Lifeboat Foundation

The spacecraft bus that will deliver NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope to its orbit and enable it to function once there is now complete after years of construction, installation, and testing.

Now that the spacecraft is assembled, engineers will begin working to integrate the observatory’s other major components, including the science instruments and the telescope itself.

“They call it a spacecraft bus for a reason — it gets the telescope to where it needs to be in space,” said Jackie Townsend, the Roman deputy project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “But it’s really more like an RV because it has a whole assortment of functions that enable Roman to accomplish its scientific goals while out there too.”