Roman: NASA extends next flagship space telescope's science operations

The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Space Telescope Science Institute (AURA/STScI) in Baltimore has been granted a contract extension for support services required for NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Science Operations.

Roman is NASA's next flagship space telescope designed to address fundamental questions related to dark energy, dark matter, search for and image exoplanets, and explore various areas of infrared astrophysics. Designed for a five-year mission, the telescope will launch out of Cape Canaveral in the mid-2020s to Lagrange point 2 (L2).

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will carry two key science instruments: the Wide Field Instrument with 100 times greater field of view than the Hubble infrared instrument, and the Coronagraph Instrument to perform high-contrast imaging and spectroscopy of dozens of individual nearby exoplanets.

The extended contract, valued at $166,248,618, brings the total contract value to $200,840,220 and extends the performance period until September 30, 2027.

The scope of support includes various stages such as development, integration and testing, launch and commissioning, and entry into the primary mission operations phases for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Science Operations Center.

"The contractor will continue to perform efficient science observation planning and scheduling, low-level and high-level wide field instrument data processing, science data calibration, and mission science data archiving of the multi-petabyte astrophysics science data set to enable the worldwide scientific community to access and further analyze the data to achieve the Roman science mission goals," NASA said in a press release on Saturday.

Furthermore, AURA/STScI will be specifically responsible for the direct imaging science data pipeline processing of the wide field instrument (excluding high-level Microlensing Survey processing), low-level grism and prism processing, calibration, and execution of Science Operations Center requirements throughout the launch, commissioning, and initial year of primary operations, the agency said.