The field of view is 100 times that of Hubble, with a primary mirror of the same size! Musk's Falcon rocket is set to launch the Roman Space Telescope into orbit tonight.

SpaceX announced on X platform today that the Falcon Heavy rocket has been vertically erected at Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, entering the final preparation stage before launch. The core payload for this mission is NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, scheduled to launch at 7:26 AM Eastern Time on August 30 (7:26 PM Beijing time tonight).

The Roman telescope's primary mirror measures 2.4 meters in diameter, identical to the Hubble Space Telescope, but the biggest difference lies in its "eyes": the Wide Field Instrument (WFI) aboard Roman has a field of view 100 times larger than Hubble's infrared instruments, with each single image covering a vastly larger area of sky, achieving survey speeds up to 1000 times faster than Hubble.

With the same mirror size, Roman achieves a generational leap in efficiency through more advanced detectors and a wide-field design.

According to mission planning, the Roman telescope will be deployed into orbit at the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point, approximately 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, sharing the same orbital region as the James Webb Space Telescope.

The mission's design life is 5 years, with a target extension to 10 years. Its scientific mission focuses on three main areas:

First, studying the nature of dark energy and the accelerated expansion of the universe through observations of supernovae and weak gravitational lensing effects;

Second, searching for exoplanets using the microlensing method, expected to discover thousands of exoplanets;

Third, directly imaging exoplanets using coronagraph technology, marking the first time a space telescope will have this capability.

Its Wide Field Instrument is equipped with a 300-megapixel mosaic detector composed of 18 H4RG sensors, capable of simultaneous imaging and slitless spectroscopy.

In addition to the Wide Field Instrument, Roman also carries a technology demonstration coronagraph developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which will test key technologies needed for future direct observation of Earth-like planets.

The Falcon Heavy is SpaceX's most powerful operational rocket, and this launch will deliver the approximately 9,174 kg Roman telescope (including fuel and propulsion systems) into its intended orbit.

Approximately 31.5 minutes after launch, the rocket's upper stage will release the telescope into an escape trajectory, after which the telescope will fly on its own for about 3 months to reach the L2 point. This is the first time Falcon Heavy has flown a NASA flagship-class science mission, and the most significant scientific payload launch for the rocket since its maiden flight in 2018.

NASA stated that after the Roman telescope reaches orbit and undergoes several months of commissioning, it is expected to begin formal scientific observations in early 2027, when it will map the universe with unprecedented efficiency, potentially achieving breakthrough discoveries in the three frontier fields of dark energy, dark matter, and exoplanets.