NASA just powered up Roman’s massive 300-megapixel camera
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has successfully powered up its Wide Field Instrument (WFI), a 300-megapixel infrared camera, and completed early checkout of its Coronagraph Instrument. These tests are part of a months-long commissioning process as the telescope travels to its L2 destination.
Why it matters
The WFI's combination of wide coverage and high resolution will enable unprecedented surveys of the cosmos, advancing our understanding of exoplanets, dark energy, and the universe's structure, creating a valuable dataset for future scientific studies.
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has reached another major milestone in space. Mission teams have successfully powered up the Wide Field Instrument, a 300-megapixel infrared camera designed to survey enormous areas of the universe rapidly while still capturing extremely fine detail.
Roman's planet-imaging system, the Coronagraph Instrument, has also completed an early checkout of its digital, electronic, and mechanical systems after waking up earlier this month.
The tests are part of a months-long commissioning process that will continue as Roman travels roughly one million miles toward its destination at the second Lagrange point, L2.
Roman's 300-Megapixel Camera Comes Online
The Wide Field Instrument, or WFI, is designed to combine an unusually broad view of the sky with the kind of sharp detail associated with space telescopes such as NASA's Hubble. A single WFI image will cover an area of sky larger than the apparent size of a full moon.
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