NASA’s Roman Space Telescope Launches on SpaceX Falcon Heavy to Map 2 Billion Galaxies

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launched Sunday morning aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center. The observatory features a field of view 100x larger than Hubble's, utilizing the same 2.4-meter primary mirror design. During its 5-year prime mission, the telescope is projected to map over 2B galaxies and discover roughly 100k exoplanets. The spacecraft arrived at the launch pad roughly nine months ahead of the agency's previous schedule. The hardware will undergo a 100-day commissioning period to align optics and travel to the L2 Lagrange point before science operations begin. “Roman is poised to conduct revolutionary surveys that will impact every area of astronomy.” — Julie McEnery