NASA has moved up the launch of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope to August 30, nearly eight months earlier than originally scheduled, with liftoff set for 7:26am ET on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Kennedy Space Center.
// WHY_IT_MATTERS
Roman is built to survey huge swaths of sky fast, using a mirror the same size as Hubble's but a field of view about 100 times wider — mapping dark energy and hunting exoplanets at a scale neither Hubble nor Webb can match in the same amount of time.
// WHAT_TO_WATCH
Watch for the August 30 launch window, and once Roman reaches the L2 point where Webb already operates, its first calibration images in the months after.