The countdown is underway for the liftoff of NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. TESS will search for planets outside of our solar system. The mission will find exoplanets that periodically block part of the light from their host stars, events called transits. The satellite will survey the nearest and brightest stars for two years to search for transiting exoplanets. Launch is scheduled no earlier than 6:51 p.m. EDT.
Photo credit: NASA