SpaceX launches the Roman Space Telescope
SpaceX early this morning successfully launched the Roman Space Telescope, its Falcon Heavy rocket lifting off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The rocket’s two side boosters completed their first and third flights, landing back at SpaceX’s landing zones at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. As of posting the telescope has not yet reached its final orbit at Lagrange point 2, orbiting the Sun a million miles out from the Earth.
Roman is in many ways a cross between the Hubble and Webb space telescopes. Its mirror is as large as Hubble’s, but its instruments will observe in the infrared like Webb. Unlike either, it has a wide field of view, allowing it to observe large numbers of galaxies or stars with each observation. For more information, go here. While the initial focus is gathering data on dark matter and dark energy, in truth Roman’s data will be used by astronomers across many areas of study.
The leaders in the 2026 launch race:
104 SpaceX
55 China
12 Rocket Lab (plus two suborbital HASTE launches)
11 Russia
For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 104 to 95.
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The telescope will not reach L2 until after about 30 days. (Like Webb did).
The telescope will not reach L2 until after about 30 days. (Like Webb did).
That, plus a couple months beyond that for getting the telescope operational. So, the first imagery is expected to be released by NASA around the first of the year.
EDIT: Isaacman in the press conference said that the first images should be released right before the winter holidays.
Good news. Thank you Robert for sharing. So 😎
Jeff Foust knocked out the obligatory news story on the launch, but he couldn’t help sliding in a shot at President Trump, who called in to the press conference with Jared Isaacman, in what he called “That Phone Call” (capital first letter) on X. Foust noted that Trump’s OMB had proposed cutting the Roman telescope four times going back to 2018, with Congress rejecting the cut each time.
https://spacenews.com/falcon-heavy-launches-nasas-roman-space-telescope/
Did Trump even know his budget office had tried whacking it, let alone why? Possibly, but I tend to doubt it. This seems to have been one of those Russ Vought hobby horses, and maybe the horse looks a little lame since Roman actually came in under budget and way ahead of schedule. Trump still has to own it, I suppose. And I suppose Foust has to Notice (capital first letter) all of this.
It is also worth noting that this was only the 13th launch of Falcon Heavy, which is a remarkably low (almost, ULA-like) number for a launch vehicle that has been around since 2018. It has 13 more launches on the manifest, from what I can make out, most of ’em for the Space Force/NRO. As most of us know, Falcon 9 just ate up most of its expected market, once it reached Block 5.
Elon would surely like nothing better than to move some of these launches over to Starship so he can terminate Falcon Heavy (a rocket he has never been enthusiastic about) as soon as possible. Problem is, they still need to develop a Starship payload fairing to accommodate these sorts of launches, and meanwhile they have to get Starship certified for the high value Space Force and NASA payloads. That will happen in due time, of course, but it will take time. So Falcon Heavy is very likely here to stay through at least the end of the decade.
But whenever it retires, Falcon Heavy has already earned an important place in space history. It’s already launched more high value NASA missions than Delta IV Heavy ever did, and it still has Dragonfly, Rosalind Franklin, Griffin I and Griffin II to go.
“almost, ULA-like”
Ooooh. That’s a delta-v burn.
Richard M. wrote: “””It is also worth noting that this was only the 13th launch of Falcon Heavy”””
I am curious how many of the previous and future Falcon Heavy launches are transfers from other rocket companies that are too slow, too costly, or both.
When we first learned that Falcon Heavy was three Falcon 9s strapped together, we thought “how cool is this!”
I remember the first Gemini rockets. It was so cool that TWO astronauts were in the capsule. We’ve come a long way baby.
Shotwell made this possible–there would be no FH otherwise.
This payload uses one of the two big mirrors the NRO donated to NASA.
My most faithful of opponents across the web…Jim at NASASPACEFLIGHT…actually groused about what a bother it was.
There are some projects, it seems–that are willed from a Source where what is willed *must* be.
Budget cuts, a wunderkind looking a bit far down the road, individuals openly hostile to a great gift of not one but two mirrors—nothing could stop this snowball on its downhill run.
Why the Fates shine on one project and not another has always puzzled me.
Ronaldus Magnus,
I haven’t looked at the list thoroughly, but I believe all of the payloads switched from ULA to SpaceX are on Falcon 9 rockets, not Falcon Heavy. Mostly, they’ve been GPS missions. (GPS satellites are qualified for both rockets, which makes them easier to swap.)
Off the topic of Space Force missions, one possible payload I *am* wondering about is Space Reactor-1 Freedom. The PPE module was supposed to go up with the HALO module on a Falcon Heavy, but I cannot find out if that contract has been cancelled, or if it might be reworked for this… As things stand now, Falcons and Atlas V are the only operational rockets certified for Category 3 science missions *and* for nuclear payloads, and as we all know, Atlas V is no longer available, so… As things stand now (to repeat myself), it looks like Falcon Heavy is the only launcher qualified for this mission. If the mission gets delayed and so does the launcher decision, that could change…. But I think this is Falcon Heavy’s mission to lose right now.
I have also wondered if Falcon Heavy will be used for this. I have assumed so, switching the PPE/HALO contract to the Freedom mission, but NASA has made no announcement regarding the launch provider.
Hi Bob,
This is actually the kind of mission that Starship would be great for — loads and loads of payload volume, so you don’t need to design it with nearly so much in the way of unfolding mechanisms. But Starship has to be fully certified at the time they ask for launch bids (if indeed they do decide on a wholy new launch contract), and for a 2028 launch date, that kind of thing would have to happen fairly soon, as in, the next several months…
Of course, lots of people are profoundly skeptical of this thing being ready by the end of 2028. And maybe none of us would be surprised to see timelines move significantly to the right. But that doesn’t mean the launch vehicle decision would slide, too.
I do expect that Falcon Heavy is not yet done bagging NASA science and Space Force missions.
One more follow up about Falcon Heavy’s future. This afternoon, someone on X mused that Falcon heavy might retire in 2028. Elon actually responded to this:
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2094137545525252179
Obviously, Starship has to be certified by the agency in question for any payload that gets moved, and I don’t know how quickly that will happen. Any deep space mission will require on-orbit refueling (unless you tack on a kick stage), and NASA and USSF will have to figure out how they want to certify *that*. We are in virgin territory here!
Richard M wrote: “””As things stand now (to repeat myself)……”””
To coin a phrase – Tis better to state, and then restate, then to never have stated at all.
One day about a decade from now, if we’re lucky, a starship will be bringing a refuel of hydrazine to Roman. That’ll be neat.
The ISS deorbit package would be great for that…something that isn’t a wind-up toy crammed into a Pegasus fairing.
I wonder how long the FH upper stage could stay alive…perhaps a final burn towards a NEO…
Thank you, Sir.
It would be nice to see a scorecard for tons of payload to LEO+.
Just a thought
Cluebat,
You may appreciate this page from the Bryce site.
The page gives second quarter (March through June) results of numbers of orbital launches, number of satellites launched by each provider, mass launched by provider, and other interesting tidbits over the past quarter.