NASA begins development of Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope's planet-hunting instrument

NASA engineers have begun developing Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s new instrument that will allow scientists to study faint exoplanets orbiting nearby stars. Taking to Twitter last week, agency revealed that instrument is called Roman Coronagraph, which took years of efforts for designing, constructing, and acquiring of its components.

“ Roman Coronagraph Instrument team can now start assembly, integration, & testing! team has spent years designing, constructing, & acquiring coronagraph's components”, agency wrote in its tweet. “It will demonstrate new technologies that will allow us to study faint planets around nearby stars.”

Originally called Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), telescope was renamed after Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer, in 2020. Currently, under development, telescope will launch no earlier than mid-2020s. 

Purpose of Roman Space Telescope

telescope is being developed to solve mysteries over universe’s expansion and look for new worlds beyond our solar system. According to NASA, this telescope will also be used to answer essential questions in areas of dark energy which, according to scientists, has a role in cosmic expansion. 

Fitted with a primary mirror measuring 2.4 meters (7.9 feet) in diameter, Roman Space telescope will have two instruments--  Wide Field Instrument and Coronagraph Instrument, which entered development phase. Although Roman Space Telescope's primary mirror has a size equal to Hubble Space Telescope's, it would have a field of view 100 times greater than latter's infrared instrument. NASA says that this would allow telescope to capture more of sky with less observing time.

On or hand, Coronagraph Instrument, which would be a technology demonstration, will perform high contrast imaging and spectroscopy of individual nearby exoplanets. telescope was renamed after Nancy Grace in 2020 after astronomer who "paved way for space telescopes focused on broer universe", says NASA. 

"It is because of Nancy Grace Roman’s leership and vision that NASA became a pioneer in astrophysics and launched Hubble, world’s most powerful and productive space telescope", former NASA ministrator, Jim Bridenstine h said in a statement. "I can think of no better name for WFIRST, which will be successor to NASA’s Hubble and Webb Telescopes".