NASA Launches Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope from Kennedy Space Center

On August 30, 2026, NASA launched the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (RST) aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center, Florida. RST’s primary mirror matches the size of the Hubble Space Telescope but is more curved, its secondary mirror is positioned closer, and its camera is larger, allowing the telescope to cover 100 times more sky in each snapshot. Unlike Hubble, RST will orbit the Sun, similar to the James Webb Space Telescope. The expanded survey capability is expected to increase the detection of supernovae, providing tighter constraints on the universe’s expansion rate, and to identify many more exoplanets, advancing the search for life beyond Earth.