Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope
Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope — NASA's next flagship observatory, a wide-field infrared survey telescope. From a halo orbit at the Sun–Earth L2 point, ~1.5 million km from Earth, it will map dark energy and dark matter, hunt exoplanets by gravitational microlensing, and demonstrate a starlight-blocking coronagraph. Its Wide Field Instrument sees Hubble-sharp detail across a patch of sky about 100 times larger than Hubble's.
Key facts
Mission & specifications
Mission
- Operator
- NASA
- Launched
- August 30, 2026
- Status
- Planned
Trajectory
- Distance from the Sun
- 1.01 AU
- Distance from Earth
- 487,037 km
- Distance from Venus
- 0.645 AU
Mission
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is NASA's next great observatory, named for the astronomer who championed Hubble and became NASA's first Chief of Astronomy — the 'Mother of Hubble'. Once known as WFIRST, it is built around a 2.4-metre mirror the same size as Hubble's, donated to NASA by the National Reconnaissance Office. Its power is not sharpness but sweep: the Wide Field Instrument, a 300-megapixel near-infrared camera, captures Hubble-quality detail across a field of view about a hundred times larger, so it can survey the sky at a pace no telescope before it could match. Roman has three big jobs. It will measure how dark energy is stretching the universe by charting the shapes and distances of billions of galaxies. It will complete the census of exoplanets by watching the crowded galactic bulge for the tiny brightenings of gravitational microlensing — including free-floating worlds drifting between the stars. And it carries a Coronagraph Instrument that blots out a star's glare to image faint planets directly, a technology demonstration for the observatories that will one day search other worlds for signs of life. Roman is scheduled to launch on 30 August 2026 aboard a Falcon Heavy and, like JWST, will work from a halo orbit at the Sun–Earth L2 point, 1.5 million kilometres from Earth, on a five-year primary survey run from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
- 2020WFIRST renamed for Nancy Grace RomanMilestone
NASA renames the mission for the astronomer who helped make Hubble a reality and became the agency's first Chief of Astronomy.
- 2026Planned launch on a Falcon HeavyLaunch
Scheduled to lift off from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center and set out for the Sun–Earth L2 point.
- 2026Planned arrival at L2Arrival
Expected to reach its halo orbit ~1.5 million km from Earth about a month after launch, then begin months of commissioning.
- 2027Planned start of the surveysMilestone
After checkout, Roman is expected to open its wide-field surveys of dark energy, exoplanets and the infrared sky — a five-year primary mission.
Images
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