NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman led a flight of his personally owned F-5 Tiger II fighter jets over Launch Complex 39A on Saturday, giving him a final look at the Falcon Heavy carrying NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.
A lifelong pilot, Isaacman has flown aircraft including the A-4, F-5, L-39, T-38 and MiG-29. Before becoming NASA administrator, he also commanded the Inspiration4 and Polaris Dawn private space missions.
The flyover came just before the Roman Space Telescope launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy on August 30 at 7:26 a.m. EDT. The telescope is now traveling toward the Sun-Earth L2 point, roughly 930,000 miles from Earth.
Roman will study dark energy, dark matter and exoplanets, using a wide-field camera capable of surveying much more sky than Hubble. Its mission is expected to provide a new view of the universe and help scientists discover thousands of distant planets.