NASA TESS launch: One-of-its-kind mission to hunt for new, habitable planets

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission, launched on Wednesday, will "hunt for planets around some of the closest and brightest stars" read NASA's tweet.

The first-of-its-kind mission will aim at finding worlds beyond our solar system, including some that could support life.

Equipped with 4 cameras, TESS will hover across the entire sky for unknown worlds.

“We are thrilled TESS is on its way to help us discover worlds we have yet to imagine, worlds that could possibly be habitable, or harbor life,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “With missions like the James Webb Space Telescope to help us study the details of these planets, we are ever the closer to discovering whether we are alone in the universe.”

TESS is on a mission to find thousands of new exoplanets orbiting nearby stars. According to NASA, the spacecraft will begin its work after approximately 60 days of check-out and instrument testing.

The spacecraft, during its two-year survey mission, will map the southern sky during its first year of observations and the northern sky during the second year covering nearly 85 percent of the sky.

NASA TESS lifted off at 6:51 pm EDT on Wednesday mounted on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, US.