SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket to launch NASA's Roman Space Telescope
NASA has selected SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket to launch its next major space telescope, a wide-field observatory that directly complements the new James Webb Space Telescope.
Originally known as the Wide Field InfraRed Survey Telescope (WFIRST), NASA recently renamed the mission in honor of Nancy Grace Roman, the basic force behind the Hubble Space Telescope. Fittingly, the basic design of the Roman Space Telescope is reminiscent of Hubble in many ways, due to the fact that the mission existed solely because the US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) chose to donate an unused billion-dollar spy satellite – a satellite which is effectively a secret version of Hubble facing Earth.
However, thanks to decades of improvements in electronics, electromechanics, and the instrumentation side of spacecraft and space telescopes, the RST will be dramatically more capable than any similar Hubble telescope. And now, after years of battling for survival, the Roman Space Telescope officially has a probe into space – SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket.
Falcon Heavy continues to be a bit of a paradox, winning contract after contract for an increasingly high-value flagship launch despite not being launched once in more than three years. It’s a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, at this point, as major missions increasingly entrusted to Falcon Heavy are far more likely to experience significant spacecraft side delays. At one point in late 2021, for example, SpaceX had five Falcon Heavy’s launch was tentatively planned for 2022 – all but one which has been delayed by a few months to a year or more. Seven months into 2022, neither of those missions have been launched and it looks like the Falcon Heavy will be lucky to fly this time of year.
Nonetheless, the Roman Space Telescope joins an impressive manifest that includes the billion-dollar GOES-U weather satellite, NASA’s ~$5 billion Europa Clipper, two modules (HALO and PPE) from the space station orbiting the Moon, NASA’s Psyche asteroid rover, a large Astrobotic Griffin lander carrying NASA’s VIPER Moon rover, two large geostationary communications satellites, and three missions for the US military. RST is the 11th rocket launch contract between now and the mid-2020s.
Despite having the same splitting power, RST’s main wide-field instrument will have a field of view 100 times larger than Hubble’s, meaning the new telescope will be able to collect quantity more data at the same time. Its main goals include measuring “the light from a billion galaxies over the course of the mission” and conducting a “microlensing survey of the Milky Way’s interior to find ~2,600 exoplanets.” The second coronagraph instrument will “conduct high-contrast imaging and spectroscopy of dozens of nearby exoplanets.” According to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, “The Coronagraph provides an important stepping stone in preparation for future missions aimed at [directly] pictures and features of Earth-like planets [that are] 10 billion times fainter than their parent star.”
According to NASA, “the telescope science program also includes specialized investigations to answer extraordinary questions” [about the nature and] effects of dark energy and dark matter, as well as a substantial general investigative program to enable further study of astrophysical phenomena to advance other science goals.”
Since RST also focuses on infrared light wavelengths, it could be an excellent companion for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). RST is a wide field survey observatory that aims to observe and catalog billions of galaxies, stars, and planets, JWST’s much larger mirror is optimized for close-up observations of individual targets or deep views into small swaths of the sky. RST may eventually work a bit like an MRI or CAT scan on a JWST biopsy, telling the surgeon where to look but only hinting at what he might find.
According to NASA, the ~$4.3 billion contract launch of the space telescope’s Falcon Heavy would cost an enormous $255 million to send the spacecraft to Sun-Earth’s L2 Lagrange point about 800,000 kilometers (~500,000 miles) from Earth. NASA’s contract to launch the even more expensive Europa Clipper spacecraft all the way to Jupiter on a Falcon Heavy rocket is expected to cost less than $180 million.
The NASA press release also claims that the RST will be ready to launch in early October 2026. The press release differs from September 2021 not mentioning the 2026 target and only noting that the RST launch is not scheduled for later from May 2027.
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