddard. “We had a concern that in regions where stars are either packed extremely close together or embedded in thick dust, the fine guidance system might get confused or have trouble staying tethered to those stars. But test observations of such regions have shown that Roman performs wonderfully in all cases.”
Roman’s observing requirements are extraordinarily stringent. Multiple factors can influence the consistency of a telescope’s images. If some images were blurrier or brighter than others, it would be difficult to determine whether cosmic objects were truly changing or just appeared to differ because of effects intrinsic to the telescope.
“To achieve the groundbreaking science we expect from Roman, we need to have a crystal clear window into space, not one marred by pointing jitter or out-of-focus images,” said Josh Schlieder, Roman’s Wide Field Instrument scientist at NASA Goddard. “Any imperfections that affect image quality must be minimized because even very small flaws could mask the small signals we are aiming to measure.”
Now, the team is performing a series of carefully-planned test observations that will allow them to characterize observatory performance, calibrate how the instruments respond to light, and refine the telescope’s image quality before transitioning to science operations. The mission’s initial test observations have gone so well that the team is beginning to experience Roman’s superpower: speed.
“During commissioning, we are taking several test observations of famous parts of the sky,” said Jeremy Perkins, an astrophysicist serving as Roman’s observatory integration and test scientist at NASA Goddard. “I am marveling at the level of detail Roman provides in very short time periods.”
Fast survey speeds translate to enormous cosmic vistas, each packed with planets, stars and galaxies galore. Large mosaics that used to be reserved for special occasions will soon become routine, and rare sightings will become customary.
“In a typical observation with Roman’s Wide Field Instrument, we’ll see objects that are a hundred million times fainter than the human eye can detect,” Schlieder said. “So just imagine what strange and unexpected things might be buried in all that data.”
Fine-tuning Roman’s image detail during science commissioning will help scientists more fully understand what to expect. Since some of the observatory’s systems are performing even better than required, it could open up new scientific capabilities, adding even more to the data deluge that the mission will return.
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!”
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.
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.
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.”
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.
NASA Roman’s Planet Imager Has Powered On (News Release - September 1)
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team has successfully activated the mission’s Coronagraph Instrument, which will block starlight to view planets and dusty disks around nearby stars. Now the instrument will undergo a months-long series of calibrations and tests prior to beginning full science operations.
The coronagraph power-on began at 7:27 a.m. EDT and was completed at 8:22 a.m. on September 1.
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.
Using the coronagraph, scientists will photograph worlds and dusty disks in visible light to help us see giant planets that are older, colder, and in closer orbits than the hot, young super-Jupiters direct imaging has mainly revealed so far. The Roman coronagraph team will conduct a series of pre-planned observations for a total of three months spread across the mission’s first year-and-a-half of operations.
In addition to direct imaging, Roman will also find planets via the microlensing and transit methods. Read more about the wide array of worlds that Roman will study here.
To learn more about Roman’s commissioning process, visit:
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab
NASA Roman Space Telescope’s Antenna, ‘Visor’ Deployed (News Release)
Roman’s antenna and visor-like sunshade have successfully deployed.
Roman will downlink the highest data volume of any NASA astrophysics mission so far via its high-gain antenna, which measures 5.6 feet wide yet only weighs 24 pounds. It’s made of a carbon composite material that weighs very little but will still withstand the spacecraft’s wide temperature fluctuations. Its large size will help Roman send radio signals across a million miles of intervening space to Earth.
At one frequency, the dual-band antenna will receive commands and send back information about the spacecraft’s health and location. It will use another frequency to transmit a deluge of data at up to 500 megabits per second to ground stations in New Mexico, Australia and Japan. These locations are spread out so the Roman team will consistently be able to communicate with the spacecraft.
The antenna deployment lasted about 4 minutes and concluded at 2:03 p.m. EDT on August 31.
The deployable aperture cover, which is a large sunshade designed to keep unwanted light out of the telescope, was released next. It deployed via three booms that were triggered electronically to spring upward. It lasted about 8 minutes and was successfully completed at 6:05 a.m. EDT on September 1.
Roman’s next major milestone is the Coronagraph Instrument activation. In a couple of weeks, the Wide Field Instrument will power on. Both instruments will run through a series of calibrations and tests throughout the rest of Roman’s three-month commissioning period.
NASA anticipates releasing Roman’s first images by early 2027.
To learn more about Roman’s commissioning process, visit:
NASA’s Roman Completes First Mid-Course Correction Burn (News Release)
At 12:02 p.m. EDT, Roman began an approximately 3-minute mid-course correction burn to adjust its trajectory toward its final orbit.
It’s the first of two planned orbit adjustments to keep Roman on course for the second Lagrange point, L2. The other, if needed, is planned for later this week, and Roman’s orbital insertion will take place approximately 100 days post-launch. Once in orbit around L2, Roman will only require periodic station-keeping burns roughly every 28 days.
Trace Roman’s path here, and follow along with the blog for further updates.
To learn more about Roman’s commissioning process, visit:
NASA’s Dark Universe-Seeking Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Launches (News Release)
Now on a three-month, million-mile journey to its final orbit, NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will soon reveal the Universe’s darkest secrets. The mission launched at 7:26 a.m. EDT on Sunday, aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Roman pairs a large field of view with crisp infrared vision to explore vast swaths of the sky and probe deeply into cosmic history. This flagship mission will help astronomers explore dark matter, dark energy, and worlds outside of our Solar System, known as exoplanets. Its surveys will support a broad range of research extending far beyond the mission’s main science goals.
“Roman is exactly the kind of success story we want to see across NASA,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. “Delivered ahead of schedule and on budget, this mission reflects more than a decade of dedication from the NASA workforce and our industry partners. Now, Roman will give us a new atlas of the Universe, push the boundaries of discovery, and demonstrate what is possible when America’s space program pairs bold ambition with disciplined execution.”
The ground control team at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, began receiving telemetry data from Roman seven minutes after launch. The Falcon Heavy rocket performed as expected, separating from the observatory 31 minutes into the flight. After separating from the center core, the rocket’s boosters safely returned to the launch site for refurbishment.
“Roman will be a discovery machine that will bring us closer than ever before to answering humanity’s most profound questions about our cosmic history,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “With its large field of view and fast survey speeds, Roman will usher us into a new era of discovery and make the invisible visible, setting the foundation for humanity’s search for life beyond our Solar System.”
During launch and early orbit, Roman uses the Near Space Network’s ground stations and relay satellites to exchange tracking, telemetry and command data with ground controllers. About 70 minutes after launch, the Deep Space Network takes over communications and guides Roman towards the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, or L2, about one million miles from Earth. Roman connects to that network through the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex in Australia first.
Approximately six hours later the data relay will transfer to the Madrid Deep Space Communication Complex in Spain and then to the Goldstone Deep Space Communication Complex in California, ensuring continuous contact with Roman throughout its journey.
The Roman team also confirmed successful deployment of the observatory’s solar panels and lower instrument sun shade an hour and 23 minutes after launch. Within the upcoming days, Roman’s high-gain antenna and visor-like deployable aperture cover will deploy, ground controllers will initiate the first of two-mid-course corrections, and the Coronagraph Instrument will power on. This instrument will demonstrate the technology that future missions like NASA’s Habitable Worlds Observatory concept could use to image Earth-like planets in the search for life in the Universe.
Roman’s Coronagraph will take a giant step in that direction by snapping pictures of Jupiter-like planets.
A few weeks into Roman’s voyage, its primary instrument, the Wide Field Instrument, will activate. This 300-megapixel infrared camera has 18 4K detectors, each about the size of a saltine cracker. These detectors collect photons of light that will be decoded into crisp cosmic panoramas.
Thanks to the observatory’s rigid design and stable optical performance, it will rapidly scan the sky without needing substantial time between separate observations. The Roman telescope is designed to survey the Universe a thousand times faster than NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
Throughout the rest of Roman’s three-month commissioning period, scientists will run the instruments through a series of calibrations and tests. NASA anticipates releasing Roman’s first images by early 2027.
Roman will send back 1.4 terabytes of data every day, the highest data rate of any NASA astrophysics mission, so far. Machine learning, artificial intelligence, and citizen scientists will help sift through it and flag significant findings, which astronomers can then study.
“We’ve never been able to view the Universe with eyes like Roman’s before,” said Julie McEnery, Roman’s senior project scientist at NASA Goddard. “There’s no telling what more we’ll know and have seen by this time next year.”
Roman is the fourth primary mission that NASA has launched on a Falcon Heavy rocket. Earlier this year, the agency’s Launch Services Program worked with SpaceX to accelerate the launch date to accommodate the space telescope’s early completion.
The telescope is managed at NASA Goddard with participation by the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California; Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, California; the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore; and a team of scientists from various research institutions. The primary industrial partners are BAE Systems Inc., L3Harris Technologies, and Teledyne Scientific & Imaging. Contributions to Roman are also made by ESA, JAXA, the French space agency CNES (Centre National d’Études Spatiales), and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany.
Roman Space Telescope Transport from PHSF to LC-39A (Photo Release - August 25)
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, encapsulated in its payload fairing, travels from the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility to the SpaceX hangar at Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday, August 25, 2026, ahead of mating to a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.
Roman’s science instruments are designed to help researchers understand dark energy, the mysterious force accelerating the Universe’s expansion. The observatory will also map how galaxies form, cluster and evolve by tracing the influence of dark matter.
Liftoff from NASA Kennedy is targeted for no earlier than Sunday, August 30, 2026.
Roman Space Telescope Encapsulation (Photo Release - August 21)
Teams inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida encapsulate the agency’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope within the payload fairing on Friday, August 21, 2026, ahead of mating to a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.
Encapsulation shields the spacecraft during rollout, ascent, and the early phases of flight.
Roman will investigate dark energy and dark matter, conduct a statistical census of planetary systems, and enable a broad range of additional astrophysics research.
Liftoff from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy is targeted for no earlier than Sunday, August 30, 2026.
Launch Dress Rehearsal Complete Ahead of NASA Roman Space Telescope Liftoff (News Release)
The team preparing to launch NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope completed a mission dress rehearsal on Thursday from Florida’s space coast.
During the exercise, Roman teams ran through a full end-to-end simulation of launch-day operations leading up to liftoff. They practiced powering up the spacecraft, simulated fueling operations for the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, conducted mock weather briefings, and practiced troubleshooting a variety of scenarios.
This rehearsal is a standard part of preparation and contributes to mission success, especially since NASA missions often involve unique requirements specific to a given spacecraft. During the simulation, the team was on console at NASA and SpaceX facilities at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and SpaceX facilities at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center, where they tested and demonstrated proficiency on everything from communications to mission systems.
Completing the rehearsal brings the team one step closer to sending Roman on its mission to address essential questions about dark energy, planets outside our Solar System, and infrared astrophysics. By conducting wide-field surveys, the telescope will explore the Universe’s structure, evolution and composition.
NASA and SpaceX are targeting launch no earlier than 7:26 a.m. EDT on Sunday, August 30, from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy.
NASA’s Roman Telescope to Carry 1.35 Million Names to Deep Space (News Release)
On July 27, technicians at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida installed a memory card containing 1,350,144 names as part of a commemorative plaque on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The names were submitted by people globally, including astronauts from Artemis II and Artemis III. The memory card will travel with the Roman observatory to the Sun-Earth Lagrange point 2, or L2, about one million miles from Earth, where the Sun’s and Earth’s gravity balance out.
Roman is named after Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer and one of the architects of the agency’s modern science program. Roman championed space-based observatories that could study the Universe from above Earth’s hazy atmosphere while making their data broadly available to the scientific community.
NASA and SpaceX are targeting launch for no earlier than 7:26 a.m. EDT on Sunday, August 30 aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy.
NASA Fuels Roman Space Telescope for Late August Launch (News Release)
Technicians completed fueling NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, bringing it an important step closer to launch. On July 25, the team completed operations that carefully loaded 290 gallons of hydrazine fuel into the observatory at the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
After launch and separation from the rocket, Roman will use this onboard propellant to perform maneuvers as it travels to Sun-Earth Lagrange point 2, or L2, located about one million miles from Earth. There, about four times the distance to the Moon, it will have an ideal home for astronomy.
Roman will use its propellant to power two types of thrusters that help it stay in its planned orbit around L2 and ensure the solar array panels face the Sun, which is the observatory’s main source of power throughout the mission. Roman has a five-year primary mission, and potentially enough fuel to support an additional five years for an extended mission. The Roman team recently cleaned and checked out the six solar array panels to prepare them for launch.
Researchers are eager to study thousands of exoplanets that Roman will discover, to learn how closely they resemble Earth. They will also use Roman to study the mystery of dark energy and why it’s causing the Universe to expand faster over time.
Now that fueling is complete, technicians will soon attach Roman to a device that secures to the rocket’s top stage. After that, Roman will be encapsulated within the rocket’s protective shell, known as a payload fairing. The payload fairing protects the spacecraft from aerodynamic forces and heat during ascent.
Launching nine months ahead of schedule, NASA and SpaceX are targeting liftoff for no earlier than 7:26 a.m. EDT on Sunday, August 30, aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy.
Roman Space Telescope SD Card Abrading and Bonding (Photo Release)
A technician inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida installs a memory card containing a total of 1,350,144 names as part of a commemorative plaque on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Friday, July 17, 2026.
The names, submitted by people from across the globe, including astronauts from NASA’s Artemis II and Artemis III missions, will travel with the Roman observatory to the Sun-Earth Lagrange point 2, or L2, about one million miles from Earth, where the Sun’s and Earth’s gravity balance out.
Roman is named after Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer and one of the architects of the agency’s modern science program.
NASA’s Next-Generation Telescope Arrives in Florida Ahead of Launch (News Release)
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope arrived at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 21, marking the start of final prelaunch preparations before liftoff later this summer.
After teams completed integration and testing on the observatory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, they loaded Roman into a protective and environmentally-controlled transportation container and drove it to the port of Baltimore. There, the agency’s Pegasus barge safely transported the nearly 18,000-pound (8,200-kilogram) spacecraft down the coast of the Atlantic Ocean to its new home in Florida at the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility, which recently completed upgrades to prepare for Roman’s arrival.
Technicians met the telescope at NASA Kennedy’s turn basin wharf and offloaded the trailer carrying the observatory from the barge, where they connected it to a truck that transported Roman to the servicing facility.
When the spacecraft arrives at the facility, technicians will complete initial cleaning outside the building before moving the shipping container into the facility’s airlock. Once in the airlock, they will perform additional cleaning to reduce any remaining contaminants from the trip. The facility’s air filtration system will also scrub the air until the team can safely open the inner door.
Once inside the facility, technicians will unbox the spacecraft, raise it to a vertical position in the airlock, and move it into the clean room.
On Monday, June 22, technicians plan to remove the cover from the transport container and move Roman into the high bay. Later, technicians will use large cranes to move Roman to its work platform - called the Pantheon. During the observatory’s time at the processing facility, technicians will perform several tasks, including testing the six solar panels and inspecting Roman’s insulation and thermal blankets to ensure that the observatory is fully protected and flight ready.
Specially-trained team members will load about 290 gallons of hydrazine fuel into the spacecraft’s tanks.
NASA is targeting launch no earlier than Sunday, August 30, on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy. This puts Roman eight months ahead of schedule.
After launch, Roman will travel to the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, or L2. There, it will make observations that give astronomers the chance to study an incredible number of new objects. Roman’s wide field of view and rapid survey capabilities will reveal billions of galaxies, hundreds of thousands of new exoplanets, hundreds of blackholes, and will provide vast volumes of daily data for astronomers to study.
The observatory will also map how common different kinds of planets are in our galaxy and help answer big questions about the Universe, like what’s causing its rapid expansion and what distant worlds and cosmic objects look like in infrared light. In addition to its main instrument, which features a 300-megapixel camera, Roman will demonstrate technology designed to block starlight to directly image exoplanets and planet-forming disks.
Alongside Roman, the Pegasus barge also carried a weather cover for the Artemis III SLS(Space Launch System) core stage. The cover will protect the stage thermal systems while it sits at Launch Complex 39B in its short stack configuration. Because schedules aligned, the barge was able to transport NASA’s next flagship astrophysics mission together with the Artemis hardware, maximizing resources to support missions across the agency during the Golden Age of innovation and exploration.
She's nearly home! NASA's brand new Nancy Grace Roman Telescope has officially been delivered to Kennedy Space Center to complete final fueling and integration in preparation for launch on Falcon Heavy later this year. pic.twitter.com/ZqLWQ9GtWd
Hello, World! NASA Shares New Home for Roman Space Telescope Updates (News Release - June 3)
We’re kicking off the inaugural Roman blog post with a launch update: NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is officially slated to launch on August 30, eight months ahead of schedule and even earlier than previously targeted.
With less than three months to go, the Roman team is now finishing up final tasks. Engineers are currently packing Roman up for a voyage from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, down to the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida later this month.
Once at Kennedy, Roman will move into the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility, where it will undergo a thorough inspection to verify that all of the observatory’s components traveled well. In the weeks leading up to launch, engineers will perform powered testing and launch rehearsals, load about 290 gallons (roughly 1,100 liters) of hydrazine fuel into the tanks, and install the observatory on the adapter for the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket that will propel it to its destination in space: the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, or L2, which is about four times farther away than the Moon is from Earth.
Next, Roman will be encapsulated in a protective fairing, or nose cone, which will shield the telescope during liftoff and its journey through the atmosphere. Roman will then move to a hangar for integration with the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket before rolling out to Launch Complex 39A at NASA Kennedy.
All this work will culminate in Roman delivering never-before seen views of the Universe. The observatory will pair a large field of view with crisp infrared vision to survey deep, vast swaths of sky. While the mission was designed with dark energy, dark matter, and planets outside our Solar System in mind, Roman’s unprecedented observational capability will offer practically limitless opportunities for astronomers to explore a broad range of cosmic phenomena.
NASA Targets Early September for Roman Space Telescope Launch (News Release)
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team is now targeting as soon as early September 2026 for launch, ahead of the agency’s commitment to flight no later than May 2027.
“Roman’s accelerated development is a true success story of what we can achieve when public investment, institutional expertise, and private enterprise come together to take on the near-impossible missions that change the world,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, who announced the update at a news conference on April 21 at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Roman will pair a large field of view with crisp infrared vision to survey deep, vast swaths of sky. While the mission was designed with dark energy, dark matter, and exoplanets in mind, Roman’s unprecedented observational capability will offer practically limitless opportunities for astronomers to explore all kinds of cosmic topics.
By the end of its five-year primary mission, Roman is expected to amass a 20,000-terabyte data archive. Scientists can draw on it to identify and study 100,000 exoplanets, hundreds of millions of galaxies, billions of stars, and rare objects and phenomena — including some that astronomers have never witnessed before.
Roman will launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA and SpaceX will share more information about a specific launch date, and the agency will continue to share updates concerning prelaunch preparations as new information becomes available.
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is managed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, with participation by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech/IPAC in Southern California, the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, and scientists from various research institutions.
NASA Completes Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Construction (News Release)
NASA’s next big eye on the cosmos is now fully assembled. On November 25, technicians joined the inner and outer portions of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope in the largest clean room at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
“Completing the Roman observatory brings us to a defining moment for the agency,” said NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya. “Transformative science depends on disciplined engineering, and this team has delivered—piece by piece, test by test—an observatory that will expand our understanding of the Universe. As Roman moves into its final stage of testing following integration, we are focused on executing with precision and preparing for a successful launch on behalf of the global scientific community.”
After final testing, Roman will move to the launch site at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for launch preparations in summer 2026. Roman is slated to launch by May 2027, but the team is on track for launch as early as fall 2026. A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket will send the observatory to its final destination a million miles from Earth.
“With Roman’s construction complete, we are poised at the brink of unfathomable scientific discovery,” said Julie McEnery, Roman’s senior project scientist at NASA Goddard. “In the mission’s first five years, it’s expected to unveil more than 100,000 distant worlds, hundreds of millions of stars, and billions of galaxies. We stand to learn a tremendous amount of new information about the Universe very rapidly after Roman launches.”
Observing from space will make Roman very sensitive to infrared light — light with a longer wavelength than our eyes can see — from far across the cosmos. Pairing its crisp infrared vision with a sweeping view of space will allow astronomers to explore myriad cosmic topics, from dark matter and dark energy to distant worlds and solitary black holes, and conduct research that would take hundreds of years using other telescopes.
“Within our lifetimes, a great mystery has arisen about the cosmos: why the expansion of the Universe seems to be accelerating. There is something fundamental about space and time we don’t yet understand, and Roman was built to discover what it is,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in Washington. “With Roman now standing as a complete observatory, which keeps the mission on track for a potentially early launch, we are a major step closer to understanding the Universe as never before. I couldn’t be prouder of the teams that have gotten us to this point.”
Double vision
Roman is equipped with two instruments: the Wide Field Instrument and Coronagraph Instrument technology demonstration.
The coronagraph will demonstrate new technologies for directly imaging planets around other stars. It will block the glare from distant stars and make it easier for scientists to see the faint light from planets in orbit around them. The Coronagraph aims to photograph worlds and dusty disks around nearby stars in visible light to help us see giant worlds that are older, colder, and in closer orbits than the hot, young super-Jupiters direct imaging has mainly revealed so far.
“The question of ‘Are we alone?’ is a big one, and it’s an equally big task to build tools that can help us answer it,” said Feng Zhao, the Roman Coronagraph Instrument manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “The Roman Coronagraph is going to bring us one step closer to that goal. It’s incredible that we have the opportunity to test this hardware in space on such a powerful observatory as Roman.”
The coronagraph team will conduct a series of pre-planned observations for three months spread across the mission’s first year-and-a-half of operations, after which the mission may conduct additional observations based on scientific community input.
The Wide Field Instrument is a 288-megapixel camera that will unveil the cosmos all the way from our Solar System to near the edge of the observable Universe. Using this instrument, each Roman image will capture a patch of the sky bigger than the apparent size of a full moon. The mission will gather data hundreds of times faster than NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, adding up to 20,000 terabytes (20 petabytes) over the course of its five-year primary mission.
“The sheer volume of the data Roman will return is mind-boggling and key to a host of exciting investigations,” said Dominic Benford, Roman’s program scientist at NASA Headquarters.
Survey trifecta
Using the Wide Field Instrument, Roman will conduct three core surveys which will account for 75% of the primary mission. The High-Latitude Wide-Area Survey will combine the powers of imaging and spectroscopy to unveil more than a billion galaxies strewn across a wide swath of space and time. Astronomers will trace the evolution of the Universe to probe dark matter — invisible matter detectable only by how its gravity affects things we can see — and trace the formation of galaxies and galaxy clusters over time.
The High-Latitude Time-Domain Survey will probe our dynamic Universe by observing the same region of the cosmos repeatedly. Stitching these observations together to create movies will allow scientists to study how celestial objects and phenomena change over time periods of days to years. That will help astronomers study dark energy — the mysterious cosmic pressure thought to accelerate the Universe’s expansion — and could even uncover entirely new phenomena that we don’t yet know to look for.
Roman’s Galactic Bulge Time-Domain Survey will look inward to provide one of the deepest views ever of the heart of our Milky Way galaxy. Astronomers will watch hundreds of millions of stars in search of microlensing signals — gravitational boosts of a background star’s light caused by the gravity of an intervening object. While astronomers have mainly discovered star-hugging worlds, Roman’s microlensing observations can find planets in the habitable zone of their star and farther out, including worlds like every planet in our Solar System except Mercury.
Microlensing will also reveal rogue planets—worlds that roam the galaxy untethered to a star — and isolated black holes. The same dataset will reveal 100,000 worlds that transit, or pass in front of, their host stars.
The remaining 25% of Roman’s five-year primary mission will be dedicated to other observations that will be determined with input from the broader scientific community. The first such program, called the Galactic Plane Survey, has already been selected.
Because Roman’s observations will enable such a wide range of science, the mission will have a General Investigator Program designed to support astronomers to reveal scientific discoveries using Roman data. As part of NASA’s commitment to Gold Standard Science, NASA will make all of Roman’s data publicly available with no exclusive use period. This ensures that multiple scientists and teams can use data at the same time, which is important since every Roman observation will address a wealth of science cases.
Roman’s namesake — Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer — made it her personal mission to make cosmic vistas readily accessible to all by paving the way for telescopes based in space.
“The mission will acquire enormous quantities of astronomical imagery that will permit scientists to make groundbreaking discoveries for decades to come, honoring Dr. Roman’s legacy in promoting scientific tools for the broader community,” said Jackie Townsend, Roman’s deputy project manager at NASA Goddard. “I like to think Dr. Roman would be extremely proud of her namesake telescope and thrilled to see what mysteries it will uncover in the coming years.”
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is managed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, with participation by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California; Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, California; the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore; and a science team comprising scientists from various research institutions. The primary industrial partners are BAE Systems Inc. in Boulder, Colorado; L3Harris Technologies in Rochester, New York; and Teledyne Scientific & Imaging in Thousand Oaks, California.
