Overview
- NASA, which confirmed the date on June 4, set the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope to lift off on Aug. 30, 2026, about eight months earlier than the previous May 2027 target.
- Engineers are finishing final inspections at Goddard and will pack and ship the observatory to Kennedy Space Center later in June for Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility checks, powered tests and launch rehearsals.
- Before launch the telescope will be fueled with roughly 1,100 liters of hydrazine, enclosed in a protective payload fairing and attached to a SpaceX Falcon Heavy for rollout to Launch Pad 39A.
- Roman is a wide-field infrared observatory built to survey dark energy, dark matter and exoplanets with a field of view about 100 times Hubble’s and a coronagraph that can block starlight to image planets and disks.
- After Falcon Heavy release Roman will travel to the Sun–Earth L2 point for a planned five-year science mission that will complement James Webb observations, but the timetable still depends on final prelaunch reviews and ground processing.