NASA/SpaceX TESS Rollout

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is ready to roll out to Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, with NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) secured in its payload fairing. TESS will launch on the Falcon 9 no earlier than 6:51 p.m. EDT on April 18. TESS will 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.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is ready to roll out to Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, with NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) secured in its payload fairing. TESS will launch on the Falcon 9 no earlier than 6:51 p.m. EDT on April 18. TESS will 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.

Photographer NASA/Kim Shiflett
TESSTransiting Exoplanet Survey SatelliteNASAGSFCGoddard Space Flight CenterLSPLaunch Services ProgramKSCKennedy Space CenterSpaceXFalcon 9SLC-40CCAFSCape Canaveral Air Force StationPHSFPayload Hazardous Servicing FacilityOrbital ATKLEOStar-2MITMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyMIT Lincoln LaboratoryMKIKavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space ResearchARCNASA s Ames Research CenterSAOHarvard-Smithsonian Center for AstrophysicsSTScISpace Telescope Science InstituteWide Field of View CCD Cameras