Author Topic: NASA - Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite ( TESS ) updates  (Read 88901 times)

Offline jebbo

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Given recent events on Kepler, it seems like a good idea to start looking at the replacement missions.  So here is a starter on TESS.

There is a reasonable summary from Ricker et al here: https://arxiv.org/abs/1406.0151
Overview of the orbit design: here
Latest expected science yield (numbers of planets detected, etc): https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.05050
Main archive page: here

Note: I will update this post to add further links to the archive manual, target catalogues, etc as they become available.

--- Tony
« Last Edit: 05/19/2018 03:26 pm by gongora »

Offline MarsMethanogen

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Re: NASA - Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite updates
« Reply #1 on: 07/27/2017 04:06 pm »
Link doesn't appear to work at my end.

Offline AnalogMan

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Re: NASA - Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite updates
« Reply #2 on: 07/27/2017 05:56 pm »
Link doesn't appear to work at my end.

Looks like the link expired since it was posted 4 years ago.  Here's a copy of the presentation.

Offline gongora

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Re: NASA - Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite updates
« Reply #3 on: 04/16/2018 02:31 am »
Bumping this thread for post-launch TESS updates
« Last Edit: 04/16/2018 02:31 am by gongora »

Offline Joffan

Both solar arrays deployed following separation, TESS is a live spacecraft.

(launch thread)

Pre-launch TESS science briefing

« Last Edit: 04/19/2018 02:40 pm by Joffan »
Getting through max-Q for humanity becoming fully spacefaring

Offline redliox

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Re: NASA - Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite updates
« Reply #5 on: 04/19/2018 01:28 am »
Given the emphasis TESS will give to the northern and southern celestial poles, I'm curious what targets are out there in those regions.  Kepler (initially) targeted a region just off the Milky Way by comparison.
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Offline Zed_Noir

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Re: NASA - Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite updates
« Reply #6 on: 04/19/2018 08:35 am »
Given the emphasis TESS will give to the northern and southern celestial poles, I'm curious what targets are out there in those regions.  Kepler (initially) targeted a region just off the Milky Way by comparison.

Keep in mind that the TESS targets are suppose to be within a few hundred light years range.

Think the Northern ans Southern Celestial poles gets more coverage from the fixed field of view of the cameras. There are notable longitude coverage gaps in the TESS search sphere area during the initial 2 year primary mission period.

Offline jebbo

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Re: NASA - Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite updates
« Reply #7 on: 04/19/2018 09:01 am »
Given the emphasis TESS will give to the northern and southern celestial poles, I'm curious what targets are out there in those regions.  Kepler (initially) targeted a region just off the Milky Way by comparison.

I expect they will pick around 6,000 stars to monitor at 2 minute cadence in the polar regions.  I've updated the top post with the latest expected yield paper - this is well worth a read.

--- Tony

Offline jebbo

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Re: NASA - Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite updates
« Reply #8 on: 04/19/2018 09:03 am »
Think the Northern ans Southern Celestial poles gets more coverage from the fixed field of view of the cameras. There are notable longitude coverage gaps in the TESS search sphere area during the initial 2 year primary mission period.

Hmm ... I don't think I'd describe the small longitude gaps as "notable" (see figure 7 of the Riker paper in the top post).

There is a 6 degree *latitude* gap at the ecliptic equator.

--- Tony

Offline Zed_Noir

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Re: NASA - Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite updates
« Reply #9 on: 04/19/2018 10:23 am »
Think the Northern ans Southern Celestial poles gets more coverage from the fixed field of view of the cameras. There are notable longitude coverage gaps in the TESS search sphere area during the initial 2 year primary mission period.

Hmm ... I don't think I'd describe the small longitude gaps as "notable" (see figure 7 of the Riker paper in the top post).

There is a 6 degree *latitude* gap at the ecliptic equator.

--- Tony
Did see the coverage area on the TESS search sphere area on a NASA youtube clip. Estimate that the missing longitude coverage area comes to about 2 to 3 camera field of view area.

The ecliptic equator belt got coverage from Kepler. But the reason the Celestial poles gets more coverage also applies to the omitted ecliptic equator belt coverage.

Offline speedevil

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Re: NASA - Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite updates
« Reply #10 on: 04/19/2018 10:29 am »
Given the emphasis TESS will give to the northern and southern celestial poles, I'm curious what targets are out there in those regions.  Kepler (initially) targeted a region just off the Milky Way by comparison.

A period of constant observation gives the best results. The design of the camera results in each scan  having two poles of constant observation.
This is also used in that those poles are going to be in depth observed for JWST targetting.

Offline Ben the Space Brit

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Re: NASA - Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite updates
« Reply #11 on: 04/19/2018 10:52 am »
Given the emphasis TESS will give to the northern and southern celestial poles, I'm curious what targets are out there in those regions.  Kepler (initially) targeted a region just off the Milky Way by comparison.

Primarily nearby red and brown dwarves. I understand that smaller K- and G-class stars drop below visual magnitude at only ~10 parsecs, so there are probably a lot of potential target stars in those areas (the galactic halo) that don't have anything other than instantly-forgettable alphanumeric catalogue numbers.

I would also expect that faint stars are more easily observed towards the galactic poles and away from the optically dazzling OB-class star clouds and the equally bright active hydrogen-alpha and H-II emissions of star-forming regions in the main galactic disc.
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Online FutureSpaceTourist

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Re: NASA - Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) updates
« Reply #12 on: 04/19/2018 11:01 am »
Quote
Over the course of the next several weeks, @NASA_TESS will conduct a series of burns (6 of them) to reach its final science orbit. This will include a lunar fly-by on 17 May 2018 at 06:31:52.180 UTC. The lunar fly-by distance will be at approximately 8000 km (altitude).

https://twitter.com/NASA_TESS/status/986921649260941312

Offline TakeOff

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Re: NASA - Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) updates
« Reply #13 on: 04/19/2018 03:32 pm »
Given the emphasis TESS will give to the northern and southern celestial poles, I'm curious what targets are out there in those regions.  Kepler (initially) targeted a region just off the Milky Way by comparison.
Maybe the ecliptic poles are better for follow up observations by the great telescopes around the equator, and space telescopes like JWST. The Sun is never in the way and I suppose ground based telescopes can always observe one of the poles at night.


A reason I've heard somewhere, I think from scientists on the project, not just speculating on my own, is that TESS will always be pointing away from the Sun (covering a broad strip from the pole to the equator), making it possible for simultaneous observations from the ground. This is probably more interesting for other astrophysics than transiting planets. TESS will observe the variability of stars and quasar all over the sky. It will for example maybe find stellar mass black holes revealed by them briefly microlensing background stars. That would benefit from immediate observation from the ground. Also, telescopes on completely different wavelengths (for example hunting high energy transient events such as novas) can coordinate observations with TESS' visible light.
« Last Edit: 04/19/2018 04:01 pm by TakeOff »

Offline jebbo

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Re: NASA - Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) updates
« Reply #14 on: 04/20/2018 04:59 am »
A reason I've heard somewhere, I think from scientists on the project, not just speculating on my own, is that TESS will always be pointing away from the Sun (covering a broad strip from the pole to the equator), making it possible for simultaneous observations from the ground.

Yes. There's a decent visualisation of this in the video on the orbit page linked in the top post (starting around 1 min in).

Quote
This is probably more interesting for other astrophysics than transiting planets. TESS will observe the variability of stars and quasar all over the sky. It will for example maybe find stellar mass black holes revealed by them briefly microlensing background stars. That would benefit from immediate observation from the ground. Also, telescopes on completely different wavelengths (for example hunting high energy transient events such as novas) can coordinate observations with TESS' visible light.

The problem for transients is that data is only downloaded every 2 weeks, so occultations & microlensing won't be seen simultaneously from the ground. But novae last long enough that we can get good follow-up.

Transient hunting in the 30-minute cadence FFIs is almost a by-product of the FFI planet search ...

Offline avollhar

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Re: NASA - Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) updates
« Reply #15 on: 04/20/2018 08:19 am »
TESS downlink signal has been detected by UHF-Satcom and Scott Tilley (IMAGE re-discoverer):

https://twitter.com/uhf_satcom/status/987062005667385344
https://twitter.com/coastal8049/status/987094571560546304

Online FutureSpaceTourist

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Re: NASA - Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) updates
« Reply #16 on: 04/21/2018 12:31 pm »
Quote
Yesterday, @NASA_TESS had its Star Trackers turned on and Attitude Control System transitioned to Coarse Pointing Inertial. Attitude thrusters were pulsed in preparation for the first #TESS on orbit burn.

https://twitter.com/nasa_tess/status/987658735798640640

Offline Svetoslav

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Re: NASA - Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) updates
« Reply #17 on: 04/22/2018 08:09 pm »
The @NASA_TESS first apogee maneuver (A1M) was successfully completed yesterday. This burn was a 50 second checkout burn to characterize the performance of the #TESS thrusters.

https://twitter.com/NASA_TESS/status/988146812908261376

Online FutureSpaceTourist

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Re: NASA - Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) updates
« Reply #18 on: 04/22/2018 10:05 pm »
Quote
.@NASA_TESS current speed (at about 22 Apr 2018 15:46 UTC / 11:46 AM EST) was approximately 0.373 km/s. It will be increasing until #TESS reaches perigee at about 25 Apr 2018 05:42 UTC / 1:42 PM at which point it will be approximately 9.51 km/s.

https://twitter.com/nasa_tess/status/988157793898201089

Offline jebbo

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Re: NASA - Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) updates
« Reply #19 on: 04/23/2018 04:30 pm »
Quote
Yesterday @NASA_TESS performed star tracker to gyro / Reaction Wheel Assemblies (RWA) calibration. Observatory is performing great with no issues. #TESS

https://twitter.com/NASA_TESS/status/988450606087057408?s=19

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