TESS Guest Investigator Cycle 1 released

News article posted on by Tom Barclay

UPDATE: the proposal deadline has been changed to October 6, 2017

The Cycle 1 proposal call was released today. The TESS Guest Investigator (GI) Program solicits proposals for the acquisition and analysis of scientific data from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission, a NASA Explorer mission currently scheduled for launch no later than June 2018. In a 2-year, near all-sky survey, TESS will monitor the brightness of nearby, bright F, G, K, and M stars in order to photometrically search for transiting planets smaller than Neptune. TESS will monitor the brightness of more than 200,000 stars spread over the celestial sphere with a photometric sensitivity sufficient to permit detection of transiting planets with radii less than 2.5 Earth radii. The mission’s high-precision, continuous baseline photometric capability is also well suited for variability and asteroseismology research and analyses of both Galactic and extragalactic astrophysical sources.

Observations associated with the TESS Guest Investigator (GI) Cycle 1 solicitation will begin immediately following the successful ~60-day scientific commissioning of the spacecraft. Proposals submitted to this program should be for new science investigations of the southern ecliptic hemisphere.

Phase-1 proposals are due by 4:30 pm Eastern time on September 29, 2017