Jeff Volosin, TESS project manager, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, holds a spare camera lens and a model of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) during a media briefing, Wednesday, March 28, 2018 at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Jeff Volosin, TESS project manager, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, holds a model of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) during a media briefing, Wednesday, March 28, 2018 at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Jeff Volosin, TESS project manager, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, holds a spare camera lens and a model of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) during a media briefing, Wednesday, March 28, 2018 at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

George Ricker, TESS principal investigator, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, left, and Jeff Volosin, TESS project manager, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center discuss the upcoming launch of NASA’s next planet hunter, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), Wednesday, March 28, 2018 at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

George Ricker, TESS principal investigator, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, left, and Jeff Volosin, TESS project manager, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, discuss the upcoming launch of NASA’s next planet hunter, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), Wednesday, March 28, 2018 at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

NASA Astrophysics Division director Paul Hertz, left, Sara Seager, TESS deputy director of science, MIT, George Ricker, TESS principal investigator, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, and Jeff Volosin, TESS project manager, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, right, discuss the upcoming launch of NASA’s next planet hunter, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), Wednesday, March 28, 2018 at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

NASA Astrophysics Division director Paul Hertz, left, Sara Seager, TESS deputy director of science, MIT, George Ricker, TESS principal investigator, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, and Jeff Volosin, TESS project manager, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, right, discuss the upcoming launch of NASA’s next planet hunter, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), Wednesday, March 28, 2018 at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

NASA Astrophysics Division director Paul Hertz, left, Sara Seager, TESS deputy director of science, MIT, George Ricker, TESS principal investigator, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, and Jeff Volosin, TESS project manager, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, right, discuss the upcoming launch of NASA’s next planet hunter, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), Wednesday, March 28, 2018 at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

NASA Astrophysics Division director Paul Hertz, left, Sara Seager, TESS deputy director of science, MIT, George Ricker, TESS principal investigator, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, and Jeff Volosin, TESS project manager, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, right, discuss the upcoming launch of NASA’s next planet hunter, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), Wednesday, March 28, 2018 at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

In Kennedy Space Center's Press Site auditorium, members of the media participate in a mission briefing on NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). Jeff Volosin, TESS project manager, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, answers questions during the briefing. TESS is the next step in the search for planets outside of our solar system. The mission will find exoplanets that periodically block part of the light from their host stars, events called transits. The satellite will survey the nearest and brightest stars for two years to search for transiting exoplanets. TESS will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station no earlier than 6:32 p.m. EDT on Monday, April 16.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- At the Merritt Island Launch Annex (MILA) Spaceflight Tracking and Data Network Station at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Jeff Volosin, associate director, Exploration and Communications, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, addresses those in attendance at a closing ceremony recognizing the station's 45 years of service. The station was originally established by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center as one of 17 Space Flight Tracking and Data Network stations around the world. Commissioned for the Apollo Program, the first launch it supported was the Apollo/Saturn 203 test flight from Launch Complex 37 on July 5, 1966. It also provided orbital support for low earth-orbiting scientific satellites. In recent history, the station has been used almost exclusively for space shuttle launch and landing support. Following the final launch and landing of the Space Shuttle Program in July 2011, the MILA station is officially decommissioned. For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/pdf/167424main_MILA-08C.pdf. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett