NASA Launches Roman Telescope Tracker for 3-Month Trip to 1 Million Miles
Updated
Updated · Mashable · Sep 1
NASA Launches Roman Telescope Tracker for 3-Month Trip to 1 Million Miles
3 articles · Updated · Mashable · Sep 1
Summary
NASA put a near-real-time online tracker online for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which launched Aug. 30 and is now cruising toward the Sun-Earth L2 point about 1 million miles from Earth.
A 3-minute mid-course correction burn was completed Monday, the first of two early trajectory-adjustment opportunities that mission planners built into Roman's three-month transfer.
Fuel saved during those burns can extend the mission, and once Roman reaches its looping L2 orbit, controllers expect station-keeping thruster firings about every 28 days.
From L2, Roman's wide-field camera will image sky areas about 100 times a typical Hubble view, returning roughly 1.4 terabytes of data a day during its planned five-year prime mission.
NASA expects to release data without delay, share the first detailed images around December, and begin Roman's science surveys in January 2027.