NASA dips into futuristic AR tech to build powerful Roman Space Telescope

A person in a dark red shirt and jeans stands in the background behind a web of metal beams. They bend over reaching out their arm to seemingly thin air. On their head, a pair of goggles covers their eyes and emits a red dot.

Engineers at NASA are turning to augmented reality (AR) to build spacecraft more efficiently and with greater accuracy. 

The Roman Space Telescope team has already started applying the technology while working on the next-gen observatory — its next major eye on the sky after the James Webb Space Telescope's massive success. Roman is currently being assembled at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the agency said AR has already saved days' worth of work. Tasks that would typically require multiple engineers and technicians were also able to be completed with way less effort.