NASA launched its new flagship astronomical observatory today, the Nancy Grace Roman space telescope, on a mission designed to probe some of the biggest mysteries in astrophysics and cosmology and provide a “new atlas of the universe.”

The Telescope, a roughly $4 billion project standing more than 12 meters tall, launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket at 7:26 a.m. local time (2:26 p.m. Greek time).

Despite earlier concerns over weather conditions ahead of the launch, the rocket lifted off successfully and delivered the telescope into space.

The telescope is named in honor of Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer, widely regarded as “the mother of the Hubble Space Telescope.”

Roman will travel to an orbital position known as Lagrange Point 2, located about 1.6 million kilometers from Earth, a journey expected to take roughly 100 days. Its mission is scheduled to last five years, though NASA has said the telescope may carry enough fuel to operate for five additional years beyond that.