3.06.2026
NASA Invites Media to See Roman Space Telescope Arrive at Kennedy
Registration is open for media to cover the arrival of NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in the coming weeks.
The observatory will arrive aboard NASA’s Pegasus barge from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, where teams completed its construction, assembly, and testing. Credentialed media will be able to witness the arrival and unloading of the space telescope in its transport container at NASA Kennedy’s turn basin. From there, technicians will move the telescope to the center’s Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility for launch processing.
NASA subject matter experts will be available on site to answer questions about the arrival.
Media interested in participating must apply for credentials at:
To receive credentials, media must apply by 11:59 p.m. EDT on Thursday, June 4. This opportunity is open to U.S. citizens only.
Once approved, credentialed media will receive a confirmation email. Additional information, including the specific date of arrival activities, will follow. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online. For questions about accreditation, please email ksc-media-accreditat@mail.nasa.gov. For other questions, please contact Kennedy’s newsroom at: 321-867-2468.
Named after NASA’s first chief astronomer, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will have a deep, panoramic view of the cosmos, generating never-before-seen pictures that will revolutionize our understanding of the universe. The observatory will usher in a new era of cosmic surveys, unveiling troves of celestial objects, and shedding light on some of the universe’s most profound mysteries, including phenomena we can’t see. Roman also will showcase a test of the most advanced technology ever flown in space to directly image planets around nearby stars, a key step in NASA’s search for life on other worlds.
The Roman telescope is managed at NASA Goddard with participation by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California; Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, California; the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore; and a science team of scientists from various research institutions. The primary industrial partners are BAE Systems Inc., L3Harris Technologies, and Teledyne Scientific & Imaging. Contributions to Roman also are made by ESA (European Space Agency), JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), the French space agency CNES (Centre National d’Études Spatiales), and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany.
The agency’s Launch Services Program, based at NASA Kennedy, manages the launch service for the Roman Space Telescope, which will lift off as soon as early September on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A.
Quelle: NASA
----
Update: 23.06.2026
.
Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope blog is NASA's hub for the mission's launch updates, where all are invited for behind-the-scenes looks on Roman's road to launch and beyond. This flagship mission’s vast, deep surveys will help astronomers explore dark matter, dark energy, exoplanets, and almost anything from our own solar system to galaxies at the edge of the observable universe. Follow along to join in on the excitement!
NASA’s Next Generation Telescope Arrives in Florida Ahead of Launch
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope arrived June 21, at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, marking the start of final prelaunch preparations before liftoff later this summer.
After teams completed integration and testing on the observatory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, they loaded Roman into a protective and environmentally controlled transportation container and drove it to the port of Baltimore. There, the agency’s Pegasus barge safely transported the nearly 18,000-pound (8,200-kilogram) spacecraft down the coast of the Atlantic Ocean to its new home in Florida at the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility, which recently completed upgrades to prepare for Roman’s arrival.
Technicians met the telescope at NASA Kennedy’s turn basin wharf and offloaded the trailer carrying the observatory from the barge where they connected it to a truck that transported Roman to the servicing facility.
When the spacecraft arrives at the facility, technicians will complete initial cleaning outside the building before moving the shipping container into the facility’s air lock. Once in the air lock, they will perform additional cleaning to reduce any remaining contaminants from the trip. The facility’s air filtration system also will scrub the air until the team can safely open the inner door. Once inside, technicians will unbox the spacecraft, raise it to a vertical position in the air lock, and move it into the clean room.
On Monday, June 22, technicians plan to remove the cover from the transport container and move Roman into the high bay. Later technicians will use large cranes to move Roman to its work platform, called the Pantheon. During the observatory’s time at the processing facility, technicians will perform several tasks, including testing the six solar panels and inspecting Roman’s insulation and thermal blankets to ensure the observatory is fully protected and flight ready. Specially trained team members will load about 290 gallons of hydrazine fuel into the spacecraft’s tanks.
NASA is targeting launch no earlier than Sunday, Aug. 30, on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy. This puts Roman eight months ahead of schedule.
After launch, Roman will travel to the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, or L2. There, it will make observations that give astronomers the chance to study an incredible number of new objects. Roman’s wide field of view and rapid survey capabilities will reveal billions of galaxies, hundreds of thousands of new exoplanets, hundreds of blackholes, and will provide vast volumes of daily data for astronomers to study.
The observatory also will map how common different kinds of planets are in our galaxy and help answer big questions about the universe, like what’s causing its rapid expansion and what distant worlds and cosmic objects look like in infrared light. In addition to its main instrument, which features a 300-megapixel camera, Roman will demonstrate technology designed to block starlight to directly image exoplanets and planet-forming disks.
Alongside Roman, the Pegasus barge also carried a weather cover for the Artemis III SLS (Space Launch System) core stage. The cover will protect the stage thermal systems while it sits at Launch Pad 39B in its short stack configuration. Because schedules aligned, the barge was able to transport NASA’s next flagship astrophysics mission together with the Artemis hardware, maximizing resources to support missions across the agency during the Golden Age of innovation and exploration.
Quelle: NASA
----
Update: 8.07.2026
.
Telescope Milestone: NASA’s Roman Moves Vertical Ahead of Processing
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has completed important prelaunch milestones as it prepares to launch nine months ahead of schedule. Engineers at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida raised Roman from horizontal to vertical, signaling preparations are moving forward for upcoming inspections, functional testing, and integration work.
Technicians transferred the observatory to NASA Kennedy inside its specialized, climate-controlled shipping container. Following Roman’s arrival, the team moved the telescope to the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility for inspection after its trip from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Engineers completed additional cleaning to remove any trace contaminants from the facility’s airlock before crews unboxed and raised Roman vertically in the high bay.
Named for NASA’s first chief astronomer and “mother of the Hubble Space Telescope,” the Roman Space Telescope will offer a field of view at least 100 times larger than Hubble’s, resulting in deep, sweeping explorations of the cosmos.
NASA and SpaceX are targeting launch no earlier than Sunday, Aug. 30, on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy.
Quelle: NASA