Subject: Getting Ready To Survey Nearby Solar Systems with TESS
From: Daniel Adamo <[email-masked]>
To: ATIG <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2018 17:04:05 -0700

ATIG Members-

Launched 18 April 2018 at 22:51 UT, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey
Satellite (TESS) is designed to vastly extend discoveries of planets beyond
our Solar System.  In a manner similar to the Kepler mission (ref.
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/overview/index.html), TESS will
identify an exoplanet by observing it transit the star it orbits, thereby
slightly reducing the star's brightness.  Such observations are only
possible for an exoplanet whose orbit plane happens to nearly contain the
Earth.

The operational orbit for TESS about Earth is optimized to obtain and
transmit exoplanet transit observations, but reaching that orbit will
require 2 months of maneuvers, including a lunar flyby with pericynthion on
17 May at 06:30 UT.  The attached PDF contains trajectory plots illustrating
this process using data posted to JPL's Horizons ephemeris server (ref.
https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/?horizons) on 19 April.  More information on TESS
launch and operations can be found at
https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/04/19/all-sky-surveyor-launched-from-cape-ca
naveral-on-the-hunt-for-exoplanets/.

-Dan