NASA Sets Roman Space Telescope Launch for Aug. 30, 8 Months Early
Updated
Updated · Science@NASA · Jun 3
NASA Sets Roman Space Telescope Launch for Aug. 30, 8 Months Early
3 articles · Updated · Science@NASA · Jun 3
Summary
Aug. 30 is now the launch date for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, moving the mission eight months ahead of schedule with less than three months of final work remaining.
Engineers are packing Roman at Goddard for shipment to Kennedy Space Center, where it will be inspected, power-tested, rehearsed for launch and loaded with about 290 gallons of hydrazine.
The observatory will then be mounted on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy, enclosed in its fairing and rolled to Pad 39A for liftoff toward the Sun-Earth L2 point, about four times farther from Earth than the Moon.
Roman is designed to pair a wide field of view with sharp infrared imaging, supporting studies of dark energy, dark matter and exoplanets while opening broader surveys of the universe.