The groundbreaking space telescope \u2014\u00a0which was adopted as a project<\/a> by NASA in 2010, per the European Space Agency \u2014\u00a0is a wide-field infrared tool that \u201cwill investigate long-standing astronomical mysteries, such as the force behind the universe’s expansion, and search for distant planets beyond our solar system,\u201d according to NASA<\/a>.<\/p>\n NASA completed construction<\/a> on the telescope in December.<\/p>\n Previously known as the Wide Field InfraRed Survey Telescope (WFIRST), the observatory was renamed in honor of Dr. Nancy Grace Roman in 2020, commemorating NASA’s first chief of astronomy for her contributions to the administration throughout the 1960s and 1970s and on the Hubble Space Telescope project.<\/p>\n The Roman telescope currently resides in NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., where it continues to be tested by scientists.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the mission’s first five years, it’s expected to unveil more than 100,000 distant worlds, hundreds of millions of stars, and billions of galaxies,\u201d senior project scientist Julia McEnery told NBC News<\/a>, which noted that more than $4.3 billion has been invested in the project.<\/p>\n The Nancy Grace Roman Telescope under assembly in 2024. During its construction, the telescope has been evaluated under NASA’s Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) Program. Projects developed with NASA’s IV&V Program are subject to \u201crigorous and repeatable engineering methodologies<\/a>\u201d meant to evaluate the project’s strength, longevity and potential risks, according to the organization’s website.<\/p>\n The telescope will be shipped on NASA’s Pegasus Barge from Maryland to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where it will undergo an inspection at the center’s Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility<\/a> as well as powered testing and launch rehearsals.<\/p>\n NASA shared that the mission will aim to complete several Core Community Surveys<\/a> (CCS) during its first five years of orbit. These processes will aim to provide valuable information and imagery to scientists, who may then decipher truths surrounding dark matter, dark energy and the expansion of the universe.<\/p>\n The telescope will be prompted to capture observations every 15 minutes for over a year to explore the dense, central portion of the Milky Way known as the Galactic Bulge. NASA aims to track changes in the brightness of stars in order to identify rogue planets, isolated black holes and other bodies.<\/p>\n An additional survey, estimated to take about 17 months, will serve to document \u201chundreds of millions\u201d of galaxies to place in conversation with spectroscopy, or the study of how matter interacts with light. The resulting data and images will be used to construct a 3D map of the universe.<\/p>\n Another survey will prompt the telescope to observe one specific region every five days over the course of two years to learn more about objects within the cosmos that change over time, such as exploding stars.<\/p>\n Never miss a story \u2014 sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter<\/a> to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer\u200b\u200b, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.\u00a0<\/p>\n The mission may also aim to hunt for primordial black holes<\/a> so comparatively small that they have previously evaded detection by NASA’s observatories.<\/p>\n Dominic Benford, a program scientist based at NASA’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., shared with NBC News that the first images from the telescope could potentially be released by the end of 2026.<\/p>\n Beginning with the launch of Orbiting Astronomical Observatory 1 (OAO-1) in 1966, NASA has since launched a series of increasingly large and complex telescopes and observatories into orbit. Currently, the administration has at least 17 active observatories<\/a>, according to the administration’s website.<\/p>\n The administration’s other telescopic projects include SPHEREx, which launched in 2025 with the goal of conducting a widespread infrared spectral survey of the sky, and the James Webb Space Telescope<\/a>, which launched in 2021 and now orbits the sun with a distance of one million miles from Earth.<\/p>\n The Hubble Space Telescope in 1997 The Hubble Space Telescope has spent 36 years in orbit since its 1990 launch. It is credited with being the first system to capture images of collision<\/a> between large astronomical objects and providing strong proof on the road to confirming that supermassive black holes<\/a> exist.<\/p>\n NASA estimates that the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will ultimately possess a field of view that is at least 100 times larger than that of the Hubble Space Telescope.<\/p>\n NBC News also reports that it should be equipped to work at a speed 1,000 times faster than that of the Hubble.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/5cb84c23ed10d6d2b53cd8ab35d5b7fe.jpeg\"\/)
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Credit: Michael S. Williamson\/The Washington Post via Getty<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/34181ceb0583e52ce6541c532aecb5dc.jpeg\"\/)
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Credit: NASA via Getty<\/p>\n