NASA has announced that the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will launch on 30 August 2026 aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. The mission aims to investigate dark matter, dark energy, and exoplanets, making it one of the agency’s most significant space observatories after the James Webb Space Telescope.

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• NASA has scheduled the launch of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope for 30 August 2026, with liftoff planned aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
• The telescope is NASA’s next flagship space observatory after the James Webb Space Telescope and is expected to revolutionise astronomical research through large-scale surveys of the universe.
• The mission is launching nearly nine months ahead of its original schedule, reflecting the successful progress of spacecraft development and mission preparations.
• Named after Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first Chief of Astronomy, the observatory honours her pioneering contributions to modern space astronomy and the development of the Hubble Space Telescope programme.
• The Roman Space Telescope will investigate some of astronomy’s greatest mysteries, including the nature of dark matter, dark energy, and the discovery and study of exoplanets beyond the Solar System.
• Equipped with an extremely wide-field infrared telescope, the mission will survey vast regions of space much faster than previous observatories, enabling scientists to map billions of galaxies and detect thousands of distant planetary systems.
• The telescope is expected to improve understanding of the expansion of the universe, the evolution of galaxies, and the distribution of invisible matter that shapes the cosmos.
• The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is regarded as a major milestone in NASA’s astrophysics programme and is expected to complement discoveries made by the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes.