Washington, April 17: NASA is now targeting Wednesday for the launch of its next planet-hunting mission, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or Tess.
The spacecraft was earlier scheduled to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Monday (4.02 a.m. on Tuesday, India time).
"Standing down today to conduct additional GNC (guidance, navigation and control) analysis, and teams are now working towards a targeted launch of @NASA_TESS on Wednesday, April 18," SpaceX said in a tweet on Monday .
NASA in a blog post said that the Tess spacecraft is in excellent health, and remains ready for launch.
Tess is NASA's next step in the search for exoplanets, including those that could support life.
Once in orbit, Tess will spend about two years surveying 200,000 of the brightest stars near the Sun to search for planets outside our solar system.
It will find the most promising exoplanets orbiting relatively nearby stars, giving future researchers a rich set of new targets for more comprehensive follow-up studies, including the potential to assess their capacity to harbour life.
With the help of a gravitational assist from the Moon, the spacecraft will settle into a 13.7-day orbit around Earth, NASA said in an earlier statement.
Sixty days after the launch and following tests of its instruments, the satellite will begin its initial two-year mission. Four wide-field cameras will give Tess a field-of-view that covers 85 percent of our entire sky.
Within this vast visual perspective, the sky has been divided into 26 sectors that Tess will observe one by one.
The first year of observations will map the 13 sectors encompassing the southern sky, and the second year will map the 13 sectors of the northern sky.
The spacecraft will be looking for a phenomenon known as a transit, where a planet passes in front of its star, causing a periodic and regular dip in the star's brightness.
NASA's Kepler spacecraft used the same method to spot more than 2,600 confirmed exoplanets, most of them orbiting faint stars 300 to 3,000 light-years away.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Cong takes swipe at PM over India not being part of US-led 'Pax Silica' grouping
New Delh (PTI) The Congress on Saturday said it is perhaps not very surprising that India is not part of a US-led strategic initiative to build a secure silicon supply chain, given the "sharp downturn" in the Trump-Modi ties, and asserted that it would have been to "our advantage if we had been part of this group".
Congress general secretary in charge of communications Jairam Ramesh took a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying the news of India not being part of the group comes after the PM had enthusiastically posted on social media about a telephone call with his "once-upon-a-time good friend and a recipient of many hugs in Ahmedabad, Houston, and Washington DC".
In a lengthy post on X, Ramesh said, "According to some news reports, the US has excluded India from a nine-nation initiative it has launched to reduce Chinese control on high-tech supply chains. The agreement is called Pax Silica, clearly as a counter to Pax Sinica. The nations included (for the moment at least) are the US, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Australia."
"Given the sharp downturn in the Trump-Modi ties since May 10th, 2025, it is perhaps not very surprising that India has not been included. Undoubtedly, it would have been to our advantage if we had been part of this group."
"This news comes a day after the PM had enthusiastically posted on his telephone call with his once-upon-a-time good friend and a recipient of many hugs in Ahmedabad, Houston, and Washington DC," the Congress leader asserted.
The new US-led strategic initiative, rooted in deep cooperation with trusted allies, has been launched to build a secure and innovation-driven silicon supply chain.
According to the US State Department, the initiative called 'Pax Silica' aims to reduce coercive dependencies, protect the materials and capabilities foundational to artificial intelligence (AI), and ensure aligned nations can develop and deploy transformative technologies at scale.
The initiative includes Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Australia. With the exception of India, all other QUAD countries -- Japan, Australia and the US -- are part of the new initiative.
New Delhi will host the India-AI Impact Summit 2026 on February 19-20, focusing on the principles of 'People, Planet, and Progress'. The summit, announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the France AI Action Summit, will be the first-ever global AI summit hosted in the Global South.
Prime Minister Modi and US President Trump on Thursday discussed ways to sustain momentum in the bilateral economic partnership in a phone conversation amid signs of the two sides inching closer to firming up a much-awaited trade deal.
The phone call between the two leaders came on a day Indian and American negotiators concluded two-day talks on the proposed bilateral trade agreement that is expected to provide relief to India from the Trump administration's whopping 50 per cent tariffs on Indian goods.
In a social media post, Modi had described the conversation as "warm and engaging".
"We reviewed the progress in our bilateral relations and discussed regional and international developments. India and the US will continue to work together for global peace, stability and prosperity," Modi had said without making any reference to trade ties.
