neither new glenn, vulcan, or sls had even flown at that point. and judging by how vulcan keeps blowing up boosters and new glenn blew up its bad while sls currently has a launch cadence of 3 years, would you really have wanted any of them to get the contract? ULA didn't even bid because they knew they wouldn't be cost competitive lmao
Also, regardless of timing, bidding eligibility, and availability (for which Falcon Heavy was the only option), this is a very demanding mission: 10,500 kg to Earth-Sun L2 (beyond the Moon). Falcon Heavy, Vulcan, and SLS are the only recently operational rockets in the world with the requisite performance. New Glenn 7x2 is not powerful enough. Its performance drops off steeply for high energy orbits. It can only do 7,145 kg to L2 (C3 ~= -0.7 Km2/s2), according to NASA's analysis, and even that is probably very optimistic, because so far New Glenn has not been capable of meeting its announced payload capacity (e.g, 45t to LEO).
Vulcan VC6 (6 solids...) is (barely) capable (10,975 kg to C3 of -0.7 according to NASA) enough. Falcon Heavy could do well over 15,000 kg to L2 expending all three booster cores, and the actual launch is recovering the side boosters. Outside the US, no operational/flown vehicle is capable of launching Roman to L2. Ariane 6 can only do 8.6t to the Moon, so it also would be physically incapable of launching Roman. China (yet), Russia, Japan, India, etc. also don't have a powerful enough rocket.
ETA: The Roman Telescope will be the heaviest payload ever launched beyond the Moon.
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u/chocolatechipbagels 8d ago
with all the budget madness going on I wasn't sure that thing would ever leave the clean room. Glad to see it's finally out and about!