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Natural Sciences Active Updated Aug 28, 2026

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launches this weekend

NASA's next flagship telescope, built from repurposed spy-satellite hardware the National Reconnaissance Office handed over in 2012, is set to launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Kennedy Space Center. Its wide field of view will survey a billion galaxies, hunt rogue planets by watching them bend starlight, and test coronagraph technology aimed at eventually imaging Earth-like exoplanets, with stakes riding on a successful launch and whether the retrofitted hardware performs once in orbit.

The story so far

  1. Aug 28, 2026 Latest

    NASA prepared to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Kennedy Space Center, a mission built on repurposed National Reconnaissance Office spy-satellite hardware that came in under its $4.3 billion budget, less than half the cost of the James Webb Space Telescope, with roughly a 50 percent chance of weather pushing the launch to a Monday backup window.

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