Space UpClose: In the Cleanroom with TESS – NASA’s Newest Exoplanet Hunter Launching April 16

NASA’s TESS Exoplanet hunter being processed by technicians inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility clean room on Feb 20, 2018 at the Kennedy Space Center. Launch on SpaceX Falcon 9 set for April 16, 2018. Credit: Ken Kremer/SpaceUpClose.com/kenkremer.com

Ken Kremer -- SpaceUpClose.com -- 11 April 2018

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – NASA’s newest exoplanet hunter, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) who’s goal is to search for new Earth’s that could potentially support life is on target to launch April 16 from the Florida Space Coast.

TESS will help answer the biggest question of them all – ‘Are We Alone in the Universe?’

TESS is scheduled to blast off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 6:32 p.m. EDT Monday, April 16 from Space Launch Complex-40 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The launch window lasts only a very short 30 seconds.

Space UpClose recently got an up close look and media briefing about the small sized but scientifically powerful observatory during a visit with the spacecraft and team inside the clean room processing facility at the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility clean room at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

Check out our gallery of up close photos.

NASA’s TESS Exoplanet hunter undergoes prelaunch processing inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility clean room on Feb 20, 2018 at the Kennedy Space Center. Liftoff on SpaceX Falcon 9 slated for April 16, 2018. Credit: Ken Kremer/SpaceUpClose.com/kenkremer.com

TESS is charged with searching for and discovering new Earth and Super Earth sized planets beyond our Solar System that orbit their host stars inside the habitable zones that offer conditions conducive to the origin and evolution of life.

During an initial 2 year long mission, TESS will gradually sweep across the entire sky and conduct a full sky survey by monitoring and investigating over 200,000 of the nearest and brightest stars to search for planets outside our solar system.

“One of the biggest questions in exoplanet exploration is: If an astronomer finds a planet in a star’s habitable zone, will it be interesting from a biologist's point of view?” said George Ricker, TESS principal investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research in Cambridge, which is leading the mission.

“We expect TESS will discover a number of planets whose atmospheric compositions, which hold potential clues to the presence of life, could be precisely measured by future observers.”

TESS is NASA’s second exoplanet mission and a follow up to the hugely successful Kepler probe which discovered over 2300 exoplanets of all sizes.

NASA’s TESS Exoplanet hunter being processed inside clean room tent in the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility on Feb 20, 2018 at the Kennedy Space Center. Launch on SpaceX Falcon 9 set for April 16, 2018. Credit: Ken Kremer/SpaceUpClose.com/kenkremer.com

To carry out its daunting task, the spacecraft is equipped with 4 identical wide-field science cameras. Their combined field of view will enable the spacecraft to image some 85% of the entire sky during the full sky survey over the first two years.

Scientists plumbing the data gathered by TESS hope to discover on the order of 300 to 500 Earths and Super Earths alone, orbiting in their habitable zones compared to a dozen or so by Kepler.

TESS observations will yield the orbits and sizes of these exoplanets. They will also provide the specific targets for follow up high resolution investigations by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and other telescopes to determine the exoplanets masses, compositions and atmospheric constituents.

In turn researchers will use these observations to determine if any of the newly discovered Earths and Super earths and actually Earth like possessing water, oxygen and carbon based molecules for example that can potentially support life.

How will TESS conduct the full sky survey? The sky has been subdivided into 26 observing sectors that basically equate to tileing the sky piece by piece - much like covering your kitchen floor with tiles.

TESS will map the sky one tile at a time by pointing the four cameras to discrete sectors of the sky and then combining them into an overarching panorama of the Universe encircling Earth.

The sky has been divided into 2 hemispheres – southern and northern.

Each hemisphere has been divided into 13 sectors that will be observed one by one. The southern sky of 13 sectors will be imaged initially over the first year, followed by the northern sky of 13 sectors over the second year.

Each of the cameras is equipped with four 16.8 megapixel CCD’s and a seven element optical system.

The cameras are located on the top of the spacecraft inside a protective sunshade to shield the instruments.

TESS will observe each sky sector tile for approximately 28 days of continuous observations.

Each sky tile from a single camera measures 24 degrees by 24 degrees. The 4 cameras combine to simultaneously cover a sector of 24 x 96 degrees.

TESS is the first space science mission launched by SpaceX for NASA.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 will deliver TESS to a highly elliptical Earth orbit never used before by a science mission, Ricker said at the media briefing.

TESS will orbit Earth in 13.7 days in a 2:1 resonance orbit with the moon. The moon orbits earth every 28 days.

The TESS science orbit is extremely stable as a result, thus requiring minimal fuel to maintain. The spacecraft is loaded with enough propellants to continue its observations for 20 years if all goes well with the spacecraft systems.

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is set to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida no earlier than April 16, 2018. Once in orbit, TESS will spend about two years surveying 200,000 of the brightest stars near the sun to search for planets outside our solar system. Credits: NASA

“TESS is opening a door for a whole new kind of study,” said Stephen Rinehart, TESS project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, which manages the mission. “We’re going to be able study individual planets and start talking about the differences between planets. The targets TESS finds are going to be fantastic subjects for research for decades to come. It’s the beginning of a new era of exoplanet research.”

The $240 million spacecraft was built by prime contractor Orbital ATK.

The kitchen table sized probe weighs 770 pounds (350 g) and measures 12 x 4 x 5 ft (3.7 x 1.2 x 1.5 m).

TESS is a NASA Astrophysics Explorer mission led and operated by MIT and managed by Goddard. George Ricker, of MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, serves as principal investigator for the mission. TESS’s four wide-field cameras were developed by MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory. Additional partners include Orbital ATK, NASA’s Ames Research Center, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the Space Telescope Science Institute. More than a dozen universities, research institutes and observatories worldwide are participants in the mission.

Watch for Ken’s continuing onsite coverage of NASA’s TESS, SpaceX, ULA, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Orbital ATK and more space and mission reports direct from the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

Stay tuned here for Ken's continuing Earth and Planetary science and human spaceflight news: www.kenkremer.com –www.spaceupclose.com – twitter @ken_kremer - ken at kenkremer.com

NASA’s TESS Exoplanet hunter being processed by technicians inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility clean room during visit by Ken Kremer/Space UpClose during media briefing on Feb 20, 2018 at the Kennedy Space Center. Launch on SpaceX Falcon 9 set for April 16, 2018. Credit: Ken Kremer/SpaceUpClose.com/kenkremer.com

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

In the Cleanroom with TESS – NASA’s Newest Exoplanet Hunter Launching April 16

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