Florida, August 30 (ANI): NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is scheduled to lift off aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Saturday, beginning a mission to investigate dark energy, exoplanets and astrophysics.
NASA said in a post on X that the telescope is scheduled to launch at 7:26 a.m. ET (1126 UTC), or 4:56 p.m. IST, on August 30. Live coverage is scheduled to begin at 6:20 a.m. ET (1020 UTC), or 3:50 p.m. IST.
“Time to explore the cosmos! @NASARoman is ready to lift off from @NASAKennedy at 7:26am ET (1126 UTC) on Aug. 30. Join us here for our live coverage beginning at 6:20am ET (1020 UTC),” NASA said.
In a separate post, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center said the mission was scheduled for Saturday morning and provided details on weather conditions, the spacecraft and the launch vehicle.
Weather officials with the U.S. Space Force’s Space Launch Delta 45 predicted a 50% chance of favorable weather conditions for the launch, with the primary concern being the Cumulus Cloud Rule.
Named after NASA’s first chief astronomer, the next-generation observatory is designed to address major questions about dark energy, exoplanets and astrophysics.
NASA said Roman will have a field of view at least 100 times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope and could measure light from a billion galaxies over its lifetime.
The spacecraft weighs more than 20,000 pounds when fully fueled and measures more than 42 feet long and over 14 feet wide when fully deployed.
Once in space, Roman will orbit approximately one million miles from Earth at the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point (L2), the same region of space where the James Webb Space Telescope operates.
“At 7:26 a.m. EDT, Roman is set to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center. About 8 minutes after liftoff, listen for the double sonic booms as the two side boosters return to Landing Zones 2 and 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station!” NASA’s Kennedy Space Center said.
NASA’s Launch Services Program is managing the Falcon Heavy launch service for the mission.
Based at Kennedy Space Center, the Launch Services Program said Roman will be its 109th primary mission. The mission also marks the program’s 14th primary mission to fly with SpaceX and its fourth launch aboard a Falcon Heavy.
The Roman Space Telescope is expected to provide a wide-field view of the universe and help scientists better understand cosmic expansion, the nature of dark energy and the prevalence of planets beyond the solar system. (ANI)
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