NASA launches Roman telescope on Falcon Heavy toward 1 million-mile orbit
What's next: The observatory faces a 100-day trip to L2 before calibrations and surveys of dark energy, dark matter and exoplanets begin.
NASA launched the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday, sending the observatory aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket toward an operating point about 1 million miles from Earth. The spacecraft lifted off at 7:26 a.m. ET and later separated from the rocket as ground teams began receiving telemetry showing systems were working normally. Roman, named for NASA’s first chief astronomer, is designed to pair Hubble-like image sharpness with a field of view at least 100 times wider. Scientists plan to use it to study dark matter and dark energy, map galaxies and search for tens of thousands of exoplanets during a mission expected to last at least five years.