NASA is gearing up to launch its next flagship space telescope – combining spy technology with sophisticated infrared detectors

NASA is preparing to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope as early as August 2026, using hardware originally built by the National Reconnaissance Office and handed off in 2012 when the spy agency no longer needed it.

The telescope's wide field of view, a byproduct of its espionage-grade optics, lets it capture roughly a hundred times more sky per image than Hubble despite a similarly sized mirror. Its 18 infrared detectors, upgraded versions of technology used on Webb, will survey a billion galaxies, hunt rogue planets, and test methods for spotting Earth-like worlds around distant stars.

The author, a researcher who helped develop the detector technology decades ago, frames the mission as the payoff of a long chain of Nobel-worthy detector science, from dark energy discoveries to the Milky Way's supermassive black hole.

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