Overview
- The telescope launched on Aug. 30 and its first mid-course correction on Aug. 31 used about 18 kg of propellant instead of the roughly 200 kg that had been budgeted, an execution NASA says was more than 99% accurate.
- NASA now estimates Roman carries enough propellant for at least 22 years of potential science based on the Aug. 31 savings and extra fuel loaded before launch, a figure the agency describes as a fuel-based horizon rather than a guaranteed mission length.
- Engineers have powered on the Wide Field Instrument and recorded initial test photons while the Coronagraph Instrument has completed early checks and begun a roughly 30-day decontamination and calibration phase.
- Teams expect a much smaller second mid-course correction, final insertion to a Sun–Earth L2 orbit in about 100 days, roughly 100 days of commissioning after arrival, and the first public science-quality images in early 2027.
- Actual mission length will depend on hardware health, consumables other than fuel, and funding, yet the extra propellant could let astronomers run longer wide-field infrared surveys, repeat observations over decades, and expand exoplanet coronagraph tests.