Photos: TESS Exoplanet Observatory Undergoes Final Pre-Launch Processing

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite  (TESS) undergoes final pre-launch processing tasks at the Kennedy Space Center’s Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility including final functional checks, deployment testing and propellant loading before attachment to the launch adapter and shipment to SpaceX’s facilities for integration with the Falcon 9 launch vehicle. TESS is setting out to complete the first-ever spaceborne all-sky survey for exoplanet transits, potentially discovering hundreds of new extra-solar planets including those in the habitable zones around their host stars where life would be theoretically possible.

All Photos: NASA Kennedy