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IT Home reported on October 21 that NASA published a blog post on October 14 announcing that the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope performed better than expected in on-orbit tests. The optical performance of its main camera, the Wide Field Instrument, exceeded its original specifications by nearly 30%, raising the prospect of sharper images from its future wide-area surveys of the universe.
IT Home notes that the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is named after Nancy Grace Roman, NASA's first female executive, who is known as the “mother of the Hubble Space Telescope.” It was launched on August 30, 2026, by a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. Its main goal is to rapidly scan large areas of the sky to study dark energy, dark matter, and exoplanets.
Under the original design requirements, the Wide Field Instrument's optical error was to be kept within about 90 nanometers root mean square (RMS), roughly one-thousandth the diameter of a human hair. Through a series of precise calibrations, engineers adjusted the position of the telescope's secondary mirror by just one-sixteenth the width of a human hair. The measured error was only 63 nanometers RMS, significantly better than required.
NASA said the result validates the reliability of ground testing and optical models and means that the many images the Roman telescope will take during future surveys of the universe will be clearer than expected. Sharper images will help scientists measure the shapes, positions, and brightness of distant galaxies more accurately, enabling them to study major questions such as dark matter, dark energy, and the evolution of the universe.