Igniting Roman’s Journey

Roman is a NASA flagship space telescope that launched at 7:26 a.m. EDT on Aug. 30 from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center. It rode a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket — the fourth primary NASA mission to do so — and will take about three months to travel roughly one million miles to its operating orbit.

The telescope's wide field of view and infrared vision are designed to survey broad stretches of the sky and see deep into cosmic history. Its targets include dark matter, dark energy, and exoplanets, and NASA expects it to help answer fundamental questions about the universe. Mission planners accelerated the launch date earlier this year after the telescope was completed ahead of schedule.