About This Article
The latest news from the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Science Operations Center (SOC) at STScI
Roman’s Wide Field Instrument arrived at Goddard last summer. The Core Community Survey Definition Committees have worked on their recommendations and the Roman Observation Time Allocation Committee will soon start reviewing them. Several members of the SOC will be at the winter AAS in National Harbor; we hope to see you in person soon!
Roman at Conferences
- AAS #245: Several Roman SOC staff will be attending the upcoming American Astronomical Society Meeting 245 in National Harbor, MD, January 12–16, 2025. See Roman at AAS for more information on the schedule and events, including workshops, talks, and several iPoster presentations. Consider registering for one of the following workshops on Sunday, January 12, 2025:
- Preparing for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope: The New Cloud Science Platform
- Python Data Analysis with the James Webb and Roman Space Telescopes
- Transients From Space Workshop, March 11–13, 2025
- The next Roman Science conference “Cosmic Cartography with Roman: Advances in Galaxy Structures, Distributions, Dark Matter, and Dark Energy ” will be held at STScI on July 14–18, 2025 in Baltimore. More details will be shared soon.
Recently Held
- Roman Science Conference, “Challenging Theory with Roman: From Planet Formation to Cosmology,” July 9–12, 2024
- ADASS, November 9–14, 2024 (posters on Roman science platform, Roman data monitoring tool, and simulation tools to prepare Roman observations )
Roman Timeline
- December 2024: Core Community Survey (CCS) Committee reports completed and sent to ROTAC
- December 2024: RDox release with many new and updated articles
- March 2025: ROTAC (Roman Observation Time Allocation Committee) decision about CCS time allocation
- July 2025: Roman Science conference “Cosmic Cartography with Roman: Advances in Galaxy Structures, Distributions, Dark Matter, and Dark Energy ” at STScI
- Fall 2025: Anticipated release of Cycle 1 Call for Proposals
- No later than May 2027: Roman Launch!
Preparing Roman Proposals
The latest Roman WFI ETC web application was released on December 12, 2024. The ETC web application, which is built on Pandeia, the core engine for the multi-mission exposure time calculator, provides a user-friendly browser interface and enables easy collaboration with colleagues through workbook sharing.
The current version of the web application is based on the Pandeia engine version 2024.12 and the Pandeia Reference data version 2024.12 .
WFI Status
The Wide Field Instrument (WFI) successfully completed its pre-ship review at BAE Systems (formerly Ball Aerospace) in late summer 2024 and is now at GSFC for integration with other spacecraft components in preparation for payload-level testing in 2025. Starting in Fall 2023, WFI underwent a series of thermal-vacuum campaigns at BAE Systems that included science characterization and calibration tests. SOC personnel are actively participating in the analysis of data from these tests and the dissemination of results alongside mission partners. Most notably, the focal plane system is meeting requirements for thermal noise, the calibration system is producing appropriate calibration data, total observatory backgrounds are acceptable, and the optical elements are meeting requirements.
Core Community Surveys
The committees charged with defining the CCSs held virtual town halls in September 2024 to update the community and request feedback. Recordings and slides for the three community core surveys can be found at:
- Galactic Bulge Time Domain Survey (Daniel Huber/Jessie Christiansen)
- High Latitude Time Domain Survey (Brad Cenko/Masao Sako)
- High Latitude Wide Area Survey (Ryan Hickox/Risa Wechsler)
Roman Documentation
The Roman User Documentation System (RDox) website is available and contains user-centered documentation for Simulation Tools, the Astronomer's Proposal Tool (APT), Roman Data, and the Wide Field Instrument (WFI) Image Mode. RDox will be developed incrementally as the mission progresses towards launch with roughly twice-annual content deliveries timed with major Roman Community Engagement activities.
RDox Article Highlight: Read more about Roman data levels and products being developed by the SOC at STScI. The Data Levels and Products article reviews each data level and begins to define the data products that will be produced by the Roman STScI Data Pipelines.
New Technical Publications
- Sharma & Casertano, Cosmic Ray Jump Detection for the Roman Wide Field Instrument, 2024, PASP..136e4504S
- STIPS Development Team, Gomez, S., et al., STIPS: The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Imaging Product Simulator, 2024, PASP..136e124502
Roman Resources
- Roman Science Forum: to learn more about opportunities to get involved in the Roman Mission!
- Roman Working Groups: to get involved in the WFI working groups
- Roman Help Desk:
- STScI : answers questions about Wide Field Instrument (WFI) design, WFI imaging mode, Roman science platform, Roman Archive, Roman imaging mode simulation tools, exposure time calculations, and the Astronomer’s Proposal Tool (APT) for WFI program design (also see the STScI helpdesk newsletter article)
- IPAC : answers questions about the Roman proposal process, Coronagraph Instrument, WFI spectroscopy mode, Galactic Bulge Time Domain Survey, Roman exoplanet science, and grants.
- Roman news at STScI: news about the telescope and the WFI instrument
- Roman blog: weekly news about Roman. To subscribe to the blog one need to subscribe to the Roman Science Forum.
