Will NASA's Roman Space Telescope launch on Aug 30 as scheduled?

NASA's Roman Space Telescope launched as scheduled on August 30, 2026, lifting off at 7:26 a.m. EDT on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A. The mission had been fueled and prepared through late summer after NASA set a "late August" launch target in late July, and the countdown proceeded without a scrub. The telescope separated from the rocket about 31 minutes into flight, beginning its journey to the Sun-Earth Lagrange point 2.

The on-time liftoff came after years of development for the observatory, previously known as WFIRST before being renamed for Nancy Grace Roman, NASA's first chief astronomer. Once operational, it will survey large swaths of the sky to study dark energy and dark matter, search for exoplanets, and complement observations from Hubble and Webb.

Predict Six's community assigned a 79 percent probability that the launch would occur on schedule, reflecting the mission's smooth pre-launch testing. That confidence was borne out: the launch proceeded on August 30 with no delays, matching the community's majority expectation.