About this Episode
NASA has launched its first space telescope named after a woman. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope lifted off from Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket on Sunday. It will study dark energy, black holes, exoplanets, supernovae and billions of galaxies, surveying the sky up to 1,000 times faster than Hubble. Roman will eventually operate around 1.6 million kilometres from Earth, with its first images expected in early 2027.
The telescope is named after Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first Chief of Astronomy and its first female executive. She joined the agency in 1959 and helped establish its space astronomy programme, including laying the groundwork for the Hubble Space Telescope. Roman also faced barriers throughout her career because she was a woman in a field then overwhelmingly dominated by men.
NASA’s most famous person-named space observatories have historically honoured men. Roman, who died in 2018, became the first woman to receive that recognition when NASA renamed the mission in her honour in 2020.
