NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is hanging out in the clean room at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, preparing for its epic journey to space.
What is it?
Roman is NASA’s next big flagship mission, designed to explore the universe like we’ve never seen it before. And with just over a month and a half until its expected launch on Aug. 30, it is in the home stretch to liftoff.
After recently leaving NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, where the telescope was assembled and tested, Roman made its way to KSC, from where it will launch. In this new photo, snapped on June 26, we can see Roman seemingly floating in mid-air, hanging inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility, a secure clean room at KSC where spacecraft are fueled, tested and otherwise prepared for flight. In this moment, technicians and engineers were using a crane to lift Roman into the air into a specialized stand, where the telescope can rest while it is worked on.
Why is it incredible?
Roman — named for the pioneering astronomer Nancy Grace Roman, who served as NASA’s first chief of astronomy and expanded our understanding of the universe — is a mission that scientists have been waiting for for a long time.
With a field of view at least 100 times larger than the iconic Hubble Space Telescope, Roman will be able to capture immense views across the universe. The mission will explore dark matter and dark energy, and with its tech demonstration the Roman Coronagraph Instrument, it will snap images of exoplanets, offering direct looks at worlds far from our solar system.