NASA launches new space telescope

Cape Canaveral. The US space agency NASA has launched a new space telescope into space. The “Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope”, named after one of the first women in a senior position at NASA, launched from the Cape Canaveral spaceport in the US state of Florida with the help of a “Falcon Heavy” rocket from tech billionaire Elon Musk’s private space company SpaceX, as NASA announced.

US President Donald Trump burst into the middle of a press conference by NASA boss Jared Isaacman with his congratulations. The president's cell phone call interrupted Isaacman's remarks to reporters. “Man, that looked beautiful on TV,” Trump praised. “You’re the hottest thing in space.”

The infrared telescope is about the size of a bus and will fly to an observation point about 1.6 million kilometers from Earth. It is expected to arrive there in about three months and will provide the most comprehensive look yet at the hidden reaches of the universe.

According to NASA, the telescope's field of view is more than 100 times larger than that of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, which still provides impressive images of celestial bodies even after 36 years in space.