NASA has choose SpaceX Falcon Heavy to launch the Roman telescope

(NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center https://go.nasa.gov/3RKEGhb)

NASA has selected SpaceX's Falcon Heavy to launch the Roman wide-angle space observatory in 2026.

The telescope will study protoplanetary disks, large exoplanets, dark matter and dark energy.

The Roman telescope was originally called WFIRST, but it was renamed two years ago in honor of the astronomer Nancy Roman, the first female executive at NASA.

The device will be NASA's new large space observatory, designed to conduct observations with a very wide field of view in the visible and near infrared wavelengths.

The observatory will be equipped with a 300-megapixel WFI camera and coronagraph.

Roman’s tasks will include:

imaging of protoplanetary disks and giant exoplanets
studies of dark matter and dark energy
studies of galaxy clusters
search for large exoplanets

Despite attempts to cancel the project and cut funding, NASA last year completed the design of the telescope.

The agency also moved on to the creation of the components for the observatory and its testing. The assembly of the entire telescope is scheduled for 2024.

NASA has said that it will launch the telescope in October 2026, and after that, it will fly to the second Lagrange point in the Sun-Earth system.

Now, on July 19, the agency announced that it has contracted SpaceX under the NLS II (NASA Launch Services Program II) program to launch the Roman telescope.

The total launch will use the Falcon Heavy rocket, it will be from the LC-39A site at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and will cost approximately $255 million.

(SpaceX)

Sources:

#science #club100 #astronomy #spacex #nasa #nftmc