The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, originally named WFIRST, was renamed to honor Nancy Grace Roman, who is regarded as the "Mother of Hubble" for her foundational role in the observatory's planning and program structure, and her work which made future missions such as The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope possible.
The Roman Space Telescope is a NASA observatory is designed to capture images at a higher rate than other such telescopes without compromising the resolution of those images. Thus, the observatory can lead scientists to answers about the universe about subjects such as dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics. The telescope is able to capture a wide field of view by implementing a primary mirror that is 2.4 meters in diameter (7.9 feet) (like the Hubble Telescope), and two instruments: the Wide Field Instrument, and the Coronagraph Instrument. The Wide Field Instrument performs microlensing surveys to find exoplanets and the Coronograph Instrument performs high contrast imaging and spectroscopy of nearby exoplanets. The Roman Telescope is planned to have a 5-year primary mission, with a possible 5-year extended mission.
Scientists from The Ohio State University contributing to this extraordinary mission include Dr. Andrew Gould, Dr. Christopher Hirata, Dr. Scott Gaudi, Dr. Matthew Penny, Dr. Radek Poleski, and Dr. David Weinberg.