Beyer Hails Successful Launch Of Nancy Grace Roman Telescope

U.S. Representative Don Beyer (D-VA) today issued a statement applauding the successful launch yesterday of the SpaceX Heavy Falcon that will deliver NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Telescope to its target destination at the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point (L2). Beyer, former Chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology’s Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, previously led congressional efforts that successfully protected funding for the telescope’s development from two attempts to cancel the project, then called the “Wide Field InfraRed Survey Telescope (WFIRST),” during the first Trump Administration. “It is thrilling and deeply gratifying to see the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope go up successfully, and I cannot wait to see the discoveries unlocked by this flagship scientific project for NASA,” said Rep. Beyer. “A decade ago, when I was new to Congress and serving on the House Science Committee, I asked then-NASA Administrator and former astronaut Charles Bolden what NASA’s purpose should be. Without hesitation he said, ‘science.’ That exchange stuck with me, and it was in my mind when I urged my colleagues to reject the Trump Administration’s efforts to cancel this project. I’m glad they listened, and I look forward to the things we will learn from this telescope over the lifetime of its mission as it explores exoplanets, dark energy, and the nature of the universe. I congratulate the team at NASA and all those who worked on this project on this success, with gratitude and hope for all we will learn in the time ahead.” Per NASA: Named after NASA’s first chief astronomer, the ‘mother of the Hubble Space Telescope,’ the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will have a field of view at least 100 times larger than Hubble's, potentially measuring light from a billion galaxies in its lifetime. This observatory will also be able to block starlight to directly see exoplanets and planet-forming disks, complete a statistical census of planetary systems in our galaxy, and settle essential questions in the areas of dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics.