In a two-year survey of the solar neighborhood, TESS will monitor more than 200,000 stars for temporary drops in brightness caused by planetary transits. This first-ever spaceborne all-sky transit survey will identify planets ranging from Earth-sized to gas giants, around a wide range of stellar types and orbital distances. No ground-based survey can achieve this feat.

Launch Readiness Date – The TESS launch date is NLT June 2018 (the current working launch date is March 2018). A SpaceX Falcon 9 will launch the space telescope.

TESS stars will be 30-100 times brighter than those surveyed by the Kepler satellite; thus, TESS planets should be far easier to characterize with follow-up observations. These follow-up observations will provide refined measurements of the planet masses, sizes, densities, and atmospheric properties.