NASA Starts Commissioning Tests for Northrop-Built Planet Hunter Satellite After SpaceX Launch

NASA has commenced the in-space commissioning test and adjustment period for a planet identification satellite in preparation for the start of space endeavors by the end of July.

The agency started tests on the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite to make sure that it is functioning properly and to determine if modifications to it would be required, NASA said Wednesday.

The Astrophysics Explorer mission team — headed and operated by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center — which conducted the tests on TESS, reported that the satellite has reached its final orbit.

The mission involves Space Telescope Science Institute, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, NASA’s Ames Research Center, MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Lincoln Laboratory, and several observatories, universities and research institutions.

Orbital ATK, which is now Northrop Grumman‘s innovation systems business, used insights from the LEOStar-2 satellite to build TESS.

TESS was launched on April 18 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station via SpaceX‘s Falcon 9 rocket.