The Universe Is Hiding Something. NASA plans to find it. - Intrepid Museum Astro Live

Getting a powerful observatory from the clean room to space requires extraordinary engineering as well as groundbreaking science. Just weeks after its historic launch, NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is beginning a journey that could transform our understanding of the universe. Launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy on August 30, Roman is traveling nearly one million miles from Earth to Sun-Earth Lagrange point (L2), where it will begin surveying the cosmos on an unprecedented scale. With a field of view at least 100x larger than Hubble’s, Roman will combine sweeping views of the sky with sharp infrared vision to study billions of galaxies, investigate the mysterious forces of dark matter and dark energy, and search for worlds beyond our solar system.

Join us for a conversation with Roman's Assistant Research Scientist Rebekah Hounsell and Aerospace Engineer Elaine Stewart as we explore the engineering that made the mission possible and the science that Roman hopes to uncover.

Special Guests:

Rebekah Hounsell is an Associate Research Scientist with the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, specializing in time-domain astronomy, survey optimization, and software pipelines for large astronomical surveys. Hounsell serves as Co-Principal Investigator (PI) and Project Manager for the Roman Supernova Cosmology Project Infrastructure Team — leading 60+ researchers in developing an end-to-end pixel-to-cosmology data pipeline for the High Latitude Time Domain Survey. Additionally, she is the Associate Project Scientist for the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) — developing community-accessible tools, working on mission-critical tasks, and engaging in public outreach.

Elaine Stewart is an Aerospace Engineer on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Specializing in contamination control and thermal coatings, Stewart was the contamination lead for the build, integration, and testing of the Roman Optical Telescope Assembly within the cleanroom at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Stewart graduated from the University of Delaware with a degree in Chemical Engineering and recently completed a master's degree in Space Systems Engineering. She also previously worked on the engineering team for the James Webb Space Telescope that launched in 2021.

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