NASA’s $4.3 billion telescope is poised to launch to space on Sunday, marking the beginning of a five- to 10-year mission designed to observe the universe’s most exotic phenomena. Perched on top of SpaceX’s powerful Falcon Heavy rocket, NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is slated to lift off at 7:26 a.m. local time from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The launch will put the spacecraft on course to reach its final destination, an orbit roughly 1 million miles from Earth, where the spacecraft will begin observations of the sky as early as December. Roman is designed specifically to hunt for some of the most perplexing and mysterious forces in the universe. Notably, it’ll be studying dark matter and dark energy, a type of material and power thought to permeate the cosmos, but that scientists have not been able to see directly. Roman will attempt to catalogue how dark matter and dark energy are shaping distant stars and galaxies, as well as help scientists answer fundamental questions about how our universe is expanding.

Full report : SpaceX launches NASA’s Roman Space Telescope on Falcon Heavy rocket.