NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Telescope Is About to Start Its Cosmic Survey

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is ready for its trip to Florida so that it can get launched into space. NASA

After nearly a decade in development, NASA’s next big telescope is almost ready to travel into space. The agency has set Sunday as the launch date for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. This places the project approximately eight months ahead of its original schedule and, according to NASA leadership, significantly under budget.

NASA is getting some assistance from SpaceX for this launch. The telescope is being taken into space by a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, where it’ll separate and head to its final location while the SpaceX rocket returns to Earth.

With the launch just a few days away, the telescope should be pretty close to ready to go. That includes detailed inspections to verify it sustained no damage during transit. Engineers also loaded 290 gallons of hydrazine to fuel the telescope and conducted several dress rehearsals in preparation for the launch.

The destination for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point, located about 1 million miles from Earth on the far side of the sun. The region is a gravitational sweet spot that allows spacecraft to maintain a relatively stable position while orbiting the sun alongside Earth.

With its wider field of view, the Roman telescope promises to see quite a lot of the universe. NASA

How to watch the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope launch

The launch is set to take off from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday at 7:26 a.m. ET/4:26 a.m. PT. NASA is livestreaming the event, with coverage beginning at 6:20 a.m. ET, and it’ll include a post-launch news conference starting at 9:30 a.m. ET with a media Q&A session.

NASA is streaming it across all its social platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitch, YouTube and X. The agency says the launch is also watchable on NASA Plus, Amazon Prime and Discovery Plus. Netflix isn’t mentioned on NASA’s list, but it won’t hurt to check the day of the launch to see if it’s streaming there as well.

It’s quite an early launch for a Sunday, so if you’re a late sleeper or a churchgoer, you may have to wait until later to watch it back.

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