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Official TESS patch

Space telescopes·NASA

TESS

ActiveLaunched in 2018·Lunar P/2 — ~373,000 km

Kepler's successor: hunts transiting exoplanets around bright nearby stars across the entire sky.

Main objectives

Detect transiting exoplanets around bright nearby stars.
Identify targets for spectroscopy (Webb, future observatories).
Monitor nearly 200,000 stars across almost the entire sky.

Did you know?

It continuously monitors 200,000 nearby stars every 27 days. Its 4 cameras cover 85% of the sky — a record for a space telescope.

Timeline

Apr 18, 2018

Launch

Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral.

Sep 25, 2018

First TESS exoplanet

Pi Mensae c detected.

Instruments

[03]

Caméras (×4)

Four identical wide-field cameras to detect exoplanet transits

Détecteurs CCD

MIT Lincoln Lab 16.8 Mpx sensors converting light to signals

DHU

Onboard data handling unit stacking 2s images into 2min/200s cadences

Specifications

Mass362 kg

OrbitLunar P/2 13.7 d

Cameras4 wide-field 16 MP cameras

Discoveries

[05]

Mission milestones

[02]

Official sources