TESS 
The TESS mission is in development and is due to launch in March 2018. The cameras and instrument are built and are being integrated at MIT. They are going through thermal and vibration testing currently.
The spacecraft has been built by Orbital ATK and has gone through thermal and vibration testing. In August the instrument and spacecraft vehicle will be integrated and go through testing at Orbital's facility in Dulles, Virginia.
Launch will be atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.
Mission timeline overview
TESS will observe a series of sectors, where a sector is one 27-day long observation. Each year of the mission will consist of 13 sectors. Year 1 will target the southern hemisphere and year 2 will target the northern hemisphere. The location of each sector will not be known until launch. The dates below are from our nominal plan.
Sector dates and positions
| Sector | Start | Stop | Data available |
RA | Dec | Target list |
Release notes |
Comments | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Commissioning | 2018 Mar 20 | 2018 May 19 | Launch on 2018 Mar 20. Commissioning includes a sector zero practice orbit (s000) | ||||||
| s001 | 2018 May 19 | 2018 Jun 15 | 2018 Oct 28 | ||||||
| s002 | 2018 Jun 15 | 2018 Jul 12 | 2018 Oct 28 | ||||||
| s003 | 2018 Jul 12 | 2018 Aug 08 | 2018 Oct 28 | ||||||
| s004 | 2018 Aug 08 | 2018 Sep 04 | 2018 Oct 28 | ||||||
| s005 | 2018 Sep 04 | 2018 Oct 01 | 2019 Feb 13 | ||||||
| s006 | 2018 Oct 01 | 2018 Oct 28 | 2019 Feb 13 | ||||||
| s007 | 2018 Oct 28 | 2018 Nov 24 | 2019 Feb 13 | ||||||
| s008 | 2018 Nov 24 | 2018 Dec 21 | 2019 Feb 13 | ||||||
| s009 | 2018 Dec 21 | 2019 Jan 17 | 2019 Jun 01 | ||||||
| s010 | 2019 Jan 17 | 2019 Feb 13 | 2019 Jun 01 | ||||||
| s011 | 2019 Feb 13 | 2019 Mar 12 | 2019 Jun 01 | ||||||
| s012 | 2019 Mar 12 | 2019 Apr 08 | 2019 Jun 01 | ||||||
| s013 | 2019 Apr 08 | 2019 May 05 |