TESS As the TESS mission has evolved, so has the processing and delivery of its data. Whilst a data release note (DRN) is provided for every sector of the mission, this page highlights important changes that might affect you, the user, and your handling/understanding of the data.
Key updates
Below we outline some of the most important issues or data product modifications. For more details please see the Sector tables provided below, and the DRNs listed within.
- Sector 40 marks the start of northern ecliptic hemisphere pointings.
Quick look mission information
Information
| Year | Hemisphere | Dates (UTC) Start - End |
Sectors | Mission |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Southern | 07/25/18 - 07/18/19 | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 | Prime |
| 2 | Northern | 07/18/19 - 07/04/20 | 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 | Prime |
| 3 | Southern | 07/04/20 - 06/24/21 | 27, 28, 29, 20, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39 | Extended |
| 4 | Northern | 06/24/21 - 09/01/22 | 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52 53 54 55 | Extended |
Cycle 4 DRN Tables
Below we provide a brief summary of the DRNs for each Sector in Cycle 4.
Sector 43
Information
| DRN | Orbits | Dates (UTC) Start - End |
Cadence # Start - End |
Data pause (days) |
Science data (days) | Momentum dumps | Problematic TIC ID's |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 62 | 93 94 |
2021-09-16- 2021-09-28 2021-09-29 - 2021-10-11 |
897629 - 906244 906999 - 915432 |
1.05 | 23.684 | 1 1 |
list | Issue | Description |
| Spacecraft pointing: | Sector 43 consists of observations of the ecliptic plane. For ecliptic pointings, the antisolar point is set towards the edge of Camera 1 (nearest Camera 2), and Cameras 2, 3, and 4 are aligned parallel to the ecliptic plane in the westward direction. Camera 4 alone was used for guiding in orbits 93 and 94 of Sector 43. Outside of these times, strong scattered light signals are present when the Moon or Earth are near the camera fields of view. | ||||||
| Scattered light: | In Orbit 93, the Moon crosses the fields of view of all cameras (one at a time). The Moon saturates CCD detectors during these times. Outside of these times, strong scattered light signals are present when the Moon or Earth are near the camera fields of view. | ||||||
| Anomalous Effects: | On Camera 3, CCD 1, ouput Channel D (columns greater than 1580), a small change to the start of frame ringing (cf. TESS Instrument Handbook, Section 6.8.2) was observed at row numbers ≲750. The change starts at TJD=2475.22927 in orbit 93, and is restricted to orbit 93. The amplitude is very small, only 0.27 electrons per second, and is usually corrected at the flux time series level during background subtraction for individual targets. However, the effect is not removed by the calibration model and is visible in raw/calibrated pixels in this region of the detector. See the DRN for more information. | ||||||
Sector 42
Information
| DRN | Orbits | Dates (UTC) Start - End |
Cadence # Start - End |
Data pause (days) |
Science data (days) | Momentum dumps | Problematic TIC ID's |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 60 | 91 92 |
2021-08-21 - 2021-09-02 2021-09-03 - 2021-09-15 |
878566 - 887652 888321 - 896907 |
0.93 | 24.54 | 1 1 |
list | Issue | Description |
| Spacecraft pointing: | Sector 42 consists of observations of the ecliptic plane. For ecliptic pointings, the antisolar point is set towards the edge of Camera 1 (nearest Camera 2), and Cameras 2, 3, and 4 are aligned parallel to the ecliptic plane in the westward direction. Camera 4 alone was used for guiding in orbits 91 and 92 of Sector 42. | ||||||
| Scattered light: | In Orbit 91, the Moon crosses the fields of view of all cameras (one at a time), and the Earth crosses the fields of view of Cameras 1 and 2. The Moon and the Earth saturate CCD detectors during these times. Outside of these times, strong scattered light signals are also present for most of Orbit 91 and the second half of Orbit 92. | ||||||
| Jupiter: | Jupiter was near opposition during Sector 42, and landed in the field-of-view of Camera 1 for ∼7 days at the beginning of observations. Jupiter appears as a very bright object at the bottom of Camera 1, CCD 4, output channel A. It does not affect contrending for any targets on this CCD, although the smear correction for its associated columns is unreliable and targets close to Jupiter may have unreliable photometry for the first 7 days of observations. | ||||||
Sector 41
Information
| DRN | Orbits | Dates (UTC) Start - End |
Cadence # Start - End |
Data pause (days) |
Science data (days) | Momentum dumps | Problematic TIC ID's |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 59 | 89 90 |
2021-07-24 - 2021-08-06 2021-08-07 - 2021-08-20 |
858621 - 867704 868506 - 877769 |
1.11 | 25.48 | 1 1 |
list | Issue | Description |
| Spacecraft pointing: | Sector 41 consists of observations of the northern ecliptic hemisphere. 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. Both Cameras 1 and 4 were used for guiding in orbits 89 and 90 of Sector 41 | ||||||
| Scattered light: | In Sector 41, there is scattered light present for most of both orbits. | ||||||
Sector 40
Information
| DRN | Orbits | Dates (UTC) Start - End |
Cadence # Start - End |
Data pause (days) |
Science data (days) | Momentum dumps | Problematic TIC ID's |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 57 | 87 88 |
2021-06-25 - 2021-07-08 2021-07-09 - 2021-07-23 |
837499 - 847399 848066 - 857807 |
0.93 | 27.28 | 1 1 |
list | Issue | Description |
| Spacecraft pointing: | Both Cameras 1 and 4 were used for guiding in orbits 87 and 88 of Sector 40 | ||||||
| Scattered light: | In Sector 40, there is scattered light present for most of both orbits. | ||||||
Cycle 3 DRN Tables
Below we provide a brief summary of the DRNs for each Sector in Cycle 3.
Cycle 3 Tables »Cycle 2 DRN Tables
Below we provide a brief summary of the DRNs for each Sector in Cycle 2.
Cycle 2 Tables »Cycle 1 DRN Tables
Below we provide a brief summary of the DRNs for each Sector in Cycle 1.
Cycle 1 Tables »Useful links
Below we list some potentially useful urls for those users wishing to learn more about TESS (and Kepler) data processing.