NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope: Summer/Fall 2024 Hardware Updates
Every day, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope moves closer to completion. This video highlights some of the important hardware milestones from part of this journey. Components and systems are built separately, tested, and then integrated with larger parts of the spacecraft to carefully build the full observatory. Roman’s foundation is the primary structure, or spacecraft bus, which houses electronics and support systems. Like the chassis of a car, everything is built up from this aluminum hexagon.
This video, covering the summer and fall of 2024, opens with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center’s Space Environment Simulator. This thermal vacuum chamber is used to test Roman’s Instrument Carrier, which will hold and connect the instruments and mirror. Once the hardware is in place, the chamber evacuates the air and generates high and low temperature extremes to simulate the conditions in space.
Launching no later than May 2027, Roman is NASA’s next flagship mission. An infrared survey telescope with the same resolution as Hubble, but 100 times the field of view, Roman is being built and tested at NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Partners from across the country are contributing to this effort.
Dr. Nancy Grace Roman:
In this video, workers carefully deploy Roman’s High-Gain Antenna to ensure that it will operate as expected. The 5.6-foot (1.7-meter) dish is Roman’s primary means of communication and will be responsible for sending roughly 1.4 terabytes of data back to Earth each day. The Outer Barrel Assembly is tested on Goddard’s 120-foot-diameter centrifuge. This structure will surround and protect Roman’s primary mirror from stray light. Engineers add weights to simulate additional hardware and tip the Outer Barrel Assembly at different angles over multiple spins to certify that it can withstand all the forces it will experience over its life.
The Wide Field Instrument (WFI), Roman’s primary science tool, arrives at Goddard after testing at BAE Systems where it was built. Workers push a sealed crate into the clean room where they can remove the WFI and test it to ensure it made the trip safely. The Optical Telescope Assembly is a combination of the 7.9-foot (2.4-meter) primary mirror, the smaller secondary mirror, and many additional optical elements designed to direct the focused beam of light to Roman’s two instruments. It was built and tested at L3Harris and is the last major piece of hardware to arrive at Goddard. Its special shipping container will also house the completed Roman telescope when it leaves for launch.
The Coronagraph Instrument is the first major component integrated, or connected, to the Instrument Carrier. The Coronagraph is a technology demonstration capable of directly image planets outside our solar system, was developed and built at JPL in California.
The Optical Telescope Assembly is the next piece integrated. It has to be carefully aligned with the Coronagraph so that light from the mirrors can perfectly pass through an opening in the Coronagraph. First comes mechanical integration, where the hardware is physically connected, and then comes electrical integration where all the various electrical systems are hooked up.
The final piece is the Wide Field Instrument, which had to go last because of its size and position. Engineers carefully align it with an opening in the Optical Telescope Assembly so light can pass from one to the other. With the addition of this final element, the instruments, mirrors, and carrier are now called the Integrated Payload Assembly. A very large team of engineers and technical crew lift the Integrated Payload Assembly over the Spacecraft Bus and lower it into place. Mechanical integration takes several hours; electrical integration will take days. Now unified, the heart of the Roman spacecraft is complete.
Video Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Producer: Scott Wiessinger (eMITS)
Videographers: Sophia Roberts (eMITS), Scott Wiessinger (eMITS), Rob Andreoli (eMITS), John Philyaw (eMITS)
Additional Time-lapse Photography: Chris Gunn (ASRC Federal System Solutions), Jolearra Tshiteya (ASRC Federal System Solutions), Sydney Rohde (ASRC Federal System Solutions)
Public affairs officer: Claire Andreoli (NASA/GSFC)
Editor: Scott Wiessinger (eMITS)
Duration: 2 minutes, 30 seconds
Release Date: Feb. 25, 2025
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