Falcon Heavy | Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope

### Falcon Heavy to Launch NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope in 2026

On October 31, 2026, SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket is scheduled to lift off from Kennedy Space Center, carrying NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope into orbit. This mission represents a pivotal step in advancing our understanding of the cosmos, blending cutting-edge telescope technology with proven heavy-lift launch capabilities. Named after NASA's first chief astronomer, the Roman telescope builds on the legacy of the Hubble Space Telescope while expanding its scope to tackle some of astronomy's most profound questions.

At the heart of the mission are the telescope's ambitious objectives: to hunt for exoplanets through gravitational microlensing, a technique that detects distant worlds by observing how their gravity bends starlight, and to map the universe's expansion history. By probing dark energy—the mysterious force accelerating cosmic expansion—and testing general relativity's consistency, Roman aims to reveal insights into spacetime curvature and the growth of cosmic structures. These goals position it as a key tool for unraveling the universe's fundamental mechanics, potentially reshaping our models of cosmology.

The payload's capabilities are equally impressive. Featuring a 2.4-meter primary mirror, the telescope offers a wide field of view that dwarfs Hubble's imaging area. Its Wide-Field Instrument (WFI), a 300.8-megapixel camera, captures multi-band visible and near-infrared images with Hubble-like sharpness across a 0.28 square degree field—100 times larger than Hubble's cameras. This enables vast surveys of galaxies, supernovae, and dark matter distributions. Complementing it is the Coronagraphic Instrument (CGI), a high-contrast camera and spectrometer that suppresses starlight to image faint exoplanets directly. Using innovative technologies like deformable mirrors and wavefront control, CGI could detect Earth-like planets around nearby stars, marking a leap in exoplanet characterization.

Powering this endeavor is the Falcon Heavy, SpaceX's heavyweight launcher derived from the Falcon 9 family. Standing 70 meters tall with a mass of 1,420 metric tons at liftoff, it comprises three strapped-together Falcon 9 first stages, each powered by nine Merlin 1D engines, delivering a combined thrust of over 22,800 kilonewtons—equivalent to 18 Boeing 747s at full power. The rocket's second stage, also Merlin-powered, provides the final push to orbit. With a payload capacity of up to 63.8 metric tons to low Earth orbit or 26.7