Falcon Heavy Launches NASA Telescope To Capture Never Before Seen Photos Of The Universe

An aerial video shows a Falcon Heavy lifting off from Launch Complex 39A at dawn, rising on a bright column of fire beside the tower, water tower and hangar as thick smoke rolls across the pad.

The three-core rocket climbs over the wetlands and water around Kennedy Space Center as the camera follows it upward.

The launch took place on August 30, 2026, at 7:26 a.m. EDT from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Falcon Heavy carried NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, a flagship infrared observatory built to map dark energy and dark matter, survey billions of galaxies and hunt for exoplanets.

The spacecraft separated about 31 minutes after liftoff and began a roughly three-month journey to an orbit around the Sun-Earth L2 point, about a million miles from Earth.

Both side boosters returned and landed at Cape Canaveral. Ground control at Goddard began receiving telemetry within minutes of launch.

Roman’s field of view is at least 100 times wider than Hubble’s. NASA expects first public images in early 2027.