Trump Praises NASA's Launch of Dark Universe-Seeking Telescope
President Donald J. Trump took to Truth Social on Sunday to commend NASA for the successful launch of its Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The launch, which took place at 7:26 a.m. EDT from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, marks a significant step in the agency's efforts to explore the dark universe.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, who was praised by Trump as a 'Great Patriot,' highlighted the telescope's potential to create a new atlas of the universe. The mission aims to probe dark matter, dark energy, and exoplanets, promising to expand our understanding of the cosmos.
The telescope, launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, is now on a three-month journey to its final orbit near the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point. It will return 1.4 terabytes of data per day, the highest data rate for any NASA astrophysics mission to date.
With a field of view at least 100 times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope, the Roman telescope is expected to map billions of galaxies and discover approximately 100,000 new exoplanets. The first science images are anticipated by early 2027, following a commissioning and calibration period.
The mission was delivered ahead of schedule and on budget, with a total program lifecycle cost estimated at $4.3 billion.