Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite

Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite
TESS satellite
NamesExplorer 95
TESS
MIDEX-7
Mission typeSpace observatory[1][2]
OperatorNASA / MIT
COSPAR ID2018-038A
SATCAT no.43435
Websitetess.gsfc.nasa.gov
tess.mit.edu
Mission duration2 years (planned)
7 years, 5 months (in progress)
Spacecraft properties
SpacecraftExplorer XCV
Spacecraft typeTransiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite
BusLEOStar-2/750[3]
ManufacturerOrbital ATK
Launch mass362 kg (798 lb) [4]
Dimensions3.7 × 1.2 × 1.5 m (12.1 × 3.9 × 4.9 ft)
Power530 watts
Start of mission
Launch date18 April 2018, 22:51:30 UTC[5]
RocketFalcon 9 Block 4 B1045-1
Launch siteCape Canaveral, SLC-40
ContractorSpaceX
Entered service25 July 2018
Orbital parameters
Reference systemGeocentric orbit
RegimeHighly elliptical orbit
Perigee altitude108,000 km (67,000 mi)
Apogee altitude375,000 km (233,000 mi)
Inclination37.00°
Period13.70 days

TESS satellite mission patch
Explorer program

Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is a space telescope for NASA's Explorer program, designed to search for exoplanets using the transit method in an area 400 times larger than that covered by the Kepler mission.[6] It was launched on 18 April 2018, atop a Falcon 9 launch vehicle and was placed into a highly elliptical 13.70-day orbit around the Earth.[6][2][7][8][9] The first light image from TESS was taken on 7 August 2018, and released publicly on 17 September 2018.[1][10][11]

In the two-year primary mission, TESS was expected to detect about 1,250 transiting exoplanets orbiting the targeted stars, and an additional 13,000 orbiting stars not targeted but observed.[12] After the end of the primary mission around 4 July 2020, scientists continued to search its data for more planets, while the extended missions acquires additional data. As of 1 July 2025, TESS had identified 7,655 candidate exoplanets, of which 638 had been confirmed.[13]

The primary mission objective for TESS was to survey the brightest stars near the Earth for transiting exoplanets over a two-year period. The TESS satellite uses an array of wide-field cameras to perform a survey of 85% of the sky. With TESS, it is possible to study the mass, size, density and orbit of a large cohort of small planets, including a sample of rocky planets in the habitable zones of their host stars. TESS provides prime targets for further characterization by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), as well as other large ground-based and space-based telescopes of the future. While previous sky surveys with ground-based telescopes have mainly detected giant exoplanets and the Kepler space telescope has mostly found planets around distant stars that are too faint for characterization, TESS finds many small planets around the nearest stars in the sky. TESS records the nearest and brightest main sequence stars hosting transiting exoplanets, which are the most favorable targets for detailed investigations.[14] Detailed information about such planetary systems with hot Jupiters makes it possible to better understand the architecture of such systems.[15][16]

The program is led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with seed funding from Google.[17] On 5 April 2013, it was announced that TESS, along with the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER), had been selected by NASA for launch.[18][19] On 18 July 2019, after the first year of operation, the southern portion of the survey was completed, and the northern survey was started. The primary mission ended with the completion of the northern survey on 4 July 2020, which was followed by the first extended mission. The first extended mission concluded in September 2022 and the spacecraft entered its second extended mission[20] which should last for another three years.

  1. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference NYT-20180920 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b Overbye, Dennis (26 March 2018). "Meet Tess, Seeker of Alien Worlds". The New York Times. Retrieved 26 March 2018.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Ricker2015 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ "TESS: Discovering Exoplanets Orbiting Nearby Stars - Fact Sheet" (PDF). Orbital ATK. 2018. Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 February 2018. Retrieved 21 May 2018.
  5. ^ Gebhardt, Chris (18 April 2018). "SpaceX successfully launches TESS on a mission to search for near-Earth exoplanets". NASASpaceFlight.com. Retrieved 20 May 2018.
  6. ^ a b Ricker, George R.; Winn, Joshua N.; Vanderspek, Roland; Latham, David W.; Bakos, Gáspár Á.; Bean, Jacob L.; Berta-Thompson, Zachory K.; Brown, Timothy M.; Buchhave, Lars; Butler, Nathaniel R.; Butler, R. Paul; Chaplin, William J.; Charbonneau, David; Christensen-Dalsgaard, Jørgen; Clampin, Mark; Deming, Drake; Doty, John; De Lee, Nathan; Dressing, Courtney; Dunham, Edward W.; Endl, Michael; Fressin, Francois; Ge, Jian; Henning, Thomas; Holman, Matthew J.; Howard, Andrew W.; Ida, Shigeru; Jenkins, Jon M.; et al. (24 October 2014). "Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite". Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems. 1. SPIE Digital Library: 014003. arXiv:1406.0151. Bibcode:2015JATIS...1a4003R. doi:10.1117/1.JATIS.1.1.014003.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: article number as page number (link)
  7. ^ "Launch Schedule". Spaceflight Now. 27 February 2018. Retrieved 28 February 2018.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference bbc-amos was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ "NASA Planet Hunter on Its Way to Orbit". NASA. 19 April 2018. Retrieved 19 April 2018. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference NASA-20180917a was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Cite error: The named reference NASA-20180917b was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  12. ^ Barclay, Thomas; Pepper, Joshua; Quintana, Elisa V. (25 October 2018). "A Revised Exoplanet Yield from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)". The Astrophysical Journal. Supplement Series. 239 (1): 2. arXiv:1804.05050. Bibcode:2018ApJS..239....2B. doi:10.3847/1538-4365/aae3e9. ISSN 1538-4365.
  13. ^ "Transiting Exoplanets Survey Satellite (TESS)". Exoplanet Exploration: Planets Beyond our Solar System. NASA. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  14. ^ "NASA FY 2015 President's Budget Request Summary" (PDF). NASA. 10 March 2014. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  15. ^ Wenz, John (10 October 2019). "Lessons from scorching hot weirdo-planets". Knowable Magazine. Annual Reviews. doi:10.1146/knowable-101019-2. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
  16. ^ Dawson, Rebekah I.; Johnson, John Asher (14 September 2018). "Origins of Hot Jupiters". Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics. 56 (1): 175–221. arXiv:1801.06117. Bibcode:2018ARA&A..56..175D. doi:10.1146/annurev-astro-081817-051853. S2CID 119332976. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
  17. ^ Chandler, David (19 March 2008). "MIT aims to search for Earth-like planets with Google's help". MIT.
  18. ^ Harrington, J. D. (5 April 2013). "NASA Selects Explorer Investigations for Formulation" (Press release). NASA. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  19. ^ "NASA selects MIT-led TESS project for 2017 mission". MIT. 5 April 2013. Retrieved 6 April 2013.
  20. ^ Barclay, Thomas. "NASA - TESS Science Support Center". TESS. Retrieved 4 November 2022.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.