NASA is broadcasting the event live on August 30.
The Nancy Grace Roman telescope is heading to space in a few days. It’s set for launch on August 30, no earlier than 7:26AM Eastern time, with NASA’s live coverage to begin at 6:20AM. The agency’s engineers completed the final inspection of the telescope’s primary mirror in late May to make sure it hadn’t been damaged during testing. In early June, NASA announced that the telescope will launch earlier than the September schedule it had previously planned.
Nancy Grace Roman was NASA’s first Chief of Astronomy and was known as the “Mother of Hubble” for being instrumental in the observatory’s planning and development. This telescope named after her has a field of view at least 100 times larger than Hubble’s and will be able to observe a wider swath of the universe at any single time. It was designed to use different techniques to study dark energy and help us answer questions about the mysterious force. The telescope also has the capacity to block starlight in order to better see exoplanets, so it can provide more data for scientists to figure out what determines habitability and how common solar systems like ours are.
The infrared telescope is already encapsulated inside a SpaceX Falcon Heavy fairing at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It will fly on top of a Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A. If the launch doesn’t go through on August 30, NASA and SpaceX will try again on August 31 at 7:22 AM Eastern time. You can watch the rocket launch live on NASA’s website or on SpaceX’s X account. In addition to the launch itself, NASA will also broadcast a mission science briefing on August 29 at 9AM ET with the Roman telescope team, followed by a prelaunch news conference.