Now Playing
Roman Reaches the Launchpad, Interstellar Methane & Starlink Scrub
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
NASA's Roman Space Telescope has left California and is headed to its Florida launch complex, with liftoff pulled forward to September 2026. Plus: Webb detects methane on interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS in a first for any visitor from another star system.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is on the move. The four-billion-dollar observatory departed its California clean room this week and is now making its way to Florida aboard the Pegasus barge, bound for Launch Complex thirty-nine A.
The comparison to Hubble is useful, but the more important frame is what Roman does that no current telescope can. It will use both the transit method and gravitational microlensing to find planets in galactic regions too dense or too distant for conventional searches.
While Roman is still months from launch, the James Webb Space Telescope produced a result this week that's worth pausing on. Webb detected methane on interstellar comet three-I-slash-ATLAS, the third confirmed interstellar object ever found passing through our solar system.
Closer to home, SpaceX scrubbed its Starlink ten-forty-three launch from Cape Canaveral on June third due to poor weather. The mission carries twenty-nine satellites and has been rescheduled for June fourth.
The near-term watchpoints are straightforward. Roman's arrival at Launch Complex thirty-nine A will mark the start of final pre-launch integration.
Chapter summary auto-generated from the verified script. Listen to the full episode for the complete content.