NASA's Next Flagship Telescope Launches, Named for 'Mother of Hubble'

NASA's next flagship space observatory, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, is scheduled to launch Sunday morning, Aug. 30. The telescope will investigate dark matter, dark energy and planets beyond the solar system. It is named for Nancy Grace Roman, who became NASA's first chief of astronomy in 1959 and the agency's first female executive.

Roman, born May 16, 1925, decided by junior high that she wanted to become an astronomer. Because not every college of her era accepted women, she chose Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. She then went on to graduate study in astronomy at the University of Chicago, where she became the first woman on the academic staff at the Yerkes Observatory. She later researched stars and galactic structure, bounced radar off the Moon and studied orbital mechanics at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory.

In 1959, a year after NASA's founding, Roman was asked to create the agency's first astronomy program, which she announced that year at the American Astronomical Society meeting. She earned the nickname "mother of Hubble" for the central role she played in getting the Hubble Space Telescope built, working across astronomy, engineering and government budgeting to make the mission happen.

In 1965, Roman briefed astronaut Buzz Aldrin on celestial objects; Aldrin would go on to complete three spacewalks and become the second person to walk on the Moon.

Roman died at the age of 93, about a year after appearing at the 2017 March for Science in Washington, D.C.