Technology

NASA, the Roman project team, and SpaceX completed a Flight Readiness Review on August 21 at Kennedy Space Center, certifying the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope ready for a Falcon Heavy launch no earlier than 7:26 a.m. EDT on August 30, 2026 — nine months ahead of its previous May 2027 schedule. The observatory carries a 300-megapixel infrared wide-field camera projected to survey sky area more than 50 times what Hubble covered in 30 years, plus a coronagraph designed to image planets up to 100 million times fainter than their host stars. At an approximate lifecycle cost of $4.3 billion, Roman's primary mission targets dark energy measurements, a census of hundreds of millions of galaxies, and an exoplanet survey reaching down to a few lunar masses.

EDF power solutions North America has signed two 25-year power-purchase agreements with NV Energy covering the 400 MWac solar and 400 MW/1,600 MWh Winston Energy project in Lyon County, Nevada, with electricity delivery expected to begin in October 2029. Regulatory filings reveal the storage contract term is 20 years rather than 25, annual generation figures differ significantly between the press release and PUCN contract documents, and final PPA approval from the PUCN has not yet been confirmed. The project is also affected by a pending $4.2 billion sale of EDF power solutions' U.S. and Canadian operations to KKR, announced in July 2026 but not yet closed as of late August 2026.

The FDA has cleared Orum Therapeutics to proceed with a first-in-human Phase 1 study of ORM-1153, a degrader-antibody conjugate targeting CD123 on leukemia cells, with enrollment of approximately 42 patients expected to begin by end of 2026. Unlike conventional antibody-drug conjugates that deliver chemotherapy payloads, ORM-1153 delivers a molecular-glue degrader designed to break down the GSPT1 protein inside cancer cells, a mechanism the company says may address chemotherapy-resistant disease. IND clearance authorizes human administration but does not indicate efficacy; no clinical trial registration or confirmed first-patient date was publicly available at the time of the announcement.