Standing over 12 meters tall, the $4 billion observatory is named after pioneering astronomer Nancy Grace Roman, known as the “Mother of Hubble.”

Roman will embark on a multi-year mission to survey vast areas of the cosmos from a vantage point 1.5 million kilometres from Earth, a journey expected to take roughly 100 days.

Equipped with a field of view more than 100 times larger than Hubble’s, Roman aims to map the universe, discover thousands of exoplanets and supernovae, and investigate two of physics’ greatest mysteries: dark matter and dark energy, which together account for about 95 percent of the universe.

Working alongside observatories such as James Webb, the Rubin Observatory and the ESA’s Euclid probe, Roman’s infrared vision will look back in time to test current cosmological models.

The mission is expected to generate an enormous 1.3 terabytes of data daily, giving scientists worldwide unprecedented insights into the universe while potentially opening the door to unexpected discoveries.