Overview
- NASA unveiled the more than $4 billion Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope at Goddard in Maryland.
- The observatory now moves to Florida for prelaunch processing ahead of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch no earlier than September 2026.
- Once deployed about 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, Roman will take wide-field infrared images covering roughly 100 times Hubble's view.
- The mission is designed to downlink about 11 terabytes of data each day, outpacing Hubble's total in its first year.
- Survey science will map billions of galaxies and thousands of supernovae while using microlensing to spot tens of thousands of exoplanets.