CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA's newest space telescope launched successfully Sunday morning, beginning a million-mile journey that scientists say will help unravel some of the biggest mysteries in the universe, including the nature of dark matter and dark energy.

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope lifted off at 7:26 a.m. Eastern time aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, according to NASA. The rocket's 27 Merlin engines generated more than 5 million pounds of thrust as they pushed the vehicle away from Florida's spaceport, with the roughly 18,000-pound spacecraft now beginning a journey of about three months to reach its permanent home in space, roughly a million miles from Earth.

LIVE: Today’s the day!@NASARoman is getting ready to head to its new home 1 million miles from Earth, where it will change how we view the universe. Liftoff is currently scheduled for 7:26am ET (1126 UTC). https://t.co/fJi2wd5ztm— NASA (@NASA) August 30, 2026

LIVE: Today’s the day!@NASARoman is getting ready to head to its new home 1 million miles from Earth, where it will change how we view the universe. Liftoff is currently scheduled for 7:26am ET (1126 UTC). https://t.co/fJi2wd5ztm

Roman is named for Nancy Grace Roman, NASA's first chief astronomer, who died in 2018 at age 93 and was known as the "Mother of Hubble" for her role in championing that observatory decades earlier. The new telescope, about the size of a tour bus, will settle into orbit at the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, known as L2, the same gravitationally stable location where the James Webb Space Telescope........

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