NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope arrived June 21, at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, marking the start of final prelaunch preparations before liftoff later this summer.
After teams completed integration and testing on the observatory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, they loaded Roman into a protective and environmentally controlled transportation container and drove it to the port of Baltimore. There, the agency’s Pegasus barge safely transported the nearly 18,000-pound (8,200-kilogram) spacecraft down the coast of the Atlantic Ocean to its new home in Florida at the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility, which recently completed upgrades to prepare for Roman’s arrival.
Technicians met the telescope at NASA Kennedy’s turn basin wharf and offloaded the trailer carrying the observatory from the barge where they connected it to a truck that transported Roman to the servicing facility.
When the spacecraft arrives at the facility, technicians will complete initial cleaning outside the building before moving the shipping container into the facility’s air lock. Once in the air lock, they will perform additional cleaning to reduce any remaining contaminants from the trip. The facility’s air filtration system also will scrub the air until the team can safely open the inner door. Once inside, technicians will …