Time to launch another space telescope!
| Scheduled for (UTC) | 2026-08-30 11:26:04 | |
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| | Scheduled for (local) | 2026-08-30 07:26:04 (EDT) | | Launch site | LC-39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida. | | Launch vehicle | Falcon Heavy | | Center | B1105-1 (expendable) | | Booster | B1072-3 (LZ-2) | | Booster | B1104-1 (LZ-40) | | Customer | NASA | | Payload | Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope | | Mass | 9,174 kg | | Target Orbit | Sun-Earth L2 |
Livestreams
| Stream | Link | |
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| | NASA | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wq3VHsL_bE | | NASASpaceflight | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8yDQhVgypw | | International Rocket Launches | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj19LFKSaFw | | Space Affairs | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5q6XP71_LYI | | Everyday Astronaut | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6Ww6kQN4Qw | | Spaceflight Now | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ab0UUfVN1w8 | | The Launch Pad | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj8tDhC1Rb0 | | Avid Space | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBcmBRrNqUw | | SpaceX | https://x.com/SpaceX/status/2094006807245066584 | | The Space Devs | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Hr08IfmvRo |
Stats
Sourced from NextSpaceflight and r/SpaceX:
☑️ 2nd launch from LC-39A this year
☑️ 122 days, 21:13:04 turnaround for this pad
☑️ 2nd Falcon Heavy launch this year, 13th overall
☑️ 673rd and 674th Falcon recovery attempts
☑️ 209th consecutive successful Falcon 9 / FH launch (if successful)
☑️ 105th SpaceX mission this year, 715th overall (excluding Starship test flights)
☑️ 105th SpaceX launch this year, 724th overall (including Starship test flights)
Payload info:
The Roman Space Telescope is a NASA observatory designed to settle essential questions in the areas of dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics. The telescope has a primary mirror that is 2.4 meters in diameter (7.9 feet) and is the same size as the Hubble Space Telescope's primary mirror. The Roman Space Telescope will have two instruments: the Wide Field Instrument and the Coronagraph Instrument.
The Wide Field Instrument will have a field of view that is 100 times greater than the Hubble infrared instrument, capturing more of the sky with less observing time. As the primary instrument, the Wide Field Instrument will measure light from a billion galaxies over the course of the mission lifetime. It will perform a microlensing survey of the inner Milky Way to find ~2,600 exoplanets. The Coronagraph Instrument will perform high-contrast imaging and spectroscopy of individual nearby exoplanets.
