Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite

Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite

Artist concept of TESS
Mission type	Space observatory
Operator	NASA / MIT
Website	http://tess.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Mission duration	Planned: 2 years
Spacecraft properties
Bus	LEOStar-2
Manufacturer	Orbital Sciences
Launch mass	350 kg (772 lb)
Dimensions	3.7 × 1.2 × 1.5 m (12.1 × 3.9 × 4.9 ft)
Power	400 watts
Start of mission
Launch date	NET 20 March 2018 (2018-03-20) (NLT June 2018)
Rocket	Falcon 9 Block 5
Launch site	Cape Canaveral SLC-40
Contractor	SpaceX
Orbital parameters
Reference system	Highly elliptical
Regime	High Earth
Semi-major axis	240,000 km (150,000 mi)
Eccentricity	0.55
Perigee	108,000 km (67,000 mi)
Apogee	373,000 km (232,000 mi)
Period	13.7 days

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is a planned space telescope for NASA's Explorers program, designed to search for exoplanets using the transit method. It is planned for launch in March 2018.

The primary mission objective for TESS is to survey the brightest stars near the Earth for transiting exoplanets over a two-year period. The TESS project will use an array of wide-field cameras to perform an all-sky survey. With TESS, it will be possible to study the mass, size, density and orbit of a large cohort of small planets, including a sample of rocky worlds in the habitable zones of their host stars. TESS will provide prime targets for further characterization by the James Webb Space Telescope, as well as other large ground-based and space-based telescopes of the future.

Previous sky surveys with ground-based telescopes have mainly detected giant exoplanets. In contrast, TESS will examine a large number of small planets around the very brightest stars in the sky. TESS will record the nearest and brightest main sequence stars hosting transiting exoplanets, which are the most favorable targets for detailed investigations.

Led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with seed funding from Google, TESS was one of 11 proposals selected for NASA funding in September 2011, down from the original 42 submitted in February of that year. On April 5, 2013, it was announced that TESS, along with the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER), had been selected for launch.

The genesis of TESS began as early as 2006, when a design was developed from private funding by individuals, Google, and The Kavli Foundation. In 2008, MIT proposed that TESS become a full NASA mission and submitted it for the Small Explorer program at Goddard Space Flight Center, but it was not selected. It was resubmitted in 2010 as an Explorers program mission, and was approved in 2013 as a Medium Explorer mission.