Monica Jackson
A NASA satellite designed to explore outer space for potentially life-supporting exoplanets entered service on July 25 and is expected to transmit science data back to Earth in August.
The space agency said Saturday the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite will work to periodically send data every 13.5 days after the TESS Science Team receives the first set of data.
TESS is built by Orbital ATK, which Northrop Grumman acquired in June and rebranded as its innovation systems sector.
The spacecraft lifted off April 18 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida aboard SpaceX‘s Falcon 9 rocket.
In the next two years, the agency expects spacecraft to monitor the periodic dips in the brightest and nearest stars to Earth as they possibly indicate that a planet is passing by.
