Roman Space Telescope's Coronagraph Instrument Arrives to Goddard Space Flight Center
The first of two scientific instruments for NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has arrived to Goddard Space Flight Center.
Designed and built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Roman Coronagraph will advance scientists’ ability to directly image planets and disks around other stars (exoplanets). Coronagraphs work by blocking light from a bright object, like a star, so that the observer can more easily see a faint object, like a planet.
The Roman Coronagraph is designed to detect planets 100 million times fainter than their stars, or 100 to 1,000 times better than existing space-based coronagraphs. The Roman Coronagraph will be capable of directly imaging reflected starlight from a planet akin to Jupiter in size, temperature, and distance from its parent star.
After a cross-country journey, technicians unpack the Coronagraph from the truck, clean the shipping case and push it into NASA's largest cleanroom.
Inside the cleanroom, technicians carefully open the container and unwrap the instrument from the electrostatic protective cover.
Technicians lift the unpacked Coronagraph and place it on a stand prior to inspections.
Post-shipping inspections of the Coronagraph some is with lights off and UV lights.
GoPro timelapse video from moving the coronagraph around the clearoom.
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
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Videographers
- Sophia Roberts (Advocates in Manpower Management, Inc.)
- Scott Wiessinger (eMITS)
Release date
This page was originally published on Tuesday, January 21, 2025.
This page was last updated on Tuesday, January 21, 2025 at 9:46 PM EST.