NASA’s next telescope will be sent into space by SpaceX

Just a few days after the James Webb Telescope presented its deepest and most detailed insights into space yet, NASA has already finished finalizing plans for the next telescope. The “Roman Nancy Grace Space Telescope” is scheduled to be sent into space in October 2026 by Elon Musk’s private space company SpaceX, according to a statement Tuesday (local time).

The Roman Nancy Grace Space Telescope is scheduled to launch in October 2026

SpaceX has received an order of about $255 million for this. The telescope will be launched from the Cape Canaveral Cosmodrome aboard a Falcon Heavy rocket. The telescope, named after a former NASA astronomer, is said to operate similarly to the Hubble telescope, which was launched in 1990. It is currently still under development and is expected to have a total cost of more than three billion dollars. As a successor to Hubble, the “James Webb Space Telescope,” named after a former NASA chief, was launched about six months ago — with the help of a rocket from the European Space Agency (ESA). Unlike “Hubble”, it works not in the optical and ultraviolet range, but in the near-infrared range.

(APA/Red, Photo: APA/APA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES/JOE RAEDLE)