NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Launches, Bound for L2

Earlier this year, on August 30, 2026, NASA launched their new flagship space telescope, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Lauched aboard SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket, NGRST plans to study many fields, including dark energy, using methods like weak gravitational lensing, surveys of supernovae, and baryon acousting oscillation. In addition, its mission also includes exoplanet science. For exoplanet science, NGRST plans on using its 300 megapixel camera, the Wide Field Instrument (WFI) to detect transits, as well as gravitational microlensing.

NGRST is on its way to the Earth-Sun Lagrange Point 2, a stable point in heliocentric (Sun) orbit, where the gravitational forces between Earth and the Sun keep it relatively stationary (to the Earth). It will arrive in early December 2026, and will start performing science and imaging once a "go" is given from Mission Control.