NASA targets a September launch for its next big space telescope

Source: Engadget

Launch timeline

NASA is targeting an early September launch for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. This date represents the earliest possible launch window for the mission. The telescope is slated to fly aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket and is scheduled to be operational no later than May 2027.

Telescope overview

The Roman Space Telescope, named after NASA’s first chief astronomer and “mother” of Hubble, was first introduced in 2016 under the name Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST). Its primary mirror is roughly the same size as Hubble’s, but Roman’s field of view is about 100 times larger, allowing it to capture much larger sections of the sky in a single observation.

Instruments

After reaching a vantage point nearly 1 million miles from Earth, Roman will employ two key instruments:

• A 300.8‑megapixel camera that captures light from the visible to near‑infrared spectrum.
• A high‑contrast coronagraph designed to image exoplanets that would otherwise be hidden by the glare of their host stars.

Collaboration with other observatories

Roman will work in tandem with other NASA observatories, such as the James Webb Space Telescope and the Chandra X‑ray Observatory. While those telescopes excel at zooming in on rare, transient objects, Roman’s wide field of view will discover many new targets, potentially revealing entirely new classes of objects and events.

Mission goals

Roman’s mission is to address fundamental questions in three key areas:

• Dark energy – investigating the mysterious force that constitutes about 68 % of the universe’s total energy density.
• Exoplanets – using its coronagraph to directly image and study planets around other stars.
• Astrophysics – providing unprecedented wide‑field imaging that will produce dazzling pictures of the cosmos and enable a broad range of scientific investigations.