Nancy Roman Grace Space Telescope
Nancy Roman Grace Space Telescope
Mission Facts
- Launch date: projected 2026-2027
- Launch vehicle: SpaceX Falcon Heavy
- Mission type: Telescope
- Planned duration: 5 years
- Destination: halo orbit, Sun-Earth L2
- Quest Application: IMLI, insulating Wide-Field Instrument
- Primary mission objective:
- Investigate dark energy and search for exoplanets using infrared astrophysics from a halo orbit location
Summary
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, formerly the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), possesses a mirror identical in size to the Hubble telescope, but with a field of vision 100 times greater. The Wide-Field Instrument (WFI) will measure light from a billion galaxies while the Coronagraph Instrument is expected to image as many as 2600 exoplanets within the Milky Way. IMLI, on its fourth spaceflight, will help minimize heat load into the WFI to maintain the cold temperatures required for accurate measurements.
