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NASA to Host Media Briefing on Roman Telescope, Launching Next Month

✇NASA Breaking News
By: Jessica Taveau
21 July 2026 at 16:07
A large silver and gray space telescope sits in a brightly lit, white clean room. Team members in blue suits work on the telescope from orange mechanical lifts.
Technicians and engineers at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida use a crane to lift the agency’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope to a specialized work stand June 26, 2026, as the mission prepares to launch nine months ahead of schedule. The Roman Space Telescope will offer a field of view at least 100 times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope’s, resulting in deep, sweeping explorations of the cosmos.
Credit: NASA/Sydney Rohde (Rocz)

Media are invited to join NASA for a virtual news conference at 2 p.m. EDT, Wednesday, July 29, to preview the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope mission, scheduled to launch from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday, Aug. 30.

NASA will stream this event live through a variety of platforms. Learn where to watch online: https://www.nasa.gov/live.

Participants in the briefing, who will provide an overview of the mission and its status, include:

  • Shawn Domagal-Goldman, director, Astrophysics Division, NASA Headquarters in Washington
  • Jackie Townsend, Roman telescope project manager, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland
  • Julie McEnery, Roman telescope senior project scientist, NASA Goddard
  • Jeremy Perkins, Roman telescope integration and test scientist, NASA Goddard

Media interested in participating by phone must RSVP no later than two hours prior to the start of the briefing to Rob Garner at rob.garner@nasa.gov. A copy of NASA’s media accreditation policy is online.  

Named after NASA’s first chief astronomer, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will have a deep, panoramic view of the cosmos, generating never-before-seen pictures that will revolutionize our understanding of the universe. The observatory will usher in a new era of cosmic surveys, unveiling troves of celestial objects and shedding light on some of the universe’s most profound mysteries, including phenomena we can’t see. Roman also will showcase cutting-edge technology, including a test of the most advanced technology ever flown in space to directly image planets around nearby stars, a key step in NASA’s search for life on other worlds.

The Roman telescope is managed at NASA Goddard with participation by the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California; Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, California; the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore; and a team of scientists from various research institutions. The primary industrial partners are BAE Systems Inc., L3Harris Technologies, and Teledyne Scientific & Imaging. Contributions to Roman also are made by ESA (European Space Agency), JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), the French space agency CNES (Centre National d’Études Spatiales), and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany.

For more information about NASA’s Roman telescope, visit:

https://nasa.gov/roman

-end-

Alise Fisher
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-2546
alise.m.fisher@nasa.gov

Claire Andreoli / Rob Garner
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
301-286-1940 / 301-286-5687
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov / rob.garner@nasa.gov

NASA Invites Media to Roman Space Telescope, Crew-13 Launches

✇NASA Breaking News
By: Lauren E. Low
17 July 2026 at 14:00
Credit: NASA

Media accreditation now is open for the launch of NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and the agency’s SpaceX Crew-13 missions, both targeting launch in the coming months.

The Roman telescope is slated to launch no earlier than 7:20 a.m. EDT Sunday, Aug. 30, aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The observatory, named after NASA’s first chief astronomer, will have a deep, panoramic view of the cosmos, generating never-before-seen pictures that will revolutionize our understanding of the universe.

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is seen here in the clean room at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, where the observatory was built and tested. Roman’s vast, deep surveys will explore dark matter, dark energy, exoplanets, and almost anything from our own solar system to galaxies at the edge of the observable universe.
Credit: NASA/Jolearra Tshiteya

Crew-13 is scheduled to launch no earlier than mid-September from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The mission will carry NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Joshua Kutryk, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov to the International Space Station for a science and research expedition. This will be NASA’s 13th commercial crew rotation mission with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft.

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-13 members are pictured in their pressure suits seated inside a mockup Dragon spacecraft during a preflight training session at the company’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California. From left to right, Roscosmos Sergey Teteryatnikov, NASA astronauts Luke Delaney and Jessica Watkins, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Joshua Kutryk.
Credit: SpaceX

Media interested in attending either or both launches must apply by the following deadlines:

  • International media without U.S. citizenship must apply by 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, July 26.
  • U.S. media and U.S. citizens representing international media organizations must apply by 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, July 30.

All accreditation requests must be submitted online at:

https://media.ksc.nasa.gov

NASA’s media accreditation policy is online. For questions about accreditation or special logistical requests, email: ksc-media-accreditat@mail.nasa.gov.

For other questions, please contact NASA Kennedy’s newsroom at: 321-867-2468.

For more information about these missions, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov

-end-

Alise Fisher (Roman) / Joshua Finch (Crew-13)
Headquarters, Washington
202-385-1287 / 202-358-2546
alise.m.fisher@nasa.gov / joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov

Leejay Lockhart (Roman) / Steve Siceloff (Crew-13)
Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
321-747-8310 / 321-867-2468
leejay.lockhart@nasa.gov / steven.p.siceloff@nasa.gov

Claire Andreoli (Roman)
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
301-286-1940
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov

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