Resolution criteria
This market resolves to YES if the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope successfully launches, separates from its carrier rocket (SpaceX Falcon Heavy), and successfully establishes its initial communication and telemetry with ground controllers as it begins its trajectory toward the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point.
This market resolves to NO if:
The launch vehicle suffers a catastrophic failure during ascent, destroying the telescope.
The telescope fails to separate from the rocket's upper stage.
The telescope is declared a total loss by NASA or SpaceX before establishing initial telemetry.
If the launch is postponed, the market will remain open and resolve based on the actual launch date, unless the market creator chooses to update the description with a specific cutoff date.
The primary sources of truth for this market will be:
Background
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (formerly the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope, or WFIRST) is NASA's next-generation flagship infrared observatory. It features a 2.4-meter primary mirror—the same size as the Hubble Space Telescope's—but boasts a field of view 100 times larger, allowing it to survey the cosmos much faster.
The mission is slated to launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. In mid-2026, NASA officially advanced the target launch date to August 30, 2026, moving the timeline ahead of its originally planned late-2026/early-2027 schedule. Once deployed, Roman will travel to the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point to investigate dark energy, search for exoplanets, and perform wide-field cosmic surveys.
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1,000