NASA's $4.3bn Roman space telescope is set to launch on Sunday after surviving two rounds of Trump budget cuts

Nancy Grace Roman, whose stubborn determination broke barriers in science, is honoured by the $4.3bn infrared telescope launching Sunday to survey billions of galaxies.

Roman's 2.4-metre mirror was repurposed from surplus military spy-satellite hardware originally built to point downward at Earth, not out into the cosmos.

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is scheduled to lift off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 7.26am ET on Sunday, weather and technical conditions permitting. Named for NASA's first chief of astronomy, the 18,000-pound observatory survived two White House attempts to cancel it and will survey the cosmos at a rate 1,000 times greater than Hubble's. Its 300-megapixel infrared camera has a field of view 100 times wider than Hubble's, with a single frame covering an area equivalent to 45 city blocks.

Roman's mirror began life aboard a spy satellite before being repurposed for the $4.3bn science mission.

NASA administrator Jared Isaacman says Roman will 'give the Earth a new atlas of the universe' by probing dark matter, dark energy and potentially habitable planets.

Hubble took 30 years to transmit 172 terabytes of data; Roman is expected to deliver 2,500 terabytes within just five years.

Yahoo News UKNASA's newest space telescope launches on a quest to explore the hidden universe Spaceflight NowRoman Space Telescope, NASA’s next ‘great observatory,’ poised for Sunday launch - Spaceflight Now The New York TimesNASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Telescope Promises a Breakthrough in Cosmic Exploration - The New York Times

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