Planet- hunting probe of Nasa launched

Washington: Nasa’s latest planet hunting satellite was successfully launched today on the first- of- its- kind mission to find new worlds beyond our solar system and identify the ones that could support alien life. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite ( TESS), which is expected to find thousands of new exoplanets orbiting nearby stars, lifted off at 4: 21 am IST today on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The twin solar arrays that will power the spacecraft were successfully deployed soon after. “We are thrilled TESS is on its way to help us discover worlds we have yet to imagine, worlds that could possibly be habitable, or harbour life,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of Nasa’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “With missions like the James Webb Space Telescope to help us study the details of these planets, we are ever the closer to discovering whether we are alone in the universe,” said Zurbuchen. Over the course of several weeks, TESS will use six thruster burns to travel in a series of progressively elongated orbits to reach the Moon, which will provide a gravitational assist so that TESS can transfer into its 13.7- day final science orbit around Earth. After approximately 60 days of check- out, the spacecraft will begin its work. “One critical piece for the science return of TESS is the high data rate associated with its orbit,” said George Ricker, TESS principal investigator at the MIT in the US. “Each time the spacecraft passes close to Earth, it will transmit full- frame images taken with the cameras,” said Ricker.