NASA's Next Exoplanet-Hunter, TESS, Arrives at Kennedy Space Center Ahead of Launch

[kevindavis007]

NASA is getting closer to taking the next big step in exoplanet-hunting – the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) space telescope has just arrived at Kennedy Space Center in Florida in preparation for launch no earlier than April 16. It was built and tested during 2017 at Orbital ATK in Dulles, Virginia, and now will be readied for launch in the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility (PHSF) at Kennedy. This is the same clean room used for the Cassini, New Horizons, Mars rovers, OSIRIS-REx and other missions. TESS will be launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Complex 40 launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.


TESS is the next exoplanet-hunting mission following the Kepler Space Telescope mission. Kepler has already discovered thousands of exoplanets and TESS is expected to find thousands more. Unlike Kepler however, TESS will survey almost the entire sky over at least two years, looking at 200,000 of the nearest and brightest stars. Kepler focused on one small patch of sky, examining stars further away. It is expected that TESS will be able to catalog more than 1,500 transiting exoplanet candidates, including a sample of about 500 Earth-sized and “super-Earth” planets, with radii less than twice that of the Earth.

TESS will be able to identify exoplanets which may be capable of supporting some form of life, and those findings can then be followed up by even more advanced telescopes, such as the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled for launch in 2019.

Read More: http://www.isn-news.net/2018/02/nasas-next-exoplanet-hunter-tess.html

[Gefn]

Sweet!