NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, nestled inside its transport container nicknamed ‘the Chariot’, passes by the Vehicle Assembly Building on its way to the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now
NASA’s next great observatory, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, arrived at the Kennedy Space Center aboard the agency’s massive Pegasus barge late Sunday morning.
The spacecraft was nestled inside its protective case, which NASA nicknamed the “Chariot” in keeping with the “Roman” theme. That said, telescope is named not for the ancient empire, but instead for NASA’s first Chief of Astronomy, Nancy Grace Roman.
“She was a key person in our exploration of space. She understood that in order to better understand the universe, you have to go in space,” said Lucas Paganini, the program executive for Roman. “That’s why she’s called the ‘Mother of Hubble’ because she made Hubble possible.”
The 43-foot-tall observatory disembarked from the barge shortly after 7 p.m. EDT (2300 UTC), following a stream of thunderstorms that delayed its departure by about an hour. The spacecraft will travel to the south end of the KSC campus to a building called the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility.
