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NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has cleared a key milestone ahead of its planned launch, allowing teams to move into the final phase of preparations for the observatory’s journey into space.
Mission leaders from NASA, the Roman Space Telescope team and SpaceX met Friday at Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a Flight Readiness Review. The formal assessment examined the spacecraft, launch vehicle, launch site and overall mission status to determine whether preparations could proceed to the final stage.
Following the review, mission managers certified that Roman was ready for the remaining work before launch.
NASA and SpaceX are targeting liftoff no earlier than 7:26 a.m. EDT on Sunday, August 30. The telescope is scheduled to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center.
Falcon Heavy is among SpaceX’s most powerful launch vehicles. It uses three connected rocket boosters to generate the thrust required to carry large spacecraft into orbit.
In the coming days, teams will move the Roman observatory to SpaceX’s hangar at Launch Complex 39A. The telescope has already been enclosed inside Falcon Heavy’s protective fairing, which shields the spacecraft from aerodynamic forces and the atmosphere during launch.
Technicians will then connect the encapsulated observatory to the rocket. Once those preparations are complete, the Falcon Heavy and Roman will be transported to the launch pad for final pre-launch procedures.
Roman is NASA’s newest space telescope and is designed to provide astronomers with a much wider view of the universe.
Scientists will use the observatory to investigate how the universe has evolved, study the forces driving its expansion and search for planets orbiting stars beyond our solar system, known as exoplanets.
By surveying large areas of the sky, Roman is expected to offer researchers a powerful new tool for studying the history and structure of the universe while expanding knowledge of distant planetary systems.
