The Roman Space Telescope is set to launch no earlier than 7:26 am EDT (4:56 pm IST) on August 30 aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
What is the Roman Space Telescope?
Named after Dr Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer and often called the ‘mother of the Hubble Space Telescope,’ the observatory is designed to study the universe with an exceptionally wide field of view.
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According to NASA, the telescope will have a field of view at least 100 times larger than Hubble’s could measure light from up to a billion galaxies during its lifetime.
“This observatory will also be able to block starlight to directly see exoplanets and planet-forming disks, complete a statistical census of planetary systems in our galaxy, and settle essential questions in the areas of dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics,” said NASA.
A telescope carrying more than 1.35 million names
The mission will also carry a special tribute into deep space. NASA recently installed a memory card containing 1,350,144 names submitted by people from around the world, including astronauts from the Artemis II and Artemis III missions.
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The memory card has been placed inside a commemorative plaque attached to the telescope and will travel with the observatory to the Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 2 (L2), about one million miles from Earth, where “the Sun’s and Earth’s gravity balance out.”
Managed by NASA Goddard
The Roman Space Telescope project is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, while NASA’s Launch Services Program at Kennedy is responsible for launch vehicle programme management of the SpaceX launch service.
