SATLASOptical · Space
TESS
Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite
OperatingOperating since 18 April 2018.
Four 10.5 cm cameras with 16 CCDsCCDCharge-coupled device: a silicon pixel array that stores photo-electrons and shifts them to a readout amplifier. The workhorse optical detector; in X-rays, each photon's charge also measures its energy. and 21″ pixels tile a 24° × 96° strip of sky, observed for about 27 days per sectorsectorTESS's unit of observation: one 24° × 96° strip of sky observed continuously for about 27 days (two 13.7-day orbits) before the spacecraft re-points. from a 13.7-day lunar-resonant orbit. Full-frame imagesfull-frame imageA calibrated image of a camera's entire detector, kept at a longer cadence than selected targets. For TESS, the source of light curves for millions of stars no one pre-selected. at 200 s cadencecadenceThe interval between successive measurements of the same field or target. Sets which variability timescales a time series can resolve: TESS reaches 20 s, Rubin revisits each field every few nights., with 2 min and 20 s cadences for selected targets, give near-all-sky time-series photometryphotometryMeasuring the flux of a source in a passband. Aperture photometry sums pixels inside a region; PSF photometry fits the point-spread function; forced photometry measures at a position fixed in advance, whether or not a source is detected there.: the main source of transitingtransitA planet passing in front of its star and blocking a fraction (R_p/R_*)² of its light, about 84 ppm for an Earth across the Sun. Repeated transits give period and radius; spectra taken during transit probe the planet's atmosphere. planets around bright stars, and a resource for asteroseismologyasteroseismologyInferring a star's interior, mass, radius and age from the frequencies of its oscillation modes, seen as ppm-level brightness variations in long, uninterrupted light curves., eclipsing binaries, flares and early supernova light curveslight curveFlux of one source as a function of time. The basic product of transit searches, variable-star work and transient follow-up..
- Operator
- NASA, MIT
- Orbit
- 13.7-day lunar-resonant orbit around Earth
- Aperture
- 4 × 10.5 cm cameras
- Passband
- 600 nm – 1000 nm
- Launch
- 18 April 2018
Passband
Sky coverage
Observes in sectors of about 27 days, each a 24° × 96° strip reaching from near the eclipticeclipticThe plane of Earth's orbit projected on the sky; the Sun, Moon and planets stay close to it. Solar-system bodies and zodiacal light concentrate there, and spacecraft that must keep the Sun at a fixed angle often observe in strips perpendicular to it, so the ecliptic poles get the deepest coverage. to the ecliptic pole. The prime mission (2018–2020) tiled each ecliptic hemisphere in a year; extended missions revisit, so stars in the continuous viewing zonescontinuous viewing zoneThe region of sky a spacecraft can observe without interruption through its whole orbit or year, usually around the ecliptic poles. Targets there accumulate the longest time series. have years of near-continuous data while the ecliptic plane has the least.
Loading HiPS tiles…
Data products
TESS reads its cameras every 2 seconds and adds the reads together on board. Most of the sky is only kept as summed full-frame images; about 8,000 chosen stars per sector (Cycles 5–6) also get small "postage stampstarget pixel fileA time series of small cutouts of pixels around one selected star, at short cadence. Kepler and TESS light curves are extracted from them." at shorter cadence. The SPOC pipeline at NASA Ames calibrates both, extracts light curves and searches them for transits. MIT's Quick Look Pipeline and many community teams make their own light curves from the full-frame images.
Where to start
1Transits and variability of stars with 2-minute or 20-second data
2Any other star down to T ≈ 13.5
3Faint, blended or crowded targets, or custom photometry
4Planet candidates and their follow-up status
From detector to catalogueAbout data levels
| 1RawSpacecraft telemetry | 2CalibratedSPOC calibrated pixels | 3MeasuredLight curves | 4CombinedCatalogs and candidates | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Selected targets | ||||
| Full-frame images |
Starting point, listed aboveContributed: made outside the mission pipelineSelect a product for its full entry
All products
RawSpacecraft telemetry
Raw cadence data
Detector readout
Not public
Co-addedcoaddMany exposures of the same field resampled onto a common grid and combined, reaching deeper than any single exposure and rejecting artefacts. A mosaic stitches adjacent fields. 2-second detector reads, compressed and downlinked.
CalibratedSPOC calibrated pixels
Full-frame images (FFIs)
*-ffic.fits · 30 min → 10 min → 200 s
Every pixel of all 16 CCDs, calibrated. The cadence has shortened over the mission: 30 minutes (2018–2020), 10 minutes (2020–2022), 200 seconds (since 2022).
Target pixel files (TPFs)
*_tp.fits · 2 min, 20 s
Small stamps of pixels around selected stars at 2-minute cadence, and since 2020 also 20-second cadence (about 600 stars per sector in Cycles 3–4, about 2,000 in Cycles 5–6).
TICA full-frame images
Image
Contributed product
Quick-look calibrated FFIs, released every half-orbit (about weekly), ahead of the SPOC FFIs that follow about two weeks after each sector.
MeasuredLight curves
SPOC light curves
*_lc.fits
Brightness over time for each target-pixel star. SAP flux is the raw aperture sum; PDCSAP flux has spacecraft systematicssystematicsSignals introduced by the instrument or observing conditions rather than the source, such as pointing jitter, thermal drift or scattered light. Removing them without removing astrophysical signal is most of light-curve processing. removed and is the recommended starting point.
TESS-SPOC FFI light curves
Time series
Contributed product
SPOC light curves for up to about 160,000 bright stars per sector, made from the full-frame images.
QLP light curves
Time series
Contributed product
MIT Quick Look Pipeline light curves from the full-frame images, for millions of stars down to about T = 13.5.
Community FFI light curves
Time series
Contributed product
Independent extractions with different trade-offs, such as TGLC (uses Gaia to separate blendedcrowdingSources close enough that their PSFs overlap, so flux is shared between them. Pipelines with large pixels (TESS's are 21″) need careful deblending or difference imaging in dense fields. stars), eleanor and CDIPS (young clusters).
CombinedCatalogs and candidates
Data validation reports and TCEs
PDF and XML
For every transit-like signal SPOC finds, a report of the tests it passed or failed.
TESS Objects of Interest (TOIs)
Catalogue
The vetted list of planet candidates, with follow-up notes from the community.
TESS Input Catalog (TIC)
Catalogue
TIC-8 holds 1.7 billion point sources and about 100 million extended sources; every TESS target has a TIC number.
Archives
Quick start
lightkurve wraps MAST searches for TESS and Kepler.
import lightkurve as lk
# Pipeline light curves for one star, every sector it was observed in
lcs = lk.search_lightcurve("TOI-700", mission="TESS", author="SPOC").download_all()
lcs.stitch().flatten().plot()
# No pipeline light curve? Cut pixels straight out of the full-frame images
cutouts = lk.search_tesscut("TOI-700").download_all(cutout_size=15)Key papers
Mission · 2015
Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (opens in a new tab)Ricker et al., JATIS 1, 014003
The design reference for the cameras, orbit, sector tiling and cadences, and the prime-mission science case.
Pipeline · 2016
The TESS science processing operations center (opens in a new tab)Jenkins et al., Proc. SPIE 9913, 99133E
The SPOC pipeline that turns raw pixels into calibrated target pixels, SAP and PDCSAP light curves and TCEs.
Data · 2019
The Revised TESS Input Catalog and Candidate Target List (opens in a new tab)Stassun et al., AJ 158, 138
TIC-8, the catalogue behind every TIC number and the 2-minute target selection.
Data · 2021
The TESS Objects of Interest Catalog from the TESS Prime Mission (opens in a new tab)Guerrero et al., ApJS 254, 39
How TOIs are identified and vetted, with the 2,241 candidates from Sectors 1–26.
Data · 2020
TESS Science Processing Operations Center FFI Target List Products (opens in a new tab)Caldwell et al., RNAAS 4, 201
SPOC target pixels and light curves for up to 160,000 FFI targets per sector, with cotrending basis vectors.
Data · 2020
Photometry of 10 Million Stars from the First Two Years of TESS Full Frame Images: Part I (opens in a new tab)Huang et al., RNAAS 4, 204
The MIT Quick Look Pipeline's light curves for a magnitude-limited set of FFI stars, searched for TOIs.
Result · 2018
TESS Discovery of a Transiting Super-Earth in the pi Mensae System (opens in a new tab)Huang et al., ApJL 868, L39
The first TESS planet discovery, from Sector 1.
Result · 2020
In the literature
TESS's first bound microlensing planet (Harris et al. 2026)
Gaia Science AlertsalertA machine-readable notice that a source has appeared, changed or been detected, issued within seconds to days so other facilities can follow up. Optical alerts reach users through brokers; high-energy, neutrino and gravitational-wave alerts through GCN. flagged the brightening of Gaia23bra. TESS happened to observe it in Sectors 63–64, and with 21″ pixels blending many stars toward the Galactic planeGalactic planeThe plane of the Milky Way's disc, a band around the sky at Galactic latitude b ≈ 0°. Dense in stars, gas and dust: rich for stellar work, crowded and heavily extincted for extragalactic surveys, which usually avoid it., the authors started from the 200-second full-frame images and did their own difference imagingdifference imagingSubtracting a PSF-matched reference image from a new one so only what changed remains. The core of transient detection, and robust in crowded fields. and forced photometry: the same mission, entered at a different processing leveldata levelHow far processing has taken a data product, from raw telemetry (Level 0) to calibrated exposures, measurements and combined catalogues. Each mission numbers its levels differently; see the Data levels page..
Science cases
Sources
Verified 15 November 2026.
- TESS at MIT (opens in a new tab)
- TESS Science Support Center (opens in a new tab)
- TESS telescope information (opens in a new tab)
- TESS data products (opens in a new tab)
- What is TESS (opens in a new tab)
- TESS Science Data Products Description (opens in a new tab)
- TESS-SPOC FFI targets (Caldwell et al. 2020) (opens in a new tab)
- QLP light curves (Kunimoto et al. 2022) (opens in a new tab)
Other optical facilities: Hubble, SDSS, Kepler / K2, Gaia, ZTF, CHEOPS, DESI, Pandora