Link doesn't appear to work at my end.
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.
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.
Quote from: Zed_Noir on 04/19/2018 08:35 amThink 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
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).
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.
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.
.@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.
Yesterday @NASA_TESS performed star tracker to gyro / Reaction Wheel Assemblies (RWA) calibration. Observatory is performing great with no issues. #TESS