Observatory checkout

NASA says the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has completed a comprehensive checkout of the observatory and its primary instrument and entered science commissioning. The team confirmed that Roman can guide, take exposures, move between targets and send data correctly. Test observations of crowded star fields and dust-obscured regions also did not reveal the anticipated difficulties for its fine-guidance system.

Instrument calibration

Engineers and astronomers are calibrating instrument response to light, measuring image stability and refining focus. Small shifts in sharpness or brightness can distort measurements of celestial objects. NASA reports that some systems already exceed minimum requirements.

Roman is designed for wide-area sky surveys. Its Wide Field Instrument is intended to capture large samples of galaxies, stars and planets in one frame. The observatory remains in commissioning ahead of routine science operations.

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