Nasa space telescope set to launch after surviving Trump budget cuts
Searching for exoplanets and clues on planet formation, the Roman telescope will lift off Sunday morning in Florida
TL;DR
- The $4.3bn Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is set to launch from Florida.
- The telescope survived multiple proposed budget cuts from the Trump administration.
- Its mission is to search for exoplanets and understand planetary formation and the accelerating expansion of the universe.
- Roman has a 300-megapixel infrared camera with a field of view 100 times larger than Hubble's.
- It includes a coronagraph to block starlight and photograph nearby planets.
- The telescope will travel to Lagrange point 2, a million miles from Earth.
- Roman is designed to complement the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes, providing broader context and identifying targets for follow-up observations.
- Its imagery will be made public upon completion of calibration and tests.
- This launch marks the final flight of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket.