NASA completes its next great observatory: Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is now complete and is going through final checkouts at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. The 42-meter-tall observatory will be launched onboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket and travel more than a million kilometers before arriving at its operating destination at Lagrange Point 2. Liftoff from NASA's Kennedy Space Center is scheduled for September 2026, ahead of schedule and under budget. Roman will be able to capture a swath of data dramatically faster than the Hubble Space Telescope, even though they both contain mirrors of the same size. Roman also carries onboard the most advanced coronagraph ever created by NASA, which will help discover exoplanets that are thousands of times fainter than their closest star. Produced and edited by Will Robinson-Smith, a reporter at Spaceflight Now. Additional video from NASA. This coverage is made possible by the support of our members. Join this channel to help us expand our coverage and get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoLdERT4-TJ82PJOHSrsZLQ/join