President Trump celebrated NASA’s successful launch of its Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Sunday, calling it a defining moment for American space ambition.
Trump posted his congratulations on Truth Social, writing, “Congratulations to NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, and the Great Patriots at NASA, on a successful launch.”
The president punctuated his message with a signature declaration: “This is THE GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICA!”
NASA launched the Roman telescope from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 7:26 a.m. EDT Sunday, lifting off aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.
The telescope combines a large field of view with sharp infrared imaging capabilities to “explore vast swaths of the sky and probe deeply into cosmic history,” according to NASA.
The mission is designed to help astronomers “explore dark matter, dark energy, and worlds outside of our solar system,” a category of celestial bodies known as exoplanets.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, whom Trump nominated to lead the agency last year, said the launch “is exactly the kind of success story we want to see” at NASA.
Following separation from the center core, the Falcon Heavy’s side boosters returned safely to the Florida launch site for what NASA described as “refurbishment.”
NASA plans to commission the telescope over a three-month period, with its final destination set for the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, located roughly one million miles from Earth.
The agency anticipates releasing the Roman telescope’s first images by early 2027, marking a significant milestone for deep-space observation and cosmological research.
The launch came just days after Trump visited NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on Friday, where he awarded the Artemis II crew with the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.
The Roman telescope’s successful deployment adds momentum to a broader push by the administration to position American space exploration as a central pillar of national achievement.
