Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite

Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite
Type:	Space telescope
Country:	United States
Operator:	NASA
COSPAR-ID :	2018-038A
Mission dates
Dimensions:	365 kg
Begin:	April 18, 2018, 22:51 UTC
Starting place:	Cape Canaveral
Launcher:	Falcon 9 v1.2 Block 4
Status:	in orbit
Orbit data
Orbit inclination :	29 °
Apogee height :	355,646 km
Perigee height :	1,063 km

Picture of TESS before the start

Flight maneuvers after take-off

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is a space telescope of NASA to search for exoplanets . The mission started on April 18, 2018 with a Falcon 9 . This was followed by a two-month complex flight maneuver with a swing-by on the moon in order to reach the planned earth orbit.

Like the Kepler space telescope , TESS also uses the transit method to discover exoplanets. However, the focus is on stars that are closest to our solar system. In addition, TESS should also be used to observe significantly brighter stars than with Kepler, with which predominantly red dwarfs were observed. Several thousand planet candidates are expected, 300 of which are said to be of the order of magnitude of the earth (see also known earth-like exoplanets ).

mission

TESS is supposed to scan around 85% of the sky and mainly observe sun-like stars of the spectral classes G, K and M with an apparent brightness of up to 12 mag. Mainly stars are observed at a distance between 30 and 300 light years , which is significantly closer (and therefore brighter) than the stars in the Kepler mission, where the range was between 300 and 3000 light years. As a result, TESS has to be able to handle significantly higher brightnesses than Kepler. However, this greater proximity and brightness has the advantage that subsequent investigations can be carried out more easily than with the planets that were discovered with Kepler. Around 200,000 stars are to be examined, including the 1,000 closest red dwarfs. TESS searches for transits and a catalog of exoplanet candidates is created based on the data. Using the catalog, earth-based telescopes can carry out follow-up examinations and thus confirm or reject the candidates. Other telescopes, such as the James Webb Space Telescope , will then examine the atmospheres of the planets discovered.

In addition to searching for exoplanets, TESS also allows scientists to propose additional targets for astrophysical investigations as part of the Guest Investigator Program .

Technical mission details

TESS is equipped with four wide-angle telescopes and associated CCD detectors. The raw data will be sent back to Earth every 13.7 days, with the data transmission taking approximately three hours. TESS moves in an orbit in 2: 1 resonance to the moon , also called "P / 2". This highly elliptical orbit should be stable for decades and keep the TESS cameras in a stable temperature range.

The observation is divided into 26 sectors, with each sector covering a field of 24 ° × 96 ° . The sectors overlap, which increases the probability of observing transits of longer period planets. The telescope should observe one sector for 27.4 days (two orbits) and then move on to the next sector. During the observation, a section of the 100,000 brightest stars in the image area is saved and compared every minute. The primary mission is complete once all 26 sectors have been surveyed. It therefore takes about 2 years (26 sectors multiplied by 27.4 days per sector).

Illustration of the sectors

Mission history

Before the start

The idea for TESS dates back to 2006, when the design was defined with private funding. In 2008, as proposed by MIT, the project should become a full NASA mission as part of the Small Explorer Program . At that time, however, the mission was not selected. However, it was proposed again in 2010 and finally accepted as a Medium Explorer mission in 2013 .

Launch of the Falcon 9

Since the start

On April 18, 2018, the probe was successfully launched into orbit. After that, some preliminary work was necessary for the scientific mission, which began on July 25th. The first pictures (" First Light ") were taken on August 7th and published on September 17th.

" First light " of the scientific observation phase, recorded on August 7, 2018. The Magellanic Clouds are clearly visible in the two lower fields .

On August 22, 2018, the campaign in the first sector of the southern hemisphere was successfully completed and the scientific data was sent to Earth. After analyzing this data, the first exoplanet candidates were released on September 19, 2018. The two planets ( Pi Mensae c and LHS 3844 b) orbit their central star in just 6 days and 11 hours respectively. On December 2, 2018, 135 candidates were counted, although some candidates on this list had previously been identified as exoplanets by other search programs such as SuperWASP or the HATNet Project . At the end of July 2020, the NASA Exoplanet Archive counted 66 confirmed discoveries by TESS and more than 2000 candidates. At this point, TESS had collected the data for the 26 sectors from the primary mission and started the "Extended Mission" from sector 27.

Trivia

The program also received international attention through the discovery of the circumbinary exoplanet TOI 1338b by student intern Wolf Cukier in the summer of 2019, about which NASA reported in January 2020.

See also

• CHEOPS (space telescope)
• COROT (space telescope)
• PLATO (space telescope)

Web links

Commons : Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• TESS Science Support Center (English)
• TESS site of MIT (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Gunter Krebs: TESS (MIDEX 7). In: space.skyrocket.de. January 25, 2018, accessed February 16, 2018 . 
2. ↑ TESS on N2YO.com, accessed October 11, 2019.
3. ↑ TESS Orbit Design. In: spacefligt101.com. April 19, 2018, accessed April 19, 2018 . 
4. ↑ ^{a b} About TESS. At: NASA.gov. Retrieved November 5, 2018.
5. ↑ ^{a b c} Rob Garner: NASA's TESS Shares First Science Image in Hunt to Find New Worlds. In: NASA. September 17, 2018, accessed September 21, 2018 . 
6. ^ Sara Seager: Exoplanet Space Missions. In: seagerexoplanets.mit.edu. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2011, accessed April 7, 2013 . 
7. ↑ Mark Zastrow: Exoplanets After Kepler: What's next? In: skyandtelescope.com . May 30, 2013, accessed December 17, 2014 . 
8. ↑ ^{a b} TESS-DATA-ALERTS: Data Products From TESS Data Alerts. Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST), accessed December 2, 2018 . 
9. ↑ TESS: New Explorer Mission Chooses the 'Just-Right' Orbit. In: NASA.gov. July 2013, accessed April 15, 2018 . 
10. ↑ TESS. Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. (PDF; 626 kB) In: NASA.gov. October 2014, accessed December 17, 2014 . 
11. ↑ ^{a b} The TESS Mission. Mission History. (No longer available online.) In: NASA.gov. Archived from the original on June 16, 2016 ; accessed on October 23, 2015 . 
12. ↑ Medium-Class Explorers (MIDEX) Missions in Development. In: NASA.gov. Retrieved October 23, 2015 . 
13. ↑ Chris Gebhardt: TESS in excellent health, finds 1st two exoplanet candidates during first science orbit. In: NASA. September 20, 2018, accessed November 5, 2018 . 
14. ↑ TESS Input Catalog Version 6 (TIC-6) is now online at MAST. In: NASA. January 23, 2018, accessed November 5, 2018 . 
15. ↑ Confirmed Planets. In: NASA Exoplanet Archive . Retrieved July 24, 2020 . 
16. ↑ TESS Project Candidates. In: NASA Exoplanet Archive. Retrieved July 24, 2020 . 
17. ↑ TESS Observations. Retrieved July 26, 2020 (English). 
18. ↑ dpa, Patrick Diekmann: Seven times larger than the earth. Intern at NASA discovers mysterious planets. In: t-online.de. January 12, 2020, accessed January 12, 2020 . 
19. ↑ Christine Hauser: How's Your Internship Going? This Teen Found a Planet. In: New York Times. January 11, 2020, accessed on January 12, 2020 . 
20. ↑ Edward Helmore: 'There's something here'. Teen discovers new planet while interning at Nasa. In: The Guardian. January 10, 2020, accessed on January 12, 2020 . 
21. ^ Jeanette Kazmierczak: NASA's TESS Mission Uncovers Its 1st World With Two Stars. NASA.gov. January 7, 2020, accessed on February 10, 2020.