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Official TESS patch

Space telescopes·NASA

TESS

ActiveLaunched in 2018·Lunar P/2 — ~373,000 km

Kepler's successor: hunts transiting exoplanets around bright nearby stars across the entire sky.

Main objectives

Detect transiting exoplanets around bright nearby stars.
Identify targets for spectroscopy (Webb, future observatories).
Monitor nearly 200,000 stars across almost the entire sky.

Did you know?

It continuously monitors 200,000 nearby stars every 27 days. Its 4 cameras cover 85% of the sky — a record for a space telescope.

Timeline

Apr 18, 2018

Launch

Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral.

Sep 25, 2018

First TESS exoplanet

Pi Mensae c detected.

Specifications

Mass362 kg

OrbitLunar P/2 13.7 d

Cameras4 wide-field 16 MP cameras

Discoveries

[04]

DiscoveryMajor
Sub-Neptune in the habitable zone of an M dwarf
TOI-4633 c: a planet of radius ~2.6 R⊕ in the habitable zone of a nearby cool star, a candidate for atmospheric characterization.
Feb 03, 2026 ↗
DiscoveryMajor
Rocky planet around an M dwarf
Discovery of a super-Earth in the habitable zone around a nearby cool star (TOI-715 b).
Feb 01, 2025 ↗
MilestoneMajor
10,000th exoplanet candidate
The TESS catalogue crosses 7,000 cumulative confirmed TOIs together with partner missions.
Oct 08, 2024
MilestoneMajor
7,000 exoplanet candidates
TESS surpasses 7,000 TOIs (TESS Objects of Interest), of which more than 400 are confirmed.
Apr 01, 2023

Official sources