Roman Space Telescope Instruments Come Online for First Time
NASA has begun activating the scientific instruments aboard the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope for the first time, as the observatory makes its way to its final observing post roughly one million miles from Earth.
The Roman Space Telescope, formerly known as WFIRST, launched in January 2025 and is now undergoing a commissioning phase in which engineers systematically power up and calibrate its systems. Among the instruments being brought online is the Wide Field Instrument, the telescope's primary camera designed to survey the sky in infrared light and study dark energy, exoplanets, and other astrophysical phenomena.
The telescope is traveling to the second Lagrange point (L2), a gravitationally stable location about 1.5 million kilometers (932,000 miles) from Earth. Once there, it will join other observatories like the James Webb Space Telescope, though Roman's wider field of view will allow it to survey much larger portions of the sky in a single exposure.
Engineers are carefully checking each subsystem to ensure all components survived the rigors of launch and are functioning as expected. The commissioning process is expected to continue for several months before the telescope begins its official science mission.