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Roman Science Operations Center Newsletter

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December 2025

About This Article

The latest news from the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Science Operations Center (SOC) at STScI

The Nancy Grace Roman Observatory is now fully integrated and tested at the Goddard Space Flight Center and is on track for launch in September 2026. The Cycle 1 Call for Proposals was published on December 10, 2025 with submission deadline in March 17, 2026. Meanwhile, the Science Operations Center is finalizing the data pipeline and building the infrastructure for large-scale data archiving. As the proposal deadline, launch, and start of operations approach, the Science Operations Center and Science Support Center have begun hosting a series of training webinars. These sessions introduce Roman users to tools designed to help scientists plan observations and analyze their data effectively.

The extent of the Roman Galactic Plane Survey, the first approved General Astrophysics Survey program of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is shown overplotted on the Gaia optical star-count map
The extent of the Roman Galactic Plane Survey, the first approved General Astrophysics Survey program of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (Benjamin et al., 2025), is shown overplotted on the Gaia optical star-count map. Grey contours correspond to the infrared light at 4.9 μm from COBE/DIRBE, which show the extent of the stellar disk behind the optical extinction. The program has three components: a wide-field imaging survey covering 690 square degrees (white outline), a time-domain survey of several regions for a total of 19 square degrees (light blue regions with labels), and deep imaging+spectroscopic observations of 15 pointings for a total of 4 square degrees (yellow regions with labels). Scheduled for execution during the first two years of Roman’s five-year primary mission, this survey will reveal billions of heavily extincted stars and young stellar objects along the Galactic plane and much of the bulge. It will also capture a vast array of variable objects and microlensing events.

Community Engagement

Ready, Set, Roman! Training Series

The Science Operations Center (SOC, STScI) and Science Support Center (SSC, IPAC) are hosting a series webinars designed to help Roman users explore tools and resources available for planning Roman observations and analyzing data. Links to upcoming and past webinars can be found on the official webinar website. The next webinars in the series include:

  • "Exposure Time Calculator Overview and Walkthrough", Thursday. December 18, 2025 at 1 p.m. EST
  • "Data Analysis on the Roman Research Nexus", Tuesday, January 13, 2026

Conference & Workshops

Observation Planning Tools

The Astronomer's Proposal Tool (APT) is available for designing General Astrophysics Surveys (GAS) with the Roman's Wide Field Instrument (WFI). To get started, download APT for Roman (separate versions are needed for HST and JWST), review the release notes and documentation, and watch the training webinar. Several demonstration programs are available in the APT File menu. Proposers will append their APT file as part of the submission process via the Roman Telescope Proposal System. 

The WFI Exposure Time Calculator (ETC) enables users to evaluate the feasibility of proposed observations by simulating astronomical scenes and observing strategies. It provides accurate estimates of the expected signal-to-noise ratio and can be accessed in three different ways:

  • Directly via the main software that performs the exposure time calculations is Pandeia, a Python-based engine;
  • With the WFI ETC Web Interface built on Pandeia that provides a user-friendly browser interface and enables easy collaboration with colleagues through workbook sharing;
  • With the Roman Interactive Sensitivity Tool (RIST) that uses a pre-computed grid of Pandeia outputs to allow for a quick check on the signal-to-noise ratio of WFI observations.

You can also watch the Ready, Set, Roman! training webinar for a demonstration on how to use this software.

The Roman Notebook repository contains multiple tutorials for working with Roman Wide Field Instrument (WFI) data including several tools:

  • The Roman Interactive Sensitivity Tool (RIST) is an interactive, graphical quick-look tool for evaluating the depth of WFI exposures with a limited set of input options. This is a great tool for exploring what the WFI can do before using more complex tools such as the Exposure Time Calculator.
  • The Footprint Viewer can display survey footprints, coverage, and depth information using outputs from the Astronomer’s Proposal Tool (APT) and export them as HEALPix or healsparse maps.
  • The Background Visualization Tool provides an interactive visualization of predicted sky background levels as a function of time and sky position to aid in planning of observations with background requirements.  

These tools, along with many WFI tutorials, will also be available on the Roman Research Nexus when it is publicly released later this year.

Documentation

User Handbooks and Guide

The Roman User Documentation System (RDox) website provides several handbooks, including the Wide Field Instrument (WFI) Imaging Mode User's Guide, the Roman Data Handbook, the Simulation Tools Handbook, the Community-defined Surveys, and the APT User Guide. The documentation is continuously updated as the mission progresses toward launch. Recent additions in preparation for the call for proposals include:

Technical Publications 

Resources

There are many ways to get involved in the Roman Mission:

 

The NASA Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is managed by NASA/GSFC with participation of STScI, Caltech/IPAC, and NASA/JPL.

Contact the Roman Team

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