Roman Science Operations Center Newsletter

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

Proposals for Roman observations should be submitted by March 17 (5:00 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time). STScI and IPAC/Caltech are hosting a series of training webinars to help scientists plan their observations effectively. The Roman Research Nexus, a cloud-based scientific computing environment designed to support work with Roman data, is now available for use. The observatory remains on track for shipment to Cape Canaveral in mid-June and launch not earlier than September 2026.

Community Engagement

Ready, Set, Roman! Training Series

The Science Operations Center (SOC, STScI) and Science Support Center (SSC, IPAC) are hosting a series of 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 upcoming webinars in the series will focus on frequently asked questions and offer an open Q&A session with our experts.

• Tuesday, March 10 at 1:00pm ET/10am PT

If you haven’t already, please sign up for our listserve to receive notifications, reminders, and Webex links by emailing: ROMANTRAINING-subscribe-request@maillist.stsci.edu

Conference & Workshops

• RAPID Response, "Hotwiring the Next Generation of Time-Domain Science", Caltech, Pasadena, CA, March 23–27, 2026
• NOIRLab Conference, "Empowering Science in the Data-Rich Era of Astronomy", Tucson, AZ, April 20–24, 2026
• Roman Science Symposium, "Shifting Landscapes in Astrophysics: New Frontiers to Explore with Roman", IPAC/Caltech, Pasadena, CA, July 13–16, 2026

Planning and Analysis Tools

The Roman Research Nexus, a cloud-based science platform for accessing and analyzing Roman data, is now available. The Nexus includes pre-installed software, Jupyter notebook tutorials, access to simulated datasets, team workspaces, and real-time collaboration tools. More information about this service is available in the Roman documentation. The Nexus provides access to a variety of tools, also available on github through the Roman Notebook repository, including:

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

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. 

The WFI Exposure Time Calculator (ETC) version R2026.1 was released on January 21, 2026. Updates include:

• New Point Spread Functions from STPSF with more realistic charge diffusion and jitter
• Proper handling of extreme over-saturation
• Updated spectroscopy axis orientation
• Proper extraction of flux from saturated observations
• Improved spatial positioning accuracy in the 2D plot display

It enables users to evaluate the feasibility of proposed observations by simulating astronomical scenes and observing strategies, and by estimating the expected signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). These capabilities are available through three interfaces:

• Pandeia, the Python-based exposure time calculation engine.
• The WFI ETC Web Interface, built on Pandeia, which provides a user-friendly browser interface and supports collaboration through workbook sharing.
• The Roman Interactive Sensitivity Tool (RIST), which uses a precomputed grid of Pandeia outputs to provide quick SNR estimates for WFI observations.

Check out our Ready, Set, Roman! webinars YouTube channel for more information on the Roman ETC.

Roman I-Sim v0.13 was released on February 11, 2026. This release includes several important updates and improvements, including:

• Significant performance enhancements in PSF rendering for simulations with large numbers of stars
• Support for the new roman_datamodels Level 2 (L2) schema
• Improved flat-field handling
• Support for integral non-linearity
• Improved handling of roll angles from APT

More information is available. We encourage users to upgrade to this version to take advantage of these improvements.

Documentation

User Handbooks and Guides

The Roman User Documentation System (RDox) website provides several handbooks, including the Roman Instruments Handbook, the Roman Data Handbook, the Simulation Tools Handbook, the Community-defined Surveys Handbook, the Roman Proposals Handbook, and the Roman APT User Guide. The documentation is continuously updated as the mission progresses toward launch. 

A new article in the Data Handbook was released in mid-February, called Benchmaking Examples and Estimated Costs on the Roman Research Nexus, which provides representative benchmarking examples for common tasks on the Roman Research Nexus. This article summarizes CPU usage measured for well-defined use cases to support planning and resource estimation for RRN users.

Recent Publications 

• Roman-STScI–000825 Tech Report: Analytic Formulas for Apparent Magnitude and Count Rate of Stars in Roman Pass Bands Using Spectro-Photometric Information (S. Sharma & W.C. Schultz)
• Roman-STScI-000866 Tech Report: Integral Nonlinearity in Roman-WFI Detector Data (T. Brandt & T. Perera)
• Roman-STScI-000867 Tech Report: Characterizing and Correcting a High-Amplitude Transient in Detector 18 on Roman-WFI (T. Brandt)
• Roman-STScI-000868 Tech Report: Roman SOC Absolute Astrometry Uncertainty Science Validation (D. Fadda et al.)
• AAS 247 Poster: A Content-Driven Strategy for Roman's Science Platform: Enabling Low-Barrier Access and Collaboration (T. D. Desjardins et al.)
• AAS 247 Poster: An Update from the Roman Space Telescope's Science Operations Center Less than One Year from Launch (W. C. Schultz et al.)
• STSCI Newsletter 43/1: Roman: Delivering Data That Unlocks Discovery (O. Fox)

Resources

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

• Roman Telescope Proposal System: Submit an observing proposal (deadline March 17, 2026 5:00 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time).
• Roman Help Desk: Ask questions about Roman instruments, simulation tools, proposal process, observation preparation, grants, data archive and analysis.
• Roman Science Forum: Join to stay actively engaged and up to date about technical and mission level updates.
• Roman Community Forum: Follow monthly virtual meetings that provide updates on Roman mission status and plans.
• Roman Science Collaboration: Start new science collaborations and draw on the expertise of researchers with complementary interests.
• Roman Working Groups: Sign up to discuss and advise the Roman Project and its partners on WFI data and operations.
• Roman News at STScI: Access previous Science Operations Center newsletters.
• Roman Blog: Read weekly science announcements about Roman. 
• Roman Social Media: Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, and X/twitter for the most up-to-date information related to doing science with Roman.