NASA's Roman Space Telescope Launched Sunday — 100 Times Hubble's Field of View

NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launched Sunday morning, August 30, at 7:26 Eastern, on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The telescope separated from the upper stage 31 minutes after liftoff, and the two side boosters flew back and landed at Cape Canaveral. Roman is now on a 100-day trip out to a point about 930,000 miles from Earth, on the opposite side from the sun, where it is built to work for five years. The mission cost $4.3 billion, and it is named for Nancy Grace Roman, NASA's first chief astronomer.

The difference from Hubble is how much sky it takes in at once. Roman's main camera is 300 megapixels with a field of view about 100 times wider than Hubble's, and it surveys more than 1,000 times faster. NASA expects it to observe roughly 20 billion stars and 2 billion galaxies, turn up something like 100,000 planets outside our solar system, and send back about 1.4 terabytes of data a day, released to the public with no hold-back period. Commissioning runs about 100 days, with early science expected near the 90-day mark. I have an accounting degree from UH-Downtown and spend most of my week inside numbers, and that is not one I can picture.

Houston follows this kind of thing because Johnson Space Center is here. Clear Lake City, Nassau Bay and El Lago were all built up around that campus starting in the 1960s. If you have been curious what homes run on that side of the bay, reach out and I will walk you through it. Call or text me at 281-818-8177.