NASA's Roman Space Telescope Hardware Highlights: Summer 2023

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.

In this video, covering the summer of 2023, the focal plane array, which contains Roman’s 18 detectors, appears in the clean room. This massive array will be the heart of the Wide Field Instrument, Roman’s primary camera for observing the universe. The instrument carrier arrives at Goddard and is cleaned and inspected. The instrument carrier will sit between the primary structure and primary mirror and will hold the Wide Field Instrument and Coronagraph Instrument technology demonstration. The high gain antenna will be Roman’s main communication with Earth. This 5.6-foot (1.7-meter) wide dish is carefully attached to an arm connected to the back of the spacecraft. A copy of the Deployable Aperture Cover goes through testing. It sits at the front of the spacecraft. During launch it will cover and protect the telescope optics. After launch it will deploy to shade them. The spacecraft harness is lowered into the primary structure. The harness is 45 miles of intricate wiring that connects all Roman’s systems to each other providing communication and power throughout the spacecraft.

To learn more about all these systems and where they fit into Roman, visit https://roman.gsfc.nasa.gov/interactive/.

Launching no later than May 2027, Roman is NASA’s next flagship astrophysics mission. An infrared survey telescope with the same resolution as Hubble but at least 100 times the field of view, Roman is being built and tested at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Partners from around the globe are contributing to this effort.

Music credit: “Unseen,” David Husband [PRS], Universal Production Music

Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Producer: Scott Wiessinger (KBR Wyle Services, LLC)
Videographers: Sophia Roberts (Advocates in Manpower Management, Inc.)
Scott Wiessinger (KBR Wyle Services, LLC)
Public affairs officer: Claire Andreoli (NASA/GSFC)
Editor: Scott Wiessinger (KBR Wyle Services, LLC)

This video can be freely shared and downloaded at https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14491. While the video in its entirety can be shared without permission, the music and some individual imagery may have been obtained through permission and may not be excised or remixed in other products. Specific details on such imagery may be found here: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14491. For more information on NASA’s media guidelines, visit https://nasa.gov/multimedia/guidelines.

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