NASA expects to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope as early as September, calling this mission proof of that, that the agency is capable of delivering flagship science projects on time and within budget. 05 January 2026 during the session at the 247th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, representatives of the project reported, that the device is entering the final stage of testing and preparation for launch.
The telescope is fully assembled and resides at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Vibration and acoustic tests are scheduled to begin in February. If the tests go according to plan, the device will be sent to Florida in June this year for launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. The launch is currently scheduled for 28 September – this is more than six months ahead of the official scheduled date (May 2027 year). The project also remains within the approved budget with an estimated full cost 4,3 A billion dollars.
After launch is expected, that commissioning the device and its tools will take approx 90 days, resulting in a science mission to begin. Much of the discussion at the meeting concerned the planned surveys of the sky by the Roman telescope and that, how scientists deal with huge amounts of data, which will be produced by the telescope, and not the development of the device itself.
Source: https://spacenews.com