NASA launched the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, ESA reported. The rocket lifted off at 07:26 EDT on 30 August 2026.
Roman will survey the sky in visible to near-infrared light from an orbit around the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, located nearly 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. The position provides an unobstructed view of almost 12 percent of the sky. Like the Euclid and James Webb space telescopes, Roman will travel in a wide path around the L2 point that is larger than the Moon's orbit around Earth.
The spacecraft carries a 2.4-meter primary mirror and two instruments: the Wide Field Instrument and a Coronagraph Instrument technology demonstration. By studying the clustering of galaxies and tracking light from thousands of distant type Ia supernovas, Roman will map cosmic expansion and examine whether dark energy evolves over time. The observatory will also conduct an exoplanet census to discover cold and free-floating planets across the galaxy.
ESA contributed hardware to the NASA-led mission, providing star trackers, batteries, and detectors for the coronagraph instrument. The European agency will also support communications through its deep-space ground station network and handle data downloads using a new 35-meter antenna in New Norcia, Australia.
Engineers will spend the next three months conducting deployments, calibrations, and tests during the commissioning phase. Science operations will begin after commissioning ends, marked by the release of the mission's first science images. Roman is scheduled to scan the infrared sky for at least five years, with design support for an additional five years in orbit.
