NASA readies Nancy Grace Roman telescope launch, offers public name upload

NASA is preparing to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, slated for late August 2026. A virtual press conference on July 29 disclosed that the telescope will feature a primary mirror of 2.4 metres—similar to Hubble’s—but a field of view at least 100 times larger, enabling rapid surveys of vast sky regions. Over its planned five‑year mission, Roman will map hundreds of millions of galaxies to study dark energy and dark matter, and its advanced coronagraph will help detect exoplanets.

In parallel, NASA has opened a public campaign allowing anyone worldwide to submit their name to be stored on a memory card that will travel with the observatory to the L2 point, about 1.5 million kilometres from Earth. Registration is free, and selected names will accompany the telescope on its journey, echoing past public‑participation efforts such as the Voyager Golden Record.