NASA has completed assembly of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, a powerful 2.4-meter infrared observatory designed to study dark energy, galaxies and exoplanets, with launch targeted for late 2026 or 2027.
NASA completes assembly of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, showing infrared instruments in 2026–27
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NASA declared the full assembly of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The two main sections were connected on Nov. 25 in the largest clean room of the agency at Goddard Space Flight Center; thus, the milestone of the telescope’s assembly was very significant. The 2.4-meter infrared observatory, a space telescope named after the first woman to hold an executive position at NASA, Nancy Grace Roman, is estimated to be launched around 2027 (maybe as early as fall 2026). After that, it will be subjected to the final testing and will be ready for the launch.
Mission and Instruments
According to NASA, Roman is equipped with two main instruments. Those are one Wide Field Instrument (WFI): a 300-megapixel infrared camera providing Hubble-like sharpness over a field ~100× larger than Hubble’s. The other one is a Coronagraph Instrument, which is basically an advanced camera that blocks starlight to directly image exoplanets around nearby stars.These instruments let Roman survey vast swaths of sky in infrared, probing cosmic structure and dark energy. Over its 5-year mission, it could observe millions of stars, billions of galaxies, and find over 100,000 exoplanets.
Next Steps Toward Launch
In the next step, Roman will undergo final environmental tests to assess its survival through launch and space conditions. It will be tested and then shipped back to the Kennedy Space Center of NASA, where it will be completely mounted on its launch vehicle. The telescope would be launched in May 2027 (probably late 2026) on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. This rocket will take Roman to a Sun-Earth L2 orbit 1 million miles above the Earth, after which it will commence its scientific mission.
