Part of the story is everyone being shocked at being under budget and ahead of schedule. I don't know everything, but I think this is reasonably attributable to the fact that this is a retrofit of an obsolete spy satellite. The leftovers of the security sector will be the most advanced scientific space surveyor. I have to wonder what things would look like with different priorities.
Roman is scheduled to launch tomorrow (Aug 30) on a Falcon Heavy rocket:<p><a href="https://www.space.com/news/live/nancy-grace-roman-telescope-live-updates-nasa-readies-roman-for-launch-august-29-2026" rel="nofollow">https://www.space.com/news/live/nancy-grace-roman-telescope-...</a>
For some tasks, surveys in particular, field of view is critical. You would need many Hubble telescopes to do what Roman can do mapping everything out there.<p>"What really makes Roman stand out is that it is designed for wide-field imaging. The cameras on telescopes can often only detect objects in a very small patch of sky. If we use the size that the full moon appears in the sky as our guide, Hubble’s field of view is often smaller than that —meaning each picture it takes is of a patch of sky smaller than the full moon. Webb’s instruments often are even smaller than Hubble’s. Each picture taken by Roman, however, will be larger than the full moon, allowing it to survey more of the sky much faster than Hubble or Webb."<p><a href="https://science.psu.edu/news/ask-expert-will-roman-help-reveal-long-kept-secrets-universe" rel="nofollow">https://science.psu.edu/news/ask-expert-will-roman-help-reve...</a>
Thankfully, it is not Nancy Ann Grace.
I'm still holding my breath on this one, will be most amazing telescope in my lifetime<p>parked in L2 a million miles away with 500mbps data transfer rate (1.5TB per DAY)<p>we've made it past DOGE destroying it<p>we've made it past him renaming it after himself and putting his mugshot on it<p>but Musk still needs to send it out of orbit without explosions, so here's hoping<p>(Falcon Heavy, don't tell me the odds)<p>* <a href="https://nextspaceflight.com/launches/details/6983/" rel="nofollow">https://nextspaceflight.com/launches/details/6983/</a><p>* JWST vs Roman comparison <a href="https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14942/" rel="nofollow">https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14942/</a><p>* <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/nasas-nancy-grace-roman-space-telescope-coronagraph-leap/" rel="nofollow">https://www.wired.com/story/nasas-nancy-grace-roman-space-te...</a><p>* <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nasas-roman-space-telescope-could-find-alien-earths-but-not-like-you-think/" rel="nofollow">https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nasas-roman-space...</a><p>* <a href="https://www.npr.org/2026/08/28/nx-s1-5905370/nasa-nancy-grace-roman-space-telescope-dark-energy-supernova" rel="nofollow">https://www.npr.org/2026/08/28/nx-s1-5905370/nasa-nancy-grac...</a><p>did not know and it's horrific Roman started as a billion dollar spy satellite sitting in a warehouse unused, but okay we got the crumbs from $20 Trillion in military spending I guess<p>oh and while the smallest planet Roman can image will be Jupiter-sized, Roman's successor would be able to image earth-like planets<p>except The Habitale Worlds Observatory Space Telescope HWO was scheduled for 2040 and now will not happen in my lifetime because DOGE got that one, Congress awarded it $150 Million and DOGE changed it to $5 Million<p>* <a href="https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/programs/habitable-worlds-observatory/" rel="nofollow">https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/programs/habitable-wor...</a><p>* <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitable_Worlds_Observatory" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitable_Worlds_Observatory</a>
Is it really 500 Mbps of data headed to Earth 24x7? I'd be very interested to see any available public info about the earth station infrastructure being set up for that.
> except The Habitale Worlds Observatory Space Telescope HWO was scheduled for 2040 and now will not happen in my lifetime because DOGE got that one, Congress awarded it $150 Million and DOGE changed it to $5 Million<p>I was so excited for this. It was the one thing I really wanted to see happen in my own lifetime.<p>What a deeply moronic waste.
It is not 500mbps but 500Mbps. <a href="https://science.nasa.gov/mission/roman-space-telescope/communications/#HGA" rel="nofollow">https://science.nasa.gov/mission/roman-space-telescope/commu...</a><p>500 megabits per second works out to 54 terabytes per day. No idea where you get 1.5, unless you were thinking of 500Mb/hour!<p>60 × 60 × 24 × 500 × 1000000 ÷ 8