Roman Space Telescope: Launch Targeting Early September 2026

NASA has announced a new launch target for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope — early September 2026, well ahead of the May 2027 deadline. The observatory will be delivered to Kennedy Space Center in Florida in June and will launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.

Roman combines a wide field of view with sharp infrared vision, enabling deep surveys of vast sky areas. Its primary science targets are dark energy, dark matter, and exoplanets, but the telescope's capabilities extend far beyond these goals.

Over its five-year primary mission, Roman is expected to build a 20,000-terabyte data archive. Scientists anticipate identifying 100,000 exoplanets, hundreds of millions of galaxies, billions of stars, and rare objects and phenomena never witnessed before.

The telescope is named after Nancy Grace Roman, the "Mother of Hubble" — a NASA astronomer who played a pivotal role in establishing the space telescope program.