April 20, 2024

NASA Confirms Roman Space Telescope Mission’s Flight Design in Milestone Review

This picture reveals the setup for area environment screening of the engineering development system for Romans Solar Array Sun Shield, which will serve two functions. It will provide electrical power to the observatory. Second, it will protect the Optical Telescope Assembly, the Wide Field Instrument, and the Coronagraph Instrument from sunshine. Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn
“With this evaluation complete, we go into the amazing phase where we will assemble and evaluate the Roman hardware that we plan to fly,” said Jackie Townsend, deputy project manager for the Roman Space Telescope at Goddard. “When all our flight hardware is ready in 2024, well hold the System Integration Review and integrate the Roman observatory. Well test the whole observatory in environments that simulate launch and our orbit to make sure Roman will work as created.” The mission is slated to introduce no later on than May 2027.
Providing the exact same crisp infrared resolution as Hubble over a field of vision 200 times bigger, Roman will carry out sweeping cosmic surveys that would take centuries using Hubble. Roman will map stars, galaxies, and dark matter to explore the formation and evolution of large cosmic structures, like clusters and superclusters of galaxies, and examine dark energy, which is thought to speed up the growth of deep space.

The objective will discover a diverse array of worlds, including those that orbit far from their host star. Such worlds have been largely elusive for other planet-hunting objectives. Roman will also carry out a range of other astrophysics studies to investigate subjects such as the stars in neighboring galaxies and probe for new asteroids, comets, and small planets in the external planetary system. Scientists will use Romans studies to help us much better understand deep space and our place within it.
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is handled at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, with involvement by NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech/IPAC in Southern California, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and a science group comprising scientists from different research study institutions. The primary commercial partners are Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corporation in Boulder, Colorado; L3Harris Technologies in Melbourne, Florida; and Teledyne Scientific & & Imaging in Thousand Oaks, California.

NASAs Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Credit: NASA
NASAs Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has effectively passed its vital style review, signaling that all design and developmental engineering work is now total.
” After seeing our comprehensive hardware testing and advanced modeling, an independent review panel has actually confirmed that the observatory we have designed will work,” said Julie McEnery, the Roman Space Telescope senior job researcher at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “We know what it will appear like and what it will be capable of. Now that the groundwork is laid, the team is enjoyed continue structure and testing the observatory theyve imagined.”
The Roman Space Telescope is a next-generation observatory that will peer throughout vast stretches of space and time to survey the infrared universe. Astronomers expect Roman to reveal considerable numbers of rocky worlds in and beyond the region where liquid water might exist.

” After seeing our extensive hardware testing and advanced modeling, an independent evaluation panel has validated that the observatory we have actually developed will work,” stated Julie McEnery, the Roman Space Telescope senior project scientist at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The Roman Space Telescope is a next-generation observatory that will peer throughout vast stretches of space and time to survey the infrared universe.”With this review complete, we enter the interesting stage where we will put together and test the Roman hardware that we plan to fly,” said Jackie Townsend, deputy project manager for the Roman Space Telescope at Goddard. Roman will also carry out a variety of other astrophysics surveys to examine topics such as the stars in neighboring galaxies and probe for new asteroids, comets, and minor worlds in the outer solar system.