What is Roman?

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is NASA's next flagship wide-field observatory and an ESA Mission of Opportunity. Scheduled for launch in 2026, Roman combines a 2.4-metre telescope with the Wide Field Imager, delivering Hubble-quality imaging and slitless spectroscopy over a field of view more than 100 times larger than that of the Hubble Space Telescope's IR camera. Through a combination of Core Community Surveys and competitively selected General Astrophysics Surveys, Roman will produce some of the largest and most powerful astronomical datasets ever obtained from space.

Science with Roman

Roman is designed to address some of the most important questions in modern astrophysics. Its surveys will enable precision cosmology, including measurements of dark energy through weak lensing, galaxy clustering, and supernova observations, while also revealing how galaxies form and evolve across cosmic time. Roman will explore the transient Universe, discover rare and extreme astrophysical phenomena, and conduct a census of exoplanet populations through microlensing and direct imaging.

Roman occupies a unique discovery space between the ultra-deep observations of the James Webb Space Telescope and the wide-area cosmological surveys of Euclid. By combining survey-scale coverage with the sensitivity needed to study individual objects in detail, Roman will provide an unprecedented link between statistical population studies and the physical processes that shape the Universe.

Data and Community Access

A defining feature of Roman is its open-science model. Mission data will be released with no proprietary period and made available through the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST), while higher-level survey products will be released periodically throughout the mission. Analysis will be supported by the Roman Research Nexus, a cloud-based platform that brings together data, software, and scalable computing resources, enabling large-scale and collaborative science by the global astronomical community.

ESA and Roman

Roman is an ESA Mission of Opportunity, providing Europe with the opportunity to participate in one of the most ambitious astronomical survey missions ever undertaken. ESA contributes key hardware to the mission, including elements of the spacecraft's attitude-control and power systems, as well as components supporting the Roman Coronagraph Instrument. ESA also supports mission operations through its deep-space ground station network and works closely with NASA and the Roman Science Centers to maximise the scientific return of the observatory.

Related Links

• ESA-Appointed Scientists
• Engage with Roman!
• Roman Community Events
• Roman Research Nexus
• Roman Documentation (RDox)