NASA to Unveil Complete Roman Telescope, Host Media Briefing
NASA will host a media briefing on Tuesday, April 21, 2026 at its Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, to showcase the fully assembled Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The telescope, now complete after integration of its two primary segments in Goddard’s largest clean room, is slated for launch by May 2027 with the team maintaining a schedule that could move the flight to the fall of 2026. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, Science Mission Directorate associate administrator Nicky Fox, project manager Jamie Dunn, and senior project scientist Julie McEnery will address the gathering at 4 p.m. EDT, with a live stream on NASA’s YouTube channel. Media must RSVP to Alise Fisher or Rob Garner by the specified deadlines to obtain on‑site credentials.
The Roman Telescope’s construction involved collaboration among NASA Goddard, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech/IPAC, and the Space Telescope Science Institute, with a science team drawn from multiple research institutions. Primary industrial partners include BAE Systems Inc. in Boulder, Colorado; L3Harris Technologies in Rochester, New York; and Teledyne Scientific & Imaging in Thousand Oaks, California, while ESA, JAXA, CNES, and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy contributed additional hardware and expertise. The observatory will deliver deep, panoramic surveys and will test the most advanced space‑borne technology to directly image exoplanets around nearby stars, supporting NASA’s broader search for life. After the briefing, credentialed journalists may tour other Goddard facilities and interview experts on the Lunar Environment Monitoring Station payload for Artemis, the DAVINCI Venus mission, the Habitable Worlds Observatory concept, and the Dragonfly mission to Titan.
Completion of the Roman Telescope marks a milestone for NASA’s flagship survey missions, positioning the United States alongside international partners in next‑generation astrophysics. The telescope’s wide‑field imaging capability is expected to generate unprecedented datasets that will feed into studies of dark energy, galaxy evolution, and planetary systems, reinforcing the scientific case for subsequent observatories such as the Habitable Worlds concept. Its upcoming launch from Kennedy Space Center will follow a final series of pre‑launch tests, concluding a multi‑year development effort that integrates contributions from both U.S. industry and global space agencies.
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