BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — NASA’s newest space telescope is getting closer to revealing the universe in a way never seen before.
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is undergoing final testing inside Kennedy Space Center’s Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility, where engineers are checking the spacecraft’s systems ahead of its planned launch later this summer.
Dr. Ken Kremer of Space UpClose says the space telescope will provide a much wider view of the cosmos than previous observatories like Hubble and the James Webb Space Telescope.
Technicians have raised the observatory into its operating position, powered up the spacecraft, and are testing key components, including its thermal blankets and solar panels. “They’re going to check the solar panels to make sure that they flex, that they open up. Because that’s what has to happen,” Kremer said.
Once in space, Roman’s powerful camera will capture vast regions of the universe in a single image, helping scientists search for planets beyond our solar system and study mysteries such as dark matter and dark energy.
Kremer says the space telescope could also help answer one of the biggest questions in astronomy: whether other worlds could potentially support life. “That will help us find out not only the number of planets, the number of exoplanets distributed throughout the universe, but whether some of them might be habitable,” Kremer said.
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