Take a Spin With NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope

On schedule to launch no later than May 2027, NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope mission will help uncover some of the biggest mysteries in the cosmos. The state-of-the-art telescope on the Roman spacecraft will play a significant role in this, providing the largest picture of the universe ever seen with the same depth and precision as the Hubble Space Telescope. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has successfully passed its critical design review, signaling that all design and developmental engineering work is now complete. The Roman Space Telescope is a high-precision survey mission that will advance our understanding of fundamental physics. Roman is similar to other space telescopes, like Spitzer and the James Webb Space Telescope, in that it will detect infrared light, which is invisible to human eyes. Earth’s atmosphere absorbs infrared light, which presents challenges for observatories on the ground. Roman has the advantage of flying in space, above the atmosphere. The Roman Space Telescope will collect and focus light using a primary mirror that is 2.4 meters in diameter.