NASA has completed the assembly of its next-generation space telescope, Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The observatory will be launched by a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket in summer 2026 and is expected to launch as early as fall 2026. Roman will observe the universe from space, making it sensitive to infrared light from far across the cosmos.
The telescope is equipped with two instruments: the Wide Field Instrument and the Coronagraph Instrument technology demonstration. The coronagraph aims to photograph worlds around other stars, while the wide field instrument will unveil the cosmos all the way from our solar system to near the edge of the observable universe.
Roman’s first five years are expected to reveal over 100,000 distant worlds, hundreds of millions of stars, and billions of galaxies. The telescope will gather data hundreds of times faster than NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, adding up to 20,000 terabytes over its primary mission.
The Roman Space Telescope is a key step towards understanding the universe, particularly the acceleration of the universe’s expansion. It will conduct three core surveys: High-Latitude Wide-Area Survey, High-Latitude Time-Domain Survey, and Galactic Bulge Time-Domain Survey, to study dark matter, galaxies, and celestial objects.
The telescope’s data will be publicly available with no exclusive use period, allowing multiple scientists to use the data at the same time. Roman’s namesake, Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, paved the way for telescopes based in space to make cosmic vistas accessible to all.
Roman is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and is part of a collaborative effort with various research institutions and industrial partners.
Source: https://www.nasa.gov/missions/roman-space-telescope/nasa-completes-nancy-grace-roman-space-telescope-construction