NASA’s next big space telescope is almost at the pad.
NASA said its Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has passed a Flight Readiness Review ahead of its planned launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Mission leaders from NASA, the Roman Space Telescope team and SpaceX met Friday for the formal review, which examined the spacecraft, rocket, launch site and overall mission status to decide if preparations could move into their final phase.
Following the review, mission managers certified that Roman is ready to proceed with 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.
NASA described Falcon Heavy as one of SpaceX’s most powerful launch vehicles. It uses three connected rocket boosters to provide the thrust needed to carry large spacecraft into space.
In the next few days, teams will move the Roman observatory to SpaceX’s hangar at pad 39A. The telescope is already enclosed inside Falcon Heavy’s protective fairing, the shell that surrounds a spacecraft during launch and shields it from aerodynamic forces and the atmosphere.
Technicians will then connect the encapsulated observatory to the rocket. After that, Falcon Heavy and Roman will be transported to the launch pad for the final steps before liftoff.
Roman is NASA’s newest space telescope. NASA said it is designed to give astronomers a much broader view of the cosmos and help researchers investigate some of the biggest unanswered questions in astronomy.
Scientists will use Roman to study how the universe has evolved, examine what is causing its expansion and investigate planets orbiting stars beyond our solar system, known as exoplanets.
By surveying large regions of the sky, Roman is expected to give researchers a new way to study the history and structure of the universe while expanding understanding of distant planetary systems.
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