NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is scheduled to lift off aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 4:56 pm IST on Saturday. The mission will mark the beginning of a major scientific endeavour to investigate dark energy, exoplanets and astrophysics.

NASA confirmed in a post on X that the telescope is scheduled to launch at 7:26 am ET (1126 UTC), equivalent to 4:56 pm IST on August 30. Live coverage of the event will begin at 6:20 am ET (1020 UTC), corresponding to 3:50 pm IST. The agency declared, “Time to explore the cosmos! @NASARoman is ready to lift off from @NASAKennedy at 7:26am ET (1126 UTC) on Aug. 30. Join us here for our live coverage beginning at 6:20am ET (1020 UTC).”

NASA’s Kennedy Space Center also issued a separate post confirming the mission was scheduled for Saturday morning. It provided details about the spacecraft, launch vehicle and prevailing weather conditions. “Tomorrow morning, NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is scheduled to take flight!” the centre announced.

Weather officials with the US Space Force’s Space Launch Delta 45 predicted a 50 per cent chance of favourable conditions for the launch. The primary concern was identified as the Cumulus Cloud Rule, which can affect rocket launches. NASA’s Kennedy Space Center reiterated this in its update, noting the uncertainty surrounding the weather.

The telescope is named after NASA’s first chief astronomer, Nancy Grace Roman, who played a pivotal role in the development of space-based astronomy.

This next-generation observatory is designed to address fundamental questions about dark energy, exoplanets and astrophysics.

With a field of view at least 100 times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope, Roman is expected to measure light from as many as a billion galaxies during its operational lifetime.

The spacecraft itself is a formidable engineering achievement. Fully fuelled, it weighs more than 20,000 pounds. When deployed, it measures over 42 feet in length and more than 14 feet in width. Once in orbit, Roman will travel roughly one million miles from Earth to the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point (L2), the same orbital location as the James Webb Space Telescope.

NASA confirmed that at 7:26 am ET, Roman will launch aboard the Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center. Approximately eight minutes after liftoff, observers will hear the double sonic booms as the two side boosters return to Landing Zones 2 and 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

The Falcon Heavy launch service for this mission is being managed by NASA’s Launch Services Program (LSP), based at Kennedy. Roman will be LSP’s 109th primary mission. It also marks LSP’s 14th primary mission to fly with SpaceX and the fourth to be launched on a Falcon Heavy rocket.

The mission represents a significant milestone in NASA’s astrophysics program, combining cutting-edge technology with ambitious scientific goals.

The Roman Space Telescope is expected to revolutionise our understanding of the universe, offering unprecedented insights into cosmic expansion, planetary systems beyond our own, and the structure of galaxies.

Agencies