About this Article

Published December 16, 2025

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is on track to launch ahead of schedule, now in September 2026 (~9 months from now), and Roman’s observing program is already taking shape. Four community-defined surveys are now fully defined and being readied for execution when Roman begins its science operations, which are anticipated to start in January 2027 based on a September launch. All of Roman’s data will be available freely and rapidly — there is no proprietary period.

Now is the time to investigate the suitability of Roman’s four community-defined surveys for your specific science interests. The first Call for Proposals is now open with a March 17, 2026 deadline. It includes opportunities to propose for funding and compute support for data analysis (including data from the community-defined surveys), theoretical or laboratory astrophysics research, and publicly accessible ancillary data directly relevant to Roman. It also provides the opportunity to propose new General Astrophysics Surveys, with associated funding and compute support.

The four community-defined surveys include three Core Community Surveys, which are designed to meet Roman’s science requirements while enabling broad astrophysical research, as well as one General Astrophysics Survey, Roman’s recently defined Galactic Plane Survey. General Astrophysics Surveys enable science investigations beyond those that can be accomplished with the Core Community Surveys. During Roman’s primary five-year mission, additional opportunities to propose for General Astrophysics Surveys are anticipated in Cycles 3 and 4.

Read an overview of the process of defining the three Core Community Surveys and a summary of the recommended implementations. Also take time to learn about the specifications and science opportunities for the Galactic Plane General Astrophysics Survey.

Explore Roman's Surveys

The definition of the Galactic Plane Survey, combined with the definition of Roman’s three Core Community Surveys earlier this year, means a large portion of Roman’s observations in the first two years of operations are now known. A variety of resources are available to help researchers familiarize themselves with the scientific capabilities of Roman’s upcoming datasets.

Scientific Drivers

The Roman Observations Time Allocation Committee (ROTAC) Final Report also includes the individual reports from each of the Core Community Surveys’ Definition Committees. These reports, along with the Galactic Plane Survey Definition Committee’s report, are the primary sources for understanding the scientific rationale behind the recommended survey implementations. These reports also discuss anticipated science investigations and survey yields for each of the community-defined surveys.

Detailed Survey Implementation in APT

The observation specifications of each community-defined survey, as implemented in the Astronomer’s Proposal Tool (APT), are described in detail in the Roman User Documentation (RDox). For users who wish to understand how the surveys are implemented in APT, sample demonstration programs that implement small areas of each survey are available within APT. A Jupyter notebook, currently in development, uses outputs from APT and enables visualization of the full survey footprints and the exposure time as a function of location. It will be available within the Roman Research Nexus when it launches (see below), and in the meantime can be accessed through a github repository.

Estimated Signal-to-Noise Ratio for Specific Types of Sources

Typical limiting magnitudes or anticipated signal-to-noise ratios for each of the surveys are discussed in the Definition Committee reports and the documentation of the survey implementations in RDox. Those wishing to explore expected signal-to-noise ratios for astrophysical objects in more detail can use the Roman WFI Exposure Time Calculator (ETC). The Roman ETC enables users to specify the details of sources of interest, such as their spectral energy distribution, flux normalization, spatial extent, and surface brightness profile; specify a background level; build two-dimensional astronomical scenes with multiple sources; and choose a measurement strategy for their scene.

Survey-specific sample workbooks have been created with each survey’s specific observation specifications implemented, enabling users to calculate the signal-to-noise that will be achieved for sources or scenes of their choosing. The community-defined survey sample workbooks may be accessed through the Roman WFI ETC Web Interface by clicking “Sample Workbooks” on the “Available Workbooks” page, which is accessed either by logging in or choosing to work anonymously.

Coming Soon: The Roman Research Nexus

Launching by the end of 2025, the Roman Research Nexus will provide additional capabilities for exploring Roman’s community-defined surveys. The Nexus will provide a pre-configured computational environment on the cloud with pedagogical notebooks, organized into workflows, that introduce concepts critical to working with Roman’s data. It will also host simulated imaging datasets for the Core Community Surveys, anticipated to be available by the end of 2025. These simulations will be generated using Roman I-Sim, using the specific observation specifications for the imaging components of each survey, and will incorporate both astronomical objects and instrumental signatures. These simulated images will enable quantitative investigation of the feasibility of a wide range of scientific analyses.

Ready, Set, Roman! Training Series

An ongoing series of interactive webinars, hosted by the Roman Science Centers at STScI and IPAC, will cover many of the above tools, and more. The webinars feature a short demonstration of a tool or Jupyter notebook, and ample time for questions and discussion. The schedule of upcoming webinars, and links to view previous webinars (including on the footprint visualization notebook and APT), can be found at the Ready, Set, Roman! Training Series.

Keep Up to Date About Roman’s Progress

There are many ways to follow the progress of Roman as it approaches launch and to get involved in the science. These include following @NancyRomanSci social media accounts (on Bluesky, Instagram, Facebook, and X), weekly blog posts on the Roman Forum, approximately monthly online science lectures and Roman project updates, and periodic newsletters from the Roman Science Centers at STScI and IPAC. Those looking to join a community of scientists preparing for Roman should consider participating in the Roman Science Collaboration, which aims to spark and support collaborations.

Resources

• Roman Observations Time Allocation Committee: Final Report and Recommendations, Roman Observations Time Allocation Committee and Core Community Survey Definition Committees, 2025
• Roman Galactic Plane Survey Definition Committee Report, Roman Galactic Plane Survey Definition Committee, 2025
• RDox articles describing the implementation of Roman’s community-defined surveys
• Roman Telescope Proposal System, through which all Roman proposals will be submitted
• The Astronomer’s Proposal Tool (APT) with demonstration programs for each community-defined survey
• The Roman Exposure Time Calculator (ETC)
• Public Release Coming Soon: The Roman Research Nexus, Roman’s cloud-based research platform
• Ready, Set, Roman! Training Series