At 7:26 AM Eastern Time on August 30th (19:26 Beijing time), a Falcon Heavy launch vehicle carrying the Roman Space Telescope was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA. The space telescope was successfully sent into its intended orbit.
According to NBC, the Roman Space Telescope is a new generation space telescope developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Its purpose is to help scientists explore dark matter, dark energy, and exoplanets. This project has cost approximately $4.3 billion.
The Roman Space Telescope is named after the late NASA Chief Astronomer Nancy Grace Roman. It will fly in space for three months, reaching the Earth-Sun Lagrangian L2 point, which is about 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. This point lies at the gravitational balance between the Earth and the Sun, allowing the spacecraft to maintain a stable orbit and minimize fuel consumption.
This space telescope was originally designed by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) as a spy satellite. The project was terminated due to budget overruns, and in 2012, the NRO donated it to NASA. As a new flagship space telescope of NASA, the Roman Space Telescope has a field of view that is 100 times that of the Hubble Space Telescope, enabling larger-scale sky surveys.
On August 30, Eastern Time, NASA’s Roman Space Telescope was launched, according to Reuters.
NASA states that the design operational time for the Roman Space Telescope is 5 years, with an option for a 5-year extension. During the mission, it will conduct three main observation surveys. The largest of these surveys will last over one year and during this time, the telescope will observe through the center regions of the galaxy's dense stellar population, creating star charts for all celestial objects that are observed.
The next two surveys will focus on studying dark matter and dark energy. Dark matter is considered to be the invisible matter that constitutes most of the matter in galaxies; it cannot be observed directly, and its existence can only be inferred through gravitational effects. Dark energy, on the other hand, is seen by scientists as the force that drives the accelerated expansion of the universe, but its true nature remains unknown to this day.
At a press conference following the launch, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden called President Donald Trump. Trump praised the launch as "very beautiful" and boasted about his funding for NASA.
However, Reuters noted that Trump tried to cancel the Roman Space Telescope project or reduce its budget during both of his presidential terms. As a result, the U.S. Congress retained the project.
Roman Space Telescope's primary mirror, NASA
American National Public Radio (NPR) reported that after the Roman Space Telescope officially begins operation, it will send back 1.4TB of original scientific data to Earth every day via high-gain antennas. Jeremy Perkins, a scientist at NASA responsible for integrating and testing this mission, said that due to the massive amount of data, NASA will make all the data available to the public through a cloud-based system.
Perkins said that during the journey of the Roman Space Telescope to its destination, NASA will inspect all equipment and perform calibration to ensure the telescope functions properly.
American Museum of Natural History's Ros Center for Earth and Space Sciences astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson stated that dark energy and dark matter are the main mysteries in modern astrophysics. "We have some ideas, but we aren’t sure what they actually are. This telescope will provide us with the best data, helping us to explore the answers to these questions."
