Roman Mission Dress Rehearsal, Hangar X and AE

Anna Vastola, mission chief engineer, with the Launch Services Program at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, participates in a mission dress rehearsal for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026, inside SpaceX’s Hangar X at NASA Kennedy in Florida. Teams ran through a full end-to-end simulation of every major step they will experience on launch day except liftoff, including powering up the spacecraft, fueling the rocket, conducting weather briefings, and other operations.