Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite

Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite

Operator	NASA
Mission type	Space observatory
Satellite of	Earth
Orbits	Low Earth Orbit
Launch date	2016
Launch vehicle	Pegasus XL
Mission duration	2 Years

Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is a proposed space telescope by MIT for NASA's Small Explorer program. It was selected for development in the most recent Small Explorer phase A study round. The telescope would conduct a two year long all-sky survey program for exploring transiting exoplanets around nearby and bright stars.

The satellite would be equipped with six (or nine) wide-angle telescopes and CCD detectors with a total size of 192 megapixels. The observation's data would be processed and stored for three months onboard, and it is planned to transmit only data of interest down to the Earth. The three month-long storing enables scientists to search within data if an unexpected, transient phenomena (for example a Gamma-ray Burst) is discovered. Google has provided seed money for the development of the telescopes' sensors and optical systems.

The survey would focus the G and K spectral type stars brighter than 12 magnitudes, approximately 2 million of them would be studied, and the 1,000 closest M-type red dwarfs (within 30 parsecs). It is expected to discover 1,000 - 10,000 transiting exoplanets down to the size of the Earth and up to 2 months of period. The candidates could be later investigated by the HARPS spectrometer and some of them could be targets of the James Webb Space Telescope. The developer team is optimistic enough to claim that the first interstellar space missions' destinations could be among these stars.

In September 2011, TESS was announced among 11 proposals under consideration for selection, down from the original 22 submitted in February 2011. TESS will receive $1 million to conduct an 11-month mission concept study. Following the detailed mission concept studies, NASA plans to select up to two of the Explorer Mission proposals in February 2013. The missions would then proceed toward flight and some could launch by 2016.

References

• "TESS: All Sky Survey for Transiting Planets". Centauri Dreams. 2008-03-26. http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=1788. Retrieved 2008-10-31. 
• Chandler, David (2008-03-19). "MIT aims to search for Earth-like planets with Google's help". MIT News. http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/google-planets-tt0319.html. Retrieved 2008-10-31. 
• Chandler, David (2008-06-03). "NASA selects MIT-led team to develop planet-searching satellite". MIT News. http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/tess-0603.html. Retrieved 2008-10-31. 
• "NASA Explorer Program Website". http://explorers.gsfc.nasa.gov/.