NASA’s Roman Space Telescope launches toward L2 for dark‑energy and exoplanet surveys

NASA lifted the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope into orbit on Sunday aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Kennedy Space Center, sending it toward the Sun‑Earth L2 libration point. The observatory carries a 2.4‑metre primary mirror and a 300‑megapixel wide‑field camera that can image an area about 100 times larger than Hubble’s. It also includes a coronagraph equipped with deformable mirrors controlled by 2,304 pistons to suppress starlight for direct exoplanet imaging. Scientists plan to use the telescope to map billions of galaxies, study dark matter and dark energy, and search for exoplanets using both transit and microlensing techniques, with scientific observations slated to begin in January 2027.