The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is a survey mission designed to discover exoplanets around the nearest and brightest stars. TESS is a NASA Astrophysics Explorer mission that was launched on April 18, 2018. The Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) at the Space Telescope Science Institute serves as the archive for TESS science data. TESS will conduct large area surveys of bright stars and known M dwarfs within about 60 parsecs. TESS will observe a single 24 degree by 96-degree sector of the sky for approximately 27 days before pointing to a new sector, surveying almost the entire sky over the two-year prime mission. Science data are captured in two observation types: Target Data and Full Frame Images. Target Data result from a subarray of pixels read out with a two-minute cadence from approximately 15,000 stars per sector. Target stars change every sector, but targets near the ecliptic poles will be observed in multiple sectors. The entire field of view is captured in Full Frame Images taken at thirty-minute cadence. Full Frame Images provide a rich source of space-quality continuous light curves for many astronomical investigations. Archive data products originate from multiple elements within the TESS ground segment. The Payload Operations Center provides the archive with raw data from the spacecraft, operational files, and focal plane characterization models. The Science Processing Operations Center pipeline generates FITS files for the Target Data and Full Frame Images. Light Curves and Centroids are extracted from the Target Data. Threshold Crossing Events are identified from the Light Curves in the Transiting Planet Search pipeline and Data Validation Reports are generated. MAST will stage catalog data generated by the TESS Science Office. The TESS Input Catalog at present contains approximately half a billion persistent luminous objects over the entire sky that are potential two-minute targets or are needed to document nearby fainter stars that contaminate the target photometry. The TESS Objects of Interest Catalog lists planetary candidates identified as Threshold Crossing Events. In addition, the TESS Science Office will manage the TESS Follow-up Observing Program in which ground and space based telescopes will be used for further observations of TESS Objects of Interest. Follow-up Observing Program participants will be responsible for submission of follow-up data to MAST. The services provided by MAST for the TESS mission are to store science data and provide an Archive User Interface for data documentation, search, and retrieval. Target Data and Full Frame Images are expected to be available in MAST within two months after conclusion of a sector’s data collection. Current estimates predict 30 Terabytes of TESS data available through MAST for each year of the mission. The MAST architecture is designed to support multiple missions. MAST currently serves data from the Hubble Space Telescope, Kepler, and approximately ten other missions, as well as numerous additional high-level science data products. MAST will be the JWST data archive. The TESS mission takes advantage of this multi-mission architecture to provide a cost effective archive that allows integration of TESS data with data from other missions.
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