NASA has officially completed construction of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, the agency's next major orbital observatory following “Hubble” and “James Webb”. The spacecraft is scheduled to launch in May 2027 aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.

At the end of November, specialists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center successfully joined the telescope's internal and external modules, completing the work on schedule. Following this, the project moved on to the final stage of ground testing. Upon completion, the spacecraft will be packaged and shipped to NASA's Kennedy Space Center, where it will be launched into orbit from Launch Complex 39A. NASA notes that the mission is entering its critical phase.

The project's history dates back to 2010, when it was developed under the name WFIRST. The mission was later reimagined and named after Nancy Grace Roman, an American astronomer and one of NASA's first female leaders, who played a key role in the creation of the “Hubble” Space Telescope, earning her the nickname "the telescope's mother."

The observatory will operate at the L2 Lagrange point and will be equipped with two primary scientific instruments. The Wide-Field Imager (WFI), with a resolution of 288 megapixels, will capture an area of the sky approximately 200 times larger than “Hubble's” field of view in a single frame. The second instrument, a coronagraph, is designed for the detailed study of exoplanets. According to NASA, the Roman telescope's capabilities will open new avenues for studying the structure and evolution of the universe.