NASA launched the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Kennedy Space Center on August 30, heading for the Sun-Earth L2 point to map dark energy and hunt exoplanets. The $4.3 billion observatory carries a 300-megapixel infrared camera that will image a swath of sky wider than the full moon and stitch those exposures into wide, deep maps. Scientists expect Roman to chart billions of galaxies, hundreds of black holes and dusty planet-forming disks while expanding the known exoplanet tally from the current 6,354 to more than 100,000 using microlensing and other techniques. Roman’s data will let researchers trace the distribution of dark matter via gravitational lensing and measure cosmic expansion through specific types of supernovae and galaxy separations, improving constraints on dark energy. Liftoff was planned for a launch window opening at 7:26 a.m. EDT, with the U.S. Space Force listing weather as 50 percent favorable and backup windows at 7:22 a.m. the following day and another on Tuesday. SpaceX and NASA provided live streams of the flight for public viewing.
