A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket launched NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at Kennedy Space Center at 7:26 a.m. on 30 August 2026.

This is the first and third flight for the two first stage side boosters supporting this mission, which previously launched the GOES-U and Viasat-3 F3 missions. Following stage separation, Falcon Heavy’s two side boosters landed on SpaceX’s Landing Zones 2 and 40 (LZ-2 and LZ-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

The Roman Space Telescope is a NASA flagship observatory designed to study dark energy and dark matter to help scientists unravel mysteries of the universe. Once at its final destination at Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 2, Roman will have an unobstructed view of the universe, and with a wide field of view at least 100 times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope, Roman will be able to map billions of galaxies, discover new exoplanets, study black holes, and more.

Named after NASA’s first chief astronomer, the ‘mother of the Hubble Space Telescope,’ the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will potentially measure light from a billion galaxies in its lifetime. This observatory will also be able to block starlight to directly see exoplanets and planet-forming disks, complete a statistical census of planetary systems in our galaxy, and settle essential questions in the areas of dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics.