Overview
- The Flight Readiness Review on Friday, Aug. 21, formally cleared the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope to begin final launch processing at Kennedy Space Center.
- Technicians have completed key prelaunch work including cleaning and inspecting the six‑panel Solar Array Sun Shield, loading 290 gallons of hydrazine on July 25, and encapsulating the observatory inside Falcon Heavy fairings.
- Roman will be transported to SpaceX’s Horizontal Integration Facility at LC‑39A for attachment to the Falcon Heavy, then rolled to the pad for a targeted liftoff at 7:26 a.m. EDT on Sunday, Aug. 30.
- The 290 gallons of hydrazine are expected to support Roman’s five‑year primary science mission and offer the potential for a multi‑year extension depending on fuel use and spacecraft health.
- After launch Roman will travel to the Sun–Earth Lagrange point 2, deploy its Solar Array Sun Shield to generate about 4,100 watts, undergo roughly 100 days of commissioning, and then begin wide‑field surveys of dark energy, dark matter and exoplanets that will produce large daily data volumes for ground archives.