The launch of NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, atop a shiny new SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket on April 18, 2018. Launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 40, Falcon put its payload on target and landed offshore aboard an autonomous drone ship minutes later, the company's 24th successful rocket landing (expected to be flown again for the NASA CRS-15 mission). TESS is now in space and preparing for an incredible mission ahead, to survey more than 200,000 stars and hunt for Earth-like and potentially habitable worlds around them.

TESS will complete two orbits around Earth every time the Moon orbits once, allowing its cameras to monitor each patch of sky continuously for nearly a month at a time. TESS will reach its final orbit about 60 days after launch.