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.
For the remainder of Year 1 (Sectors 4-13) of the TESS survey, there are 14,000 DDT targets allocated for 2-minute data; thus, for each sector, there can be up to ~1,500 DDT targets awarded.
Approval process:
- Targets reviewed by the TESS PI, a science expert selected by the TESS PI, and the TESS operations team.
- 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 one month before start of sector (check sector calendar here).
- Proposals for a full hemisphere or for the full mission are preferred
- 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 one month before start of sector. A DDT ID will be assigned to each proposal by the review team.
DDT proposal templates
Please contact the TESS Science Office with any questions at tess-ddt at mit dot edu