NASA's Roman Space Telescope Lifts Off to Probe Cosmic Mysteries

NASA's newest space observatory, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, lifted off Sunday from Kennedy Space Center aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. The $4.3 billion mission is set to survey the cosmos with unprecedented speed and breadth, targeting dark energy, exoplanets, and billions of galaxies.

The bus-sized telescope is heading to a gravitationally stable point about 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Earth, the same region occupied by the James Webb Space Telescope. Roman will take more than three months to reach its destination.

Named after Nancy Grace Roman, NASA's first chief astronomer, the telescope carries a wide-field infrared camera that is 1,000 times faster than Hubble's and a field of view more than 100 times wider. This design allows Roman to scan vast swaths of sky quickly, spotting supernovae, planets, and galaxies in numbers far beyond previous missions.

"It's going to find thousands of supernovae, tens of thousands of planets, billions of galaxies and tens of billions of stars," said Nicky Fox, NASA's science mission director. Senior project scientist Julie McEnery added that Roman's broad reach will help astronomers find "the weird, the rare and the unusual."

A key goal is to study dark matter and dark energy, which together make up most of the universe but remain invisible. By cataloging galaxies, Roman will help scientists measure how fast the universe is expanding under these mysterious forces.

Roman also carries a coronagraph to block starlight, allowing direct imaging of faint planets orbiting other stars. Once Roman identifies candidate worlds, the more sensitive Webb telescope can follow up for detailed study.

Roman's primary mirror is nearly 8 feet (2.4 meters) in diameter, the same size as Hubble's, and was originally built for a spy satellite. The National Reconnaissance Office donated two such mirrors to NASA over a decade ago; the second remains in storage.

The telescope is designed to be refueled, which could extend its mission if a robotic tanker becomes available. Roman launched nearly a year ahead of schedule and within budget, and is NASA's first space telescope named after a woman.

Retired NASA scientist Ed Weiler, who coined the nickname "Mother of Hubble" for Roman, said the honor is fitting. "I think Nancy would be very proud," he said, noting the telescope will tackle big questions like dark energy.

Roman will join Hubble, Webb, the European Space Agency's Euclid, and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile to collectively reveal some of the universe's deepest secrets.