{"id":716642,"date":"2026-08-28T23:39:46","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T03:39:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=716642"},"modified":"2026-08-28T23:39:46","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T03:39:46","slug":"nasa-nancy-grace-roman-telescope-students-alumni-716642","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/nasa-nancy-grace-roman-telescope-students-alumni-716642\/","title":{"rendered":"Helping NASA see the universe in a new light"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will let scientists survey the cosmos like never before, thanks in part to the expertise of dozens of URochester alumni.<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n

When NASA\u2019s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope begins transmitting images from a million miles away in outer space, few people back on Earth will be more eager to see them than Rebecca Borrelli \u201912 (PhD).<\/p>\n

She is one of dozens of University of Rochester<\/a> alumni who helped design, build, and test the telescope.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the best telescope that NASA has ever created in terms of performance,\u201d says Borrelli, the chief technologist for space superiority and imaging at L3Harris Technologies<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s going to take beautiful images.\u201d<\/p>\n

With a field of view at least 100 times larger than that of the Hubble Space Telescope and crisp infrared vision, Roman<\/a> could measure light from a billion galaxies over the course of its mission, offering humanity a powerful tool for exploring dark matter, dark energy, and planets outside our solar system.<\/p>\n

\"Rebecca
FROM WEBB TO ROMAN:<\/strong> Rebecca Borrelli \u201912 (PhD), chief technologist for space superiority and imaging at L3Harris Technologies, with NASA\u2019s James Webb Space Telescope (left); technicians install NASA\u2019s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope\u2019s Imaging Optics Assembly at L3Harris in Rochester (right). (Photos: Courtesy of Borrelli; NASA\/Chris Gunn)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That could not have been done without people like Borrelli and other URochester alumni at L3Harris who designed and built Roman\u2019s optical eye, communication systems, guide sensors, and electronic components. Dozens more alumni at NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center and Jet Propulsion Laboratory, as well as California-headquartered Teledyne Technologies, had a hand in designing and refining the telescope, from work on its coronagraph to its flight detectors.<\/p>\n

Shooting for the stars<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\"The
MADE IN ROCHESTER:<\/strong> Engineers at L3Harris Technologies in Rochester combined Roman\u2019s 10 mirrors into its Imaging Optics Assembly, which will precisely direct light into the telescope\u2019s science instruments. (Photo credit: NASA\/Chris Gunn)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

URochester\u2019s connection to space optics dates back decades. In the 1960s, James Webb, the head of NASA during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, asked Brian O\u2019Brien, the former director of the University\u2019s Institute of Optics<\/a>, to form a committee to advise NASA on future programs\u2014one of which would eventually become the Space Shuttle program.<\/p>\n

When a flaw was discovered in the primary mirror on the Hubble Space Telescope, Duncan Moore<\/a>, the Rudolf and Hilda Kingslake Professor Emeritus in Optical Engineering Science, chaired the independent review panel<\/a> charged with determining what had gone wrong, and James Fienup<\/a>, the Robert E. Hopkins Professor of Optics, helped correct what was determined to be the telescope\u2019s nearsightedness.<\/p>\n

That success continues to shape the newest generation of space telescopes, including the James Webb Space Telescope<\/a> and Roman.<\/p>\n

Some of Fienup\u2019s former optics students, including Matthew Bolcar \u201909 (PhD), Thomas Zielinski \u201911 (PhD), Alden Jurling \u201915 (PhD), Matthew Bergkoetter \u201917 (PhD), Scott Paine \u201919 (PhD), and Scott Will \u201922 (PhD), have played significant roles with Roman, applying and advancing techniques developed for earlier missions.<\/p>\n

Compared with the intricate design of Webb, which launched in 2021, Roman\u2014named after NASA\u2019s first chief astronomer and one of the architects of the agency\u2019s modern science program\u2014is a throwback.<\/p>\n

Joe Howard \u201900 (PhD), an optical engineer at NASA Goddard who helped design the telescope since its early days, calls it a \u201cstubby Hubble.\u201d But Roman\u2019s simplicity and sawed-off appearance give it distinct advantages over Hubble and Webb.<\/p>\n

The bigger the better<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019ve ever looked closely at a wide-angle camera lens, you\u2019ll see the same sort of shorter design,\u201d says Howard. \u201cPlacing the secondary mirror a lot closer to the primary mirror helps Roman to have a gigantic field of view that enables a lot of different science than either of its predecessors.\u201d<\/p>\n

How gigantic? Roman was designed to capture a patch of the sky bigger than the apparent size of a full moon. That allows it to survey the universe 1,000 times faster than Hubble.<\/p>\n

\"Comparison
THE BIGGER PICTURE:<\/strong> Roman will combine Hubble-like resolution with a field of view about 100 times larger. This comparison uses the Andromeda Galaxy to show the dramatically larger area Roman can capture in a single observation. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, PHAT Team)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The telescope was also designed to test a new instrument that astronomers believe will supercharge the search for planets outside our solar system\u2014the coronagraph. The coronagraph uses a system of optics, masks, self-flexing mirrors, and sensors to block the light emitted by a star.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best analogy I\u2019ve heard is that it\u2019s equivalent to someone in Rochester trying to take a picture of a lightning bug next to stadium lights in Los Angeles, except it\u2019s 100 times harder,\u201d says Paine, an optical engineer at L3Harris who worked on wavefront error measurements for Roman.<\/p>\n

Going to extremes<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Roman\u2019s creation followed an unusual path and did not start from scratch. While Howard and others had initially designed a telescope with a lens half the size of Hubble\u2019s, plans pivoted when the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) gifted NASA a telescope it no longer needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was half-built for a different use, so we had to sort of repurpose it,\u201d says Howard.<\/p>\n

Reconfiguring NRO\u2019s telescope allowed NASA to expand the scope of the project, but getting there required a lot of work.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had to reshape all of the mirrors because they had a completely different prescription,\u201d says Borrelli. \u201cThen they also had to develop the integration, the testing, refinish the mirrors, flight electronics, and thermal controls.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA mantra we follow is \u2018test as you fly, fly as you test.\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

L3Harris built the optical telescope assembly in Rochester but designed it to operate one million miles away, which meant it had to handle extreme thermal ranges.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaterials do really well if you keep their temperatures stable, but the second your temperatures start shifting, materials grow and shrink as they get hotter or colder, and that means things move and shift,\u201d says Borrelli. \u201cFor an optical system, that\u2019s not something you can tolerate. If you think about Hubble, for example, the error they had on their primary mirror was only one micron across the whole surface, which is about one one-hundredth the width of a human hair.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the optical telescope assembly was built in Rochester, it was shipped to NASA Goddard in Maryland, where it was combined with other components, including the coronagraph, before being shipped to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for takeoff.<\/p>\n

Putting it to the test<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Alumni at NASA and L3Harris who worked on Roman say they are much less nervous for Roman\u2019s launch than they were for Webb\u2019s, when any one of the telescope\u2019s 344 single-point failures could have doomed the mission.<\/p>\n

\"Matthew
UROCHESTER REALLY MADE THE GRADE:<\/strong> Matthew Bolcar \u201909 (PhD) joined the Roman project in 2020 as NASA Goddard\u2019s optical systems lead, overseeing testing of the telescope\u2019s alignment, wavefront error, and overall optical performance. (Photo credit: NASA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But testing was still a massive undertaking.<\/p>\n

Bolcar joined the Roman project in 2020 as NASA Goddard\u2019s optical systems lead. His job mainly focused on testing the telescope to ensure it met requirements for wavefront error, alignment, and overall optical performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cA mantra we follow is \u2018test as you fly, fly as you test,\u2019\u201d says Bolcar.<\/p>\n

That meant testing the optical telescope assembly before and after it was mounted, after it was aligned, and after the wide field instrument was added. They subjected it to vibration and acoustics testing and simulated a launch. Once the telescope was assembled, it went through a 65-day thermal-vacuum test. It wasn\u2019t easy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWorking here in Rochester, there are highways all over the place, and a truck going by on a highway a mile from the facility creates vibrations in the ground that you can see in the test,\u201d says Borrelli.<\/p>\n

Because conditions on Earth are so different from those in space, the team had to get creative. As NASA Goddard\u2019s wavefront sensing lead engineer for Roman, Jurling heads a team of software and optics experts who measure the alignment and performance of the telescope\u2019s optics. For them, gravity is a major obstacle.<\/p>\n

\"Alden
DEFYING GRAVITY:<\/strong> Alden Jurling \u201915 (PhD), Roman\u2019s wavefront sensing lead engineer at NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center, leads a team that measures the alignment and performance of the telescope\u2019s optics. Jurling began working on Roman as a URochester graduate student in 2011. (Photo credit: NASA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe primary mirror for Roman is very lightweight, about a quarter of the weight of Hubble\u2019s, and because of that, on the ground it sags a lot more than we would like,\u201d says Jurling. \u201cMy team had to develop a novel gravity sag measurement technique that we used in ground testing very successfully.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seeing is believing<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\"Close-up
ROMAN WASN\u2019T BUILT IN A DAY:<\/strong> The telescope\u2019s precisely aligned mirrors will direct light into its science instruments, helping Roman produce sharp infrared images across an extraordinarily wide field of view. (Photo credit: NASA\/Chris Gunn)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For the people who contributed to Roman, seeing their handiwork launch into outer space will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor Webb, it was during [COVID-19], so not many people could go at all, plus it was in South America at the European Space Agency launch facility,\u201d says Howard, who has worked at NASA for more than 25 years. \u201cFor a lot of us, this will be our first launch to actually go to.\u201d<\/p>\n

After launch, Roman will take about three months to reach its destination and deploy, calibrate, and test its instruments. The team at NASA Goddard, including Howard, Bolcar, and Jurling, will be busy during this christening period adjusting the alignment of the optics and mechanics to get the best possible performance.<\/p>\n

Then comes the part they\u2019ve been waiting for.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we make sure the telescope is in focus and the image quality is good, we hand over the keys, so to speak, to the scientists,\u201d says Howard. \u201cBy the end of the year, knock on wood, our scientist friends will be reaping new and great ideas and lots of awesome images.\u201d<\/p>\n

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