Technicians and engineers inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida clean and inspect the Solar Array Sun Shield (SASS) on the agency’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Wednesday, July 8, 2026. The SASS is made up of six solar array panels, with the two center panels fixed while the four outer ones are deployed once in orbit. The Roman team will orient the SASS toward the Sun to provide power to the entire observatory and shade the telescope and instruments beneath. NASA designed this flagship mission to help astronomers explore dark matter, dark energy, and exoplanets.

Technicians and engineers inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida clean and inspect the Solar Array Sun Shield (SASS) on the agency’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Wednesday, July 8, 2026. The SASS is made up of six solar array panels, with the two center panels fixed while the four outer ones are deployed once in orbit. The Roman team will orient the SASS toward the Sun to provide power to the entire observatory and shade the telescope and instruments beneath. NASA designed this flagship mission to help astronomers explore dark matter, dark energy, and exoplanets.

Technicians and engineers inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida clean and inspect the Solar Array Sun Shield (SASS) on the agency’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Wednesday, July 8, 2026. The SASS is made up of six solar array panels, with the two center panels fixed while the four outer ones are deployed once in orbit. The Roman team will orient the SASS toward the Sun to provide power to the entire observatory and shade the telescope and instruments beneath. NASA designed this flagship mission to help astronomers explore dark matter, dark energy, and exoplanets.

Technicians and engineers inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida clean and inspect the Solar Array Sun Shield (SASS) on the agency’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Thursday, July 9, 2026. The SASS is made up of six solar array panels, with the two center panels fixed while the four outer ones are deployed once in orbit. The Roman team will orient the SASS toward the Sun to provide power to the entire observatory and shade the telescope and instruments beneath. NASA designed this flagship mission to help astronomers explore dark matter, dark energy, and exoplanets.

Technicians and engineers inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida clean and inspect the Solar Array Sun Shield (SASS) on the agency’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Thursday, July 9, 2026. The SASS is made up of six solar array panels, with the two center panels fixed while the four outer ones are deployed once in orbit. The Roman team will orient the SASS toward the Sun to provide power to the entire observatory and shade the telescope and instruments beneath. NASA designed this flagship mission to help astronomers explore dark matter, dark energy, and exoplanets.

During a key integration milestone for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, technicians and engineers from the agency's Jet Propulsion Lab in Southern California gather inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday, July 8, 2026, following the closeout of the observatory’s Coronagraph Instrument test connector panel. Roman carries one science instrument called the Wide Field Instrument, and one technology demonstration called the Roman Coronagraph Instrument. The coronagraph is a system of masks, prisms, detectors, and even self-flexing mirrors built to block out the glare from distant stars and directly image the planets in orbit around them. The Roman Coronagraph will be the first active coronagraph to fly in space, meaning it contains components that actively respond to variables that would usually cause starlight to scatter, making it harder to see nearby planets.

A technician inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida installs a memory card containing a total of 1,350,144 names as part of a commemorative plaque on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Friday, July 17, 2026. The names, submitted by people from across the globe, including astronauts from NASA’s Artemis II and Artemis III missions, will travel with the Roman observatory to the Sun-Earth Lagrange point 2, or L2, about one million miles from Earth, where the Sun’s and Earth’s gravity balance out. Roman is named after Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer and one of the architects of the agency’s modern science program.

Inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harry Willems, a mechanical technician from the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, installs a memory card containing a total of 1,350,144 names as part of a commemorative plaque on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Friday, July 17, 2026. The names, submitted by people from across the globe, including astronauts from NASA’s Artemis II and Artemis III missions, will travel with the Roman observatory to the Sun-Earth Lagrange point 2, or L2, about one million miles from Earth, where the Sun’s and Earth’s gravity balance out. Roman is named after Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer and one of the architects of the agency’s modern science program.

A technician inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida installs a memory card containing a total of 1,350,144 names as part of a commemorative plaque on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Friday, July 17, 2026. The names, submitted by people from across the globe, including astronauts from NASA’s Artemis II and Artemis III missions, will travel with the Roman observatory to the Sun-Earth Lagrange point 2, or L2, about one million miles from Earth, where the Sun’s and Earth’s gravity balance out. Roman is named after Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer and one of the architects of the agency’s modern science program.

A technician inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida installs a memory card containing a total of 1,350,144 names as part of a commemorative plaque on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Friday, July 17, 2026. The names, submitted by people from across the globe, including astronauts from NASA’s Artemis II and Artemis III missions, will travel with the Roman observatory to the Sun-Earth Lagrange point 2, or L2, about one million miles from Earth, where the Sun’s and Earth’s gravity balance out. Roman is named after Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer and one of the architects of the agency’s modern science program.

A technician inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida installs a memory card containing a total of 1,350,144 names as part of a commemorative plaque on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Friday, July 17, 2026. The names, submitted by people from across the globe, including astronauts from NASA’s Artemis II and Artemis III missions, will travel with the Roman observatory to the Sun-Earth Lagrange point 2, or L2, about one million miles from Earth, where the Sun’s and Earth’s gravity balance out. Roman is named after Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer and one of the architects of the agency’s modern science program.

A technician inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida installs a memory card containing a total of 1,350,144 names as part of a commemorative plaque on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Friday, July 17, 2026. The names, submitted by people from across the globe, including astronauts from NASA’s Artemis II and Artemis III missions, will travel with the Roman observatory to the Sun-Earth Lagrange point 2, or L2, about one million miles from Earth, where the Sun’s and Earth’s gravity balance out. Roman is named after Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer and one of the architects of the agency’s modern science program.

Technicians inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida install a commemorative plaque on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Monday, July 27, 2026. In addition to honoring the legacy of Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer and one of the architects of the agency’s modern science program, the plaque features a memory card containing a total of 1,350,144 names submitted by people from across the globe, including astronauts from NASA’s Artemis II and Artemis III missions. The Roman observatory will travel to the Sun-Earth Lagrange point 2, or L2, about one million miles from Earth, where the Sun’s and Earth’s gravity balance out, to complete a statistical census of planetary systems in our galaxy and settle essential questions in the areas of dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics.

Technicians inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida install a commemorative plaque on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Monday, July 27, 2026. In addition to honoring the legacy of Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer and one of the architects of the agency’s modern science program, the plaque features a memory card containing a total of 1,350,144 names submitted by people from across the globe, including astronauts from NASA’s Artemis II and Artemis III missions. The Roman observatory will travel to the Sun-Earth Lagrange point 2, or L2, about one million miles from Earth, where the Sun’s and Earth’s gravity balance out, to complete a statistical census of planetary systems in our galaxy and settle essential questions in the areas of dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics.

Technicians inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center complete installation of a commemorative plaque on the agency’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, as photographed on Tuesday, July 28, 2026. In addition to honoring the legacy of Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer and one of the architects of the agency’s modern science program, the plaque features a memory card containing a total of 1,350,144 names submitted by people from across the globe, including astronauts from NASA’s Artemis II and Artemis III missions. The Roman observatory will travel to the Sun-Earth Lagrange point 2, or L2, about one million miles from Earth, where the Sun’s and Earth’s gravity balance out, to complete a statistical census of planetary systems in our galaxy and settle essential questions in the areas of dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics.

Technicians inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center complete installation of a commemorative plaque on the agency’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, as photographed on Tuesday, July 28, 2026. In addition to honoring the legacy of Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer and one of the architects of the agency’s modern science program, the plaque features a memory card containing a total of 1,350,144 names submitted by people from across the globe, including astronauts from NASA’s Artemis II and Artemis III missions. The Roman observatory will travel to the Sun-Earth Lagrange point 2, or L2, about one million miles from Earth, where the Sun’s and Earth’s gravity balance out, to complete a statistical census of planetary systems in our galaxy and settle essential questions in the areas of dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics.

Technicians inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center complete installation of a commemorative plaque on the agency’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, as photographed on Tuesday, July 28, 2026. In addition to honoring the legacy of Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer and one of the architects of the agency’s modern science program, the plaque features a memory card containing a total of 1,350,144 names submitted by people from across the globe, including astronauts from NASA’s Artemis II and Artemis III missions. The Roman observatory will travel to the Sun-Earth Lagrange point 2, or L2, about one million miles from Earth, where the Sun’s and Earth’s gravity balance out, to complete a statistical census of planetary systems in our galaxy and settle essential questions in the areas of dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics.