Every once in a while a new opportunity is presented to us of an all-together different nature. After the hugely successful Kepler planet hunting million launched in 2011 we now know there is many thousands of planets existing throughout our universe, in fact they are almost as common as stars!. Nasa's has had a successful launch with TESS and first data downlinks of the light signatures of 200,000 stars will be delivered beginning in January 2019. On April 18, 2018 SpaceX successfully launched and deployed NASA’s brand new planet-hunting satellite named TESS on Wednesday night, delighting scientists and space exploration fans worldwide. The enthusiasts anticipate that the spacecraft will discover many new planets in our Galaxy capable of supporting life.
TESS stands for Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, i's a telescope and camera array that will hunt for many thousands of new worlds around very nearby stars. The Kepler Mission studied the Lyrae and Cygnus star constellations beyond the horizon of our galaxy, this time TESS will be looking right here in our own Galaxy, literally in our own stellar back yard.
TESS will provide new targets to study planetary classifications, atmospheric physics, elemental abundancy and will help to aid advancement of star & planetary research. TESS will spend the first 60 days getting into its proper orbit. Nasa' and SpaceX has an exceedingly perfect launch and deployment, deployment happened right on schedule and the solar arrays will “give the spacecraft the power it needs to search for worlds beyond our solar system.” With the help of a gravitational assist from the moon, the spacecraft will first settled into a 13.7-day orbit around Earth. The orbit of the new TESS satellite is carefully planned to account for the moon’s gravity.
The spacecraft will be looking for transit phenomenon, this happens when a planets crosses in front of a stars light signature. When a planet passes in front of its star causing a periodic or regular dip in the star’s brightness when can identify new planetary systems. NASA’s history making transit survey telescope the Kepler used the same transit method to detect thousands of planets. TESS is designed to concentrate on stars less than 300 light-years away, about 200,000 of them in total initially with many more to follow after. NASA says the satellite will begin its initial two year mission 60 days after launch following successful testing of its instruments. Four wide-field cameras will give TESS a field-of-view that covers 85 percent of our entire sky.
TESS is a NASA Astrophysics Explorer mission led and operated by MIT and managed by NASA's Goddard. Orbital ATK manufactured and designed the satellite for NASA.
SpaceX Vice President for Mission Assurance Hans Koenigsmann said previously that the second stage of the rocket carrying TESS would not be recovered. He also stated there is something new happening here with the current mission, SpaceX planned to fire the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket and kick it out of orbit so that it doesn’t become space trash. Leading the way to new understandings upcoming TESS data releases will create tons of buzz and excitement in our science communities, stay in touch to get follow ups.
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