Roman Proposals Home
The Proposal section contains documentation on how to prepare and submit proposals for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Guidance on the proposal process, including submission through the Roman Telescope Proposal System (RTPS), is maintained by the Roman Science Support Center at IPAC. Here, proposers can find the Call for Proposals documents as well as links to corresponding information and resources that support the proposal preparation process.
Roman Proposal Table of Contents
The Roman Proposals pages cover the topics listed below:
Information
As the Roman project continues development in preparation of an expected launch date no later than May 2027, elements of this documentation will be created and/or updated with the latest information.
Roman Proposals Overview
The Roman Telescope Proposal System (RTPS) is based on the proposal submission and observation planning systems used for the Spitzer and Hubble missions, as well as those developed for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). A key difference is that while Spitzer and Hubble have carried out large surveys, they were predominantly driven by General Observer programs, meaning the vast majority of observing time was devoted to science proposed by the astronomical community. In contrast, for the Roman Space Telescope, General Investigator programs will account for up to 25% of the available Wide Field Instrument (WFI) observing time during the five-year prime mission. The Coronagraph Instrument (CGI) will serve as a technology demonstration and will not be available for General Investigator science. Building on the heritage of Spitzer, Hubble, and Webb, RTPS is designed to support both regular calls for proposals and Discretionary Research (DR) proposals. Proposals from the astronomical community are expected to be solicited on a regular (approximately yearly) basis, and RTPS will be flexible enough to accommodate changes to current plans, including large community-based surveys (e.g., legacy-type, multi-cycle, or early release programs), which may be solicited either through regular calls for proposals or via DR opportunities.