NASA will broadcast the event live on August 30. NASA/Sydney Rohde (Rocz) The Nancy Grace Roman Telescope will travel to space in a few days. It is scheduled to launch on August 30, no earlier than 7:26 a.m. ET, with NASA’s live coverage beginning at 6:20 a.m. The agency’s engineers completed final inspection of the telescope’s primary mirror in late May to ensure it had not been damaged during testing. In early June, NASA announced that the telescope would launch ahead of schedule in September. Nancy Grace Roman was NASA’s first Chief of Astronomy and was known as the “Mother of Hubble” for her instrumental role in the planning and development of the observatory. This telescope that bears his name has a field of view at least 100 times larger than that of Hubble and will be able to observe a wider swath of the universe at any time. It was designed to use different techniques to study dark energy and help us answer questions about this mysterious force. The telescope also has the ability to block starlight to better see exoplanets, so it can provide more data for scientists to discover what determines habitability and how common solar systems like ours are. The infrared telescope is already encapsulated inside a SpaceX Falcon Heavy fairing at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It will fly atop a Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A. If the launch does not happen on August 30, NASA and SpaceX will try again on August 31 at 7:22 a.m. ET. You can watch the rocket launch live on NASA’s website or on SpaceX’s X account. In addition to the launch itself, NASA will also broadcast a mission science briefing on August 29 at 9 a.m. ET with the Roman Telescope team, followed by a pre-launch press conference.
