The TESS Project has allocated a number of two-minute cadence targets for programs that fall outside of the exoplanet, asteroseismology, and Guest Investigator programs. Proposals for these Director’s Discretionary Targets (DDT) can be submitted at any time, using the process described below. DDT observations through Sector 69 are now being accepted.
For the TESS Extended Mission (Sectors 27-56), up to 1500 DDT targets per sector will be allocated for 2-minute data targets. In addition, 60 targets will be available for DDT observations at 20s cadence.
DDT proposals do not automatically renew and must be re-proposed every year. Existing proposals for Year 4 observations that include targets that are visible in Year 5 must be re-proposed for Year 5 observations.
Approval process:
Targets reviewed by the TESS PI, a science expert selected by the TESS PI, and the TESS operations team.
All targets will be checked to confirm that they are observable (i.e. imaged onto a CCD). Proposers will be notified of those that will not be imaged onto a CCD. Proposers are strongly advised to check their targets before submission using the tess-point tool (https://github.com/christopherburke/tess-point). A web version of this tool can be found in TESS Playground (https://eta-earth.org/tess_play.html).
Principal requester will be notified via e-mail and approved targets will be posted here, along with the expected time(s) of observation. There is no proprietary period for approved DDT observations.
Data from a DDT observation will be delivered to the TESS archives concurrently with the non-DDT data from the sector in which the DDT is observed
Instructions for submitting a DDT proposal:
Download and complete the templates below for the proposal and target list.
Proposals must be submitted six weeks before the start of sector (check sector calendar here).
Prioritize targets from 0.0 (lowest) to 1.0 (highest)
Keywords can include target name and any other relevant identifiers. No limits on the number of keywords. The DDT program number will be added to the keywords by the POC.
Submit template to tess-ddt at mit dot edu six weeks before start of sector. A DDT ID will be assigned to each proposal by the review team.