NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, a next-generation observatory intended to shed light on the dark energy and dark matter cosmic puzzles, has concluded its developmental engineering stage after passing the critical design review.
According to Julie McEnergy, the Roman Space Telescope senior project scientist, the team will move forward to building and testing the observatory after completing the groundwork, NASA said Wednesday.
The next phase will entail the assembly and testing of flight hardware through 2024 and after which, the team at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center will conduct the system integration review and merge the Roman observatory.
“Finally, we’ll test the whole observatory in environments that simulate launch and our orbit to make sure Roman will work as designed,” said Jackie Townsend, deputy project manager for the Roman Space Telescope.
The space agency indicated that astronomers are prospecting Roman to navigate the vast space, explore the infrared universe and unveil rocky worlds in and beyond the regions that have liquid water.
NASA is eyeing to launch the mission no later than May 2027.