NASA's Roman Telescope Launches to Map Universe and Probe Dark Energy

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope lifted off Sunday aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center, beginning a journey to a vantage point one million miles from Earth where it will survey vast stretches of the cosmos. The $4.3 billion observatory, named for NASA’s first chief astronomer, carries a wide-field infrared camera whose field of view exceeds Hubble’s by more than 100 times, allowing it to catalog billions of galaxies, tens of thousands of planets and thousands of supernovae over a planned five-year mission. NASA officials expect the data to tighten constraints on dark energy and dark matter, which together are thought to comprise roughly 95 percent of the universe’s contents, while also testing whether current models of cosmic expansion hold. The telescope will reach its destination at the Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 2 after roughly three months and operate alongside the Hubble and James Webb observatories as well as the European Space Agency’s Euclid mission and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile. Project scientist Julie McEnery noted that one month of Roman observations could cover the Milky Way in the time Hubble would require a century; a coronagraph instrument will additionally attempt direct imaging of exoplanets by blocking starlight. All data will be released publicly, though the daily volume of 1.3 terabytes will require specialized processing pipelines. The launch occurred nine months ahead of schedule and within budget; the primary mirror, originally built as surplus for reconnaissance satellites, matches Hubble’s diameter of 2.4 meters.