Roman telescope launches, Trump calls to celebrate

A telescope built to study the universe's biggest mystery finally left Earth. It lifted off Sunday morning, Aug. 30, at 7:26 a.m. EDT. The launch was from Kennedy Space Center. It rode a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. Roman is now three months into its journey, heading toward a stable orbit far past the moon. Once there, it will spend years studying dark energy, the force pulling the universe apart faster and faster.

The launch had an odd guest. Trump called into NASA's post-launch press conference. He praised a mission his own administration once proposed cutting. NASA held on anyway. Sunday's launch went off almost exactly on schedule. Roman is named for astronomer Nancy Grace Roman.

Keep reading — what to watch

Will Roman actually find out what dark energy is? Nobody expects a single answer. Its job is narrower than that. It will measure how the universe's expansion has changed over billions of years. That's precise enough to test which theories still hold up. The data won't arrive for months. Roman first needs to reach its final orbit, then unfold its instruments. For now, the achievement is simpler. It survived a real threat of cancellation and made it off the launch pad.