TESS Below we provide a brief summary of the DRN for each Sector in TESS Cycle 2.
Sector 26
Information
| DRN | Orbits | Dates (UTC) Start - End |
Cadence # Start - End |
Data pause (days) |
Science data (days) | Momentum dumps | Problematic TIC ID's |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 37 | 59 60 |
2020-06-09 -- 2020-06-21 2020-06-22 -- 2020-07-04 |
563621 -- 572209 572871 -- 581529 |
0.919 | 23.95 | 1 1 |
list | Issue | Description |
| Spacecraft pointing: | The pointing in Sector 26 was set at +85 degrees in ecliptic latitude so that Camera 2 and Camera 3 straddle the ecliptic pole. Camera 1 suffered from strong scattered light signals at the midpoint of orbit 59 and orbit 60, and so Camera 4 alone was used for guiding during this sector. |
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| Scattered light: | In Sector 26, the Earth is a significant source of scattered light throughout both orbits. | ||||||
| Big Updates! | The TESS spacecraft configuration file was updated from version ‘0187’ to ‘0188’ between orbit 59 and 60. The SPOC data products include this 4 digit identification code near the end of the filename. Therefore the FFIs from orbit 59 have a different 4 digit identification number than those from orbit 60. | ||||||
Sector 25
Information
| DRN | Orbits | Dates (UTC) Start - End |
Cadence # Start - End |
Data pause (days) |
Science data (days) | Momentum dumps | Problematic TIC ID's |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 36 | 57 58 |
2020-05-14 -- 2020-05-26 2020-05-27 -- 2020-06-08 |
544444 -- 553089 554009 -- 562932 |
1.28 | 24.4 | 1 1 |
list | Issue | Description |
| Spacecraft pointing: | As in Sector 14, the pointing in Sector 25 was set at +85 degrees in ecliptic latitude so that Camera 2 and Camera 3 straddled the ecliptic pole. Camera 1 suffered from strong scattered light signals at the beginning of orbit 57 and orbit 58, and so Camera 4 alone was used for guiding during this sector. |
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| Scattered light: | In Sector 25, the Earth is a significant source of scattered light throughout both orbits. | ||||||
Sector 24
Information
| DRN | Orbits | Dates (UTC) Start - End |
Cadence # Start - End |
Data pause (days) |
Science data (days) | Momentum dumps | Problematic TIC ID's |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 35 | 55 56 |
2020-04-16 -- 2020-04-28 2020-04-29 -- 2020-05-12 |
524401 -- 533442 534104 -- 543474 |
>0.92 | 25.57 | 0 1 |
list | Issue | Description |
| Spacecraft pointing: | As in Sector 14, the pointing in Sector 24 was set at +85 degrees in ecliptic latitude so that Camera 2 and Camera 3 straddle the ecliptic pole. In Sector 24 there is an anomalously high pointing jitter was observed for the last 3–4 days of that orbit. |
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| Scattered light: | In Sector 24, the Earth is a significant source of scattered light throughout both orbits. | ||||||
Sector 23
Information
| DRN | Orbits | Dates (UTC) Start - End |
Cadence # Start - End |
Data pause (days) |
Science data (days) | Momentum dumps | Problematic TIC ID's |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 32 | 54 53 |
2020-03-19 - 2020-04-01 2020-04-02 -- 2020-04-15 |
504464 -- 513659 514351 -- 523742 |
>0.96 | 25.81 | 1 1 |
list | Issue | Description |
| Instrument issues: | The spacecraft passed through the shadow of Earth from approximately TJD 1940.38 – 1940.48. The instrument was not turned off, and other than the instrument heaters turning on resulting in a minor pointing offset, there is no indication that science quality was affected. | ||||||
| Spacecraft pointing: | In orbit 1 of Sector 23, anomalously high pointing jitter was observed for about 1.5 days before the momentum dump starting at ∼ TJD 1936.15. The peak-to-peak amplitude of the jitter is less than 1.5 arcseconds on 2 minute timescales. | ||||||
| Scattered light: | Camera 1 suffered from strong scattered light signals at the beginning of orbit 53 and orbit 54, and so Camera 4 alone was used for guiding during this sector. The Earth is a significant source of scattered light at the start of both orbits. The Moon also passes close to the field of view of Camera 1 during orbit 54. | ||||||
Sector 22
Information
| DRN | Orbits | Dates (UTC) Start - End |
Cadence # Start - End |
Data pause (days) |
Science data (days) | Momentum dumps | Problematic TIC ID's |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31 | 51 52 |
2020-02-19 -- 2020-03-04 2020-03-05 -- 2020-03-17 |
483729 -- 493234 494001 -- 503307 |
1.07 | 26.13 | Every 6.625 days Every 6.75 days |
list | Issue | Description |
| Spacecraft pointing: | Camera 1 and Camera 4 were both used for guiding in orbit 51; Camera 4 alone was used for guiding in orbit 52. | ||||||
| Scattered light: | In Sector 22, the Earth is a significant source of scattered light at the start of both orbits. The Moon also passes through the field of view of Camera 1 at the start of orbit 52, saturating the detectors Camera 4 alone was used for guiding in orbit 52. | ||||||
| Watchdog Resets: | The instrument computer unexpectedly hung, most likely due to space radiation induced errors in the computer processor or memory, resulting in a quick reboot of the computer. There were three watchdog timer resets in Sector 22: on 2/29/20, 3/3/20, and 3/12/20. Besides introducing short gaps in the 2m cadence data, these resets resulted in the loss a total of four FFI cadences. Two 2-minute cadences are missing from TJD 1909.46004 to 1909.4642 (2/29/20), from TJD 1911.9267 to 1911.9309 (3/3/20), and from 1921.0560 to 1921.0602 (3/12/20). |
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| Big Update! | The reported times for previous data products are too large by 2 seconds. This issue has been fixed for Sector 22 data products, which have updated and accurate timestamps. Timestamps from previous sectors can be corrected by subtracting 2 seconds. Future data releases will include reprocessed data with corrected timestamps. The start times of integrations for every 2 minute and 30 minute cadence have been shifted forward by 31 milliseconds, and the end times have been shifted forward by 11 milliseconds. These offsets correct for effects in the focal plane electronics that were not accounted for in previous data releases. Until data is re-processed the times must be adjusted by adding correct values to headers. Two-minute data products report the TJD at mid-exposure, and so should be corrected by adding 21 milliseconds to the timestamps. Note that the correction only applies to the timestamps themselves; the reported exposure times in data product headers and flux values (electrons per second) are correct. |
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Sector 21
Information
| DRN | Orbits | Dates (UTC) Start - End |
Cadence # Start - End |
Data pause (days) |
Science data (days) | Momentum dumps | Problematic TIC ID's |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 | 49 50 |
2020-01-21 -- 2020-02-04 2020-02-05 -- 2020-02-18 |
462941 -- 472707 473374 -- 482634 |
0.93 | 24.42 | Every 6.25 days Every 6.5 days |
list | Issue | Description |
| Instrument reset: | Occurred in orbit 50, no data collected for 2 min between TJD 1892.50598 and 1892.50875. | ||||||
| Science data: | days | ||||||
| Spacecraft pointing: | Camera 1 and Camera 4 were both used for guiding in orbit 49; Camera 4 alone was used for guiding in orbit 50. | ||||||
| Scattered light: | In Sector 21, the Moon passes through the field of view of Camera 1 at the start of orbit 50, saturating the detectors. A strong glint also appears in Camera 2 during this time. | ||||||
| Big Update! | In Sector 21, the the FFI timestamps have been adjusted for the 0.5 second staggered readouts of the four cameras and the 0.02 second staggered readouts for individual CCDs within a camera. TSTART and TSTOP in the FFIs of previous sectors need to be adjusted for the readout offsets of each camera—see DRN 25 for additional details. | ||||||
Sector 20
Information
| DRN | Orbits | Dates (UTC) Start - End |
Cadence # Start - End |
Data pause (days) |
Science data (days) | Momentum dumps | Problematic TIC ID's |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 | 47 48 |
2019-12-24 -- 2020-01-06 2020-01-07 -- 2020-01-20 |
442831 -- 451729 452833 -- 461784 |
1.53 | 24.79 | Every 5.35 days Every 5.5 days |
list | Issue | Description |
| Instrument reset: | An instrument reset occurred in orbit 48—no data were collected for two minutes between TJD 1865.49753 and 1865.50030 | ||||||
| Spacecraft pointing: | Camera 1 and Camera 4 were both used for guiding in orbit 47; Camera 4 alone was used for guiding in orbit 48. | ||||||
| Scattered light: | In Sector 20, the Moon passes through the field of view of Camera 1 at the start of orbit 48, saturating the detectors. In Sector 20, new data anomaly flags were added to characterize the different ways that the scattered light can affect the data - see section 2 of the DRN | ||||||
| Big Updates! | In Sector 20, the the FFI timestamps have been adjusted for the 0.5 second staggered readouts of the four cameras and the 0.02 second staggered readouts for individual CCDs within a camera. The assigned timestamps of the previously released data products are too large by 2 seconds. The issue was caused by an off-by-one error in ground system software that identifies the timestamps of individual two second exposures. The Sector 20 data products have been updated and have accurate timestamps The start times of integrations for every 2 minute and 30 minute cadence were shifted forward by 31 milliseconds, and the end times were shifted forward by 11 milliseconds. These offsets correct for effects in the focal plane electronics that were not accounted for in previous data releases. Until sectors 1-19 are re-processed, the adjustments mentioned above should be applied to the FFI image headers. Two-minute data products report the TJD at mid-exposure, and so should be corrected by adding 21 milliseconds to the timestamps. Note that the correction only applies to the timestamps themselves. In Sector 20, the photometric apertures for targets with Tmag < 11 were slightly increased. This change most noticeably affects the light curves of saturated stars, which had higher flux losses during periods of increased pointing jitter using the smaller apertures. | ||||||
Sector 19
Information
| DRN | Orbits | Dates (UTC) Start - End |
Cadence # Start - End |
Data pause (days) |
Science data (days) | Momentum dumps | Problematic TIC ID's |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 | 45 46 |
2019-11-28 -- 2019-12-10 2019-12-11 -- 2019-12-23 |
423808 -- 432387 433083 -- 441859 |
0.97 | 24.10 | Every 5.0 days Every 5.25 days |
list | Issue | Description |
| Instrument reset: | An instrument reset occurred in orbit 46—no data were collected for four minutes between TJD 1838.73169 and 1838.73586 | ||||||
| Spacecraft pointing: | Camera 1 and Camera 4 were both used for guiding in orbits 45 and 46. | ||||||
| Scattered light: | In Sector 19, there is an increase in the background levels at the end of each orbit due to the Earth, and a smaller affect due to the Moon at the start of orbit 46. | ||||||
| Big Updates! | The FFI timestamps for Sector 19 do not account for the 0.5 second staggered readouts of the four cameras. The offsets for each camera can be added to the TSTART and TSTOP header values in the FFIs to correct the issue. | ||||||
Sector 18
Information
| DRN | Orbits | Dates (UTC) Start - End |
Cadence # Start - End |
Data pause (days) |
Science data (days) | Momentum dumps | Problematic TIC ID's |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | 43 44 |
2019-11-03 -- 2019-11-14 2019-11-15 -- 2019-11-27 |
405501 -- 413989 414711 -- 423054 |
1.00 | 23.12 | Every 4.25 days Every 4.5 days |
list | Issue | Description |
| Instrument shutdown: | The spacecraft passed through the shadow of the Earth at the start of orbit 43. During this time, the instrument was turned off and no data were collected for 6.2 hours between TJD 1791.1115 and 1791.3699. The thermal state of the spacecraft changed during this time, and trends in the raw photometry and target positions are apparent after data collection resumed. However, the pipeline effectively removes these trends in the PDC light curves. | ||||||
| Spacecraft pointing: | Camera 4 alone was used for guiding in orbit 43, and both Camera 1 and Camera 4 were used for guiding in orbit 44. | ||||||
| Scattered light: | In Sector 18, the Moon and Earth move close enough to the field of view of Camera 1 at the end of orbit 43 to briefly saturate the detector. | ||||||
| Big Updates! | The FFI timestamps for Sector 18 are incorrect. The readouts of the four cameras are staggered by 0.5 seconds in the following order: Camera 1 (0 second offset), Camera 3 (0.5 second offset), Camera 4 (1.0 second offset), and Camera 2 (1.5 second offset). Although these offsets are correctly incorporated into the timestamps in the target pixel files and light curves, the FFI time stamps are not corrected for the staggered readout. For Sector 1 through Sector 18, the offsets for each camera can be added to the TSTART and TSTOP header values in the FFIs to correct the issue. In addition, the TSTOP header values in the target pixel files, light curve files, and FFIs are overestimated by 20 ms, and the TIME column of the target pixel files and light curve files are overestimated by 10 ms. | ||||||
Sector 17
Information
| DRN | Orbits | Dates (UTC) Start - End |
Cadence # Start - End |
Data pause (days) |
Science data (days) | Momentum dumps | Problematic TIC ID's |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 | 41 42 |
2019-10-08 -- 2019-10-19 2019-10-21 -- 2019-11-02 |
386801 -- 395164 396193 -- 404812 |
1.43 | 23.51 | Every 3.875 days Every 4.0 days |
list | Issue | Description |
| Instrument reset: | An instrument reset also occurred in orbit 42—no data were collected for six minutes between TJD 1789.18374 and 1789.18790. | ||||||
| Spacecraft pointing: | In Sector 17, the spacecraft pointing returned to the nominal mission pointing with Camera 4 centered on the North Ecliptic Pole. Camera 4 alone was used for guiding in both orbit 41 and orbit 42. | ||||||
| Scattered light: | In Sector 17, the Moon and Earth move into the field of view of Camera 1 towards the end of each orbit. | ||||||
Sector 16
Information
| DRN | Orbits | Dates (UTC) Start - End |
Cadence # Start - End |
Data pause (days) |
Science data (days) | Momentum dumps | Problematic TIC ID's |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 | 39 40 |
2019-09-12 -- 2019-09-23 2019-09-25 -- 2019-10-06 |
368058 -- 376489 377421 -- 385822 |
1.29 | 23.38 | Every 5.83 days Every 5.83 days |
list | Issue | Description |
| Spacecraft pointing: | As in Sector 14 and Sector 15, the pointing in Sector 16 was set at +85 degrees in ecliptic latitude, so that Camera 2 and Camera 3 straddle the ecliptic pole. Both Camera 1 and Camera 4 were used for guiding during this sector. | ||||||
| Scattered light: | In Sector 16, the Earth is above the sunshade for much of the sector, in a similar way as Sector 14 and Sector 15. The 24 hour rotation period of the Earth and several harmonics thereof are visible as oscillations in the background for most of both orbits. | ||||||
Sector 15
Information
| DRN | Orbits | Dates (UTC) Start - End |
Cadence # Start - End |
Data pause (days) |
Science data (days) | Momentum dumps | Problematic TIC ID's |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 | 37 38 |
2019-08-15 -- 2019-08-28 2019-08-29 -- 2019-09-10 |
348411-- 357409 358186 -- 367167 |
1.08 | 24.97 | Every 4.25 days Every 4.25 days |
list | Issue | Description |
| Star tracker anomaly: | A single upset event in the star trackers caused the spacecraft to fall out of fine pointing in orbit 38. The issue lasts for 5 minutes at TJD 1725.93651 (cadences 358907, 358908, and 358909). | ||||||
| Spacecraft pointing: | As in Sector 14, the pointing in Sector 15 was set at +85 degrees in ecliptic latitude, so that Camera 2 and Camera 3 straddle the ecliptic pole. Camera 1 still suffers from strong scattered light signals, and so guiding was disabled in Camera 1 for both orbits 37 and 38. Camera 4 alone was used for guiding during this sector. | ||||||
| Scattered light: | In Sector 15, the Earth is above the sunshade for almost the entire sector. The 24 hour rotation period of the Earth and several harmonics thereof are visible as oscillations in the background for most of both orbits. Finally, the Earth passes close to Camera 1 towards the last quarter of each orbit and saturates the detectors—these times were excluded with CCD-specific “Scattered Light” flags. | ||||||
Sector 14
Information
| DRN | Orbits | Dates (UTC) Start - End |
Cadence # Start - End |
Data pause (days) |
Science data (days) | Momentum dumps | Problematic TIC ID's |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 | 36 35 |
2019-07-18 -- 2019-07-31 2019-08-01 -- 2019-08-14 |
328243 -- 337632 338316 -- 347579 |
0.95 | 25.91 | Every 4.4 days Every 4.4 days |
list | Issue | Description |
| Spacecraft pointing: | This is the first sector of the northern ecliptic hemisphere survey. For northern pointings, scattered light from the Earth and Moon is a more persistent issue for Camera 1 and Camera 2 than for southern pointings. For this reason, the spacecraft pointing was set at +85 degrees in ecliptic latitude, so that Camera 2 and Camera 3 straddle the ecliptic pole Camera 1 still suffers from strong scattered light signals, and so guiding was disabled in Camera 1 for both orbits 35 and 36. Camera 4 alone was used for guiding in all of orbits 35 and 36. | ||||||
| Scattered light: | In Sector 14, the Earth is above the sunshade for almost the entire sector, and the backgrounds are somewhat higher for longer periods of time than in other sectors. The 24 hour rotation period of the Earth and several harmonics thereof are also visible as oscillations in the background for most of both orbits. Finally, the Earth passes close to Camera 1 towards the last quarter of each orbit and saturates the detectors—these times were excluded with CCD-specific “Scattered Light” flags. | ||||||
| Big Updates! | Sector 14 is the first northern ecliptic hemisphere pointing. This is first sector to make use of TIC 8, which is based on Gaia DR2 astrometry and photometry, and uses Gaia DR2 parallaxes to inform stellar parameters details are provided by Stassun et al (2019) and the TIC release notes. The spacecraft is pointed to a higher ecliptic latitude (+85 degrees rather than +54 degrees) to mitigate issues with scattered light in Camera 1 and Camera 2. Sector 14 processing is the first to make use of an updated SPOC data processing pipeline, SPOC Release 4.0 It is the first to make use of CCD-specific Data Anomaly Flags that mark cadences excluded due to high levels of scattered light. The flags are referred to as “Scattered Light” flags and marked with bit 13, value 4096 - see section 2 of the DRN. The algorithm in the TPS module for searching for transiting planets was changed. An initial run of TPS is now used to identify problematic epochs that are assigned ”deemphasis weights” in the final run of TPS. | ||||||