# Roman Space Telescope FAQ

## When will the Roman Space Telescope release its first images?

NASA expects to share Roman’s first images in early 2027, after about three months of commissioning that overlaps with the cruise to L2. The first public set will come from a short ‘First Look’ program of roughly three to five observations chosen for public appeal and to show off the telescope’s capabilities. Roman Atlas checks NASA every 15 minutes and will show them as soon as they are posted.

## When did the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launch?

Roman launched on August 30, 2026, at 7:26 a.m. EDT aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

## Where is the Roman Space Telescope now?

Roman is travelling to, or orbiting, the second Sun–Earth Lagrange point (L2), about 1 million miles (1.5 million km) from Earth on the side opposite the Sun. Our Mission Control page shows its live distance and speed from NASA/JPL Horizons.

## How is Roman different from Hubble?

Roman has a 2.4-meter mirror, the same size as Hubble’s, and similar sharpness, but its 300-megapixel Wide Field Instrument sees an area of sky at least 100 times larger in a single shot. That lets Roman survey the sky roughly 1,000 times faster than Hubble.

## How is Roman different from the James Webb Space Telescope?

Webb has a much larger 6.5-meter mirror and sees farther into the infrared, so it takes deeper, more detailed close-ups of individual targets. Roman trades that depth for a vastly wider view, mapping huge areas of sky. Roman will find rare and interesting objects that Webb can then study in detail.

## What will Roman study?

Roman’s main goals are measuring dark energy and dark matter through wide surveys of galaxies and supernovae, and taking a census of exoplanets through gravitational microlensing toward the center of the Milky Way. Its coronagraph will test technology for photographing planets around other stars.

## How big is a single Roman image?

Each Wide Field Instrument exposure covers about 0.28 square degrees — roughly 1.5 times the area of the full Moon — across 18 detectors totaling about 300 million pixels.

## Are Roman’s images free to use?

Roman’s data will be made public as soon as it is processed, with no exclusive period. Most NASA imagery is not copyrighted, but some images include work from partners; always check the credit line on each image. Roman Atlas links every image to its NASA source page.

## Who was Nancy Grace Roman?

Dr. Nancy Grace Roman (1925–2018) was NASA’s first Chief of Astronomy. She championed telescopes in space, above Earth’s blurring atmosphere, and is known as the ‘mother of the Hubble Space Telescope.’

## How long will the Roman mission last?

Roman’s primary mission is five years, and it is designed to support a five-year extension. Fuel is expected to limit its lifetime, and the observatory was designed so it could be refueled in the future.

## What part of the sky can Roman see?

Roman must point between 54° and 126° from the Sun, which gives it access to about 59 percent of the sky at any moment. As Earth orbits the Sun, that band sweeps around so the whole sky becomes reachable over a year. Our 3D Sky Atlas draws Roman’s viewable band for today.

## Where can scientists get Roman data?

All Roman data is archived and distributed by the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) at STScI, with science support from Caltech/IPAC.