![A plate cover is installed over the detector array for NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope by Principal Technician Billy Keim. Credit: NASA / Chris Gunn](https://www.spaceflightinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/fpalift_03_2023_gunnrevb.jpg)
A plate cover is installed over the detector array for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope by Principal Technician Billy Keim. Credit: NASA / Chris Gunn
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s primary instrument is about to receive its Focal Plane System, what NASA calls the “heart” of the observatory.
Inbuilt Greenbelt, Maryland, by engineers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the FPS was delivered to Ball Aerospace in Colorado to be integrated into the Wide Field Instrument. WFI is the primary camera for the telescope, which has a 7.9-foot (2.4 meter) wide field of view mirror to gather infrared light, in addition to some visible light.
“Roman’s focal plane array is certainly one of the largest that has ever flown onboard a space-based observatory,” Mary Walker, the Roman WFI manager at Goddard, said in a May 16 NASA news release. “Its creation is the product of a few years of innovation from a really dedicated team – one which is eagerly anticipating the incredible science Roman will yield.”
FPS has 18 detectors, each with some 16.8 million pixels, to offer high resolution images to be able to study dark matter, dark energy, seek for exoplanets and more, in line with NASA. After being installed within the WFI, the first instrument will get radiators to shed any excess heat from electronics.
“For optimal performance, the detectors should be operated at minus 288 degrees Fahrenheit, or minus 178 degrees Celsius,” Greg Mosby, a research astrophysicist and Roman detector scientist at Goddard, in NASA’s news release. “Roman’s detectors are so sensitive that nearby components within the Wide Field Instrument must even be cooled, otherwise their heat would saturate the detectors, effectively blinding the observatory.”
NASA expects the WFI to be ready for thermal vacuum tests this summer, after which it should be sent to Goddard within the spring of 2024 for integration into the Roman telescope itself.
The 9,184-pound (4,166-kilogram) Roman telescope is scheduled to launch atop a Falcon Heavy rocket in May 2027. It should be delivered to a halo orbit across the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point roughly 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Earth on its opposite side from the Sun. While its primary mirror is identical size as NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, its wide field of view covers an area 100 times larger. The observatory’s primary mission is anticipated to be about five years.