NASA is preparing to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Sunday, Aug. 30, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Packed aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, the powerful observatory aims to map billions of galaxies and tackle mysteries surrounding dark matter and dark energy.
Liftoff is targeted for 7:26 a.m. EDT, weather permitting, marking the beginning of a major new chapter in space-based astronomy. For Lucas Paganini, program executive for the Roman mission, the launch marks the culmination of years of work and the beginning of a new era for astronomy. This is the best tool we have ever developed to study the universe,
Paganini said.
Unprecedented Scale and Survey Capabilities
Unlike a backyard telescope, Roman is designed to survey enormous areas of space while capturing detailed images. NASA says Roman will have a field of view at least 100 times larger than Hubble’s. Paganini compared the scale of its primary camera to 32 4K televisions displaying a single image.
The telescope is expected to generate about 1.4 terabytes of data every day. With this continuous stream, Roman will map billions of galaxies and stars and could discover thousands of planets beyond our solar system. It will also help scientists study dark matter, dark energy and how galaxies form and evolve.
Investigating Dark Matter and Cosmic Composition
One of the biggest questions Roman will tackle is what the universe is actually made of. Ordinary matter, everything we can see, including stars, planets and people — makes up only a small portion of the universe. The rest is dominated by mysterious dark matter and dark energy.
We actually don't quite know what the universe is made of,
Paganini said. Roman’s observations could provide new clues and potentially challenge what scientists currently believe about the cosmos.
The telescope is named for Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer and a pioneer in space-based astronomy. Paganini said Roman understood that some of astronomy’s biggest questions could only be answered by putting telescopes above Earth’s atmosphere. She was a trailblazer,
he said. Her work helped pave the way for space telescopes including Hubble.
Collaborative Fleet Operations in Orbit
Roman joins an international cohort of teamworking telescopes. Roman will work in tandem with many other NASA-led and international missions to provide the most complete view of our universe yet. Roman’s large panoramas will uncover interesting targets that Hubble could follow up on using infrared, visible, and ultraviolet light to offer a more comprehensive view.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope can then use its larger mirror and more powerful vision to deliver even more detailed, ultra-sharp observations. And Roman can view regions around objects Hubble or Webb observe to offer context.
Euclid, an ESA (European Space Agency) mission with key contributions from NASA, will observe a larger area of the sky than Roman, though with less detail. Since their survey areas will overlap, scientists can use Roman’s higher-quality data to apply corrections to Euclid’s, then extend these refinements over Euclid’s much larger area. Scientists can also pair Roman’s infrared data with visible-light observations from the ground-based Vera C. Rubin Observatory, a National Science Foundation–Department of Energy collaboration. That will allow astronomers to inch closer to achieving Roman-like quality over Rubin’s much greater sky coverage. By showcasing technology to directly photograph Jupiter-like exoplanets, Roman will also provide a crucial stepping stone for NASA’s Habitable Worlds Observatory concept, a flagship space telescope that would be designed to photograph Earth-like planets in other solar systems for the first time ever.
Commissioning Schedule and Public Data Access
The first images won’t come immediately after launch. Roman will undergo a commissioning period of about three months as engineers make sure its instruments and optics are working as expected.
Once science operations begin, the data will eventually be publicly available. You don't have to be with NASA in order to take a look at the data, analyze it,
Paganini said. That means students and researchers in North Carolina and around the world will be able to take part in the discoveries. After years of preparation, the search for answers to some of humanity’s biggest questions is about to begin. Go Roman, go NASA,
Paganini said.
