An illustration of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. (Credit: NASA)
BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. - The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, NASA's next space observatory, is set to launch from Florida.
The telescope, also known as Roman, will launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center on Aug. 30.
Liftoff is scheduled for no earlier than 7:26 a.m. EDT.
What will the Nancy Grace Roman telescope do?
The telescope, formerly called the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), will help scientists study the universe like never before.
It will perform surveys of the galaxies to see the effects of dark matter and it will search for and study exoplanets—planets beyond our solar system.
Scientists hope the data collected by Roman will help answer questions about exoplanets and dark energy.
NASA says that the telescope has a field of view that's 100 times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope that will capture space beyond current capabilities.
"Its crisp, sweeping survey will help scientists investigate dark energy and dark matter, discover and characterize exoplanets, map billions of galaxies, study black holes, and explore objects from our own solar system to the edge of the observable universe," NASA said in a blog post.
NASA plans for Roman to have a primary mission lifetime of five years, but it was designed to support a five-year extension.
Who was Nancy Grace Roman?
The telescope is named after Nancy Grace Roman, known as a pioneer of modern space-based astronomy.
Roman was the first woman to hold an executive position at NASA and served as the agency's first chief of astronomy in the Office of Space Science.
She was also known as the "mother of the Hubble Space Telescope" for her work in the planning and development of the telescope.
Roman died in 2018 at the age of 93.
How to watch the launch
NASA plans to livestream the launch, with coverage set to begin at 6:20 a.m. EDT on Sunday.
The livestream will be available on NASA's website and the agency's YouTube channel.
SpaceX will also stream the launch on its X account.
The Source: This article was written with information released by NASA.