CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Calling all planets that orbit around bright, nearby stars: NASA's new Tess spacecraft is looking to do a head count.

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite — Tess for short — is embarking Monday on a two-year quest to find and identify mystery worlds thought to be lurking in our cosmic backyard. The spacecraft aims to add thousands of exoplanets, or planets beyond our solar system, to the galactic map for future study.

Life might be out there, whether microbial or more advanced, and scientists say Tess and later missions will help answer the age-old question of whether we're alone.

"It is very exciting. ... By human nature, we look for exploration and adventure, and this is an opportunity to see what's next," NASA's Sandra Connelly, a science program director, said Sunday on the eve of launch.

Tess is flying on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, scheduled to blast off at 6:32 p.m. Monday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

Here's a peek at little Tess and its creators' big ambitions.

SPACECRAFT: At 5 feet (1.5 meters), Tess is shorter than most adults and downright puny compared with most other spacecraft. The observatory is 4 feet across (1.2 meters), not counting the solar wings, which are folded for launch, and weighs just 800 pounds (362 kilograms). NASA says it's somewhere between the size of a refrigerator and a stacked washer and dryer. Four wide-view cameras are surrounded by a sun shade, to keep stray light out as they monitor any dips in brightness from target stars. Repeated dips would indicate a planet passing in front of its star.

ORBIT: Tess will aim for a unique elongated orbit that passes within 45,000 miles of Earth on one end and as far away as the orbit of the moon on the other end. NASA insists there's no chance of Tess hitting any other satellites or running into the moon, which should never be anywhere close. The lunar gravity will keep the spacecraft stabilized in this orbit for decades to come, with no fuel needed. It will take Tess two weeks to circle Earth.

JOB: Tess will scan almost the entire sky during its $337 million mission, staring at hundreds of thousands, even millions of small, faint red dwarf stars. Scientists expect to discover thousands of planets that, over time, will undergo further scrutiny by powerful telescopes in space and on Earth. That's why NASA, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and and other collaborators are targeting stars within hundreds or, at most, thousands of light-years: It will make the detailed searches yet to come that much easier. NASA's planet-hunting pioneer, the Kepler Space Telescope, has spent the past nine years focusing on considerably fainter, more distant stars and discovered nearly three-quarters of the 3,700-plus exoplanets confirmed to date. With Tess, "our planetary census is going to move in" closer to us, MIT researcher Jenn Burt said Sunday. Satellite maker Orbital ATK's Robert Lockwood said he expects Tess to take exoplanet discovery to a whole new level.

ALIEN LIFE: Tess has no instruments capable of detecting life. Its job is to find and characterize planets that will become the main targets of future telescopes. "By looking at such a large section of the sky, this kind of stellar real estate, we open up the ability to cherry-pick the best stars for doing follow-up science," said Burt. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, once launched in 2020 or so, will probe these planets' atmospheres for potential traces of life. Giant telescopes still in construction or on the draw zing board also will lend a hand.</s>CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA's newest planet-hunting spacecraft will have to wait another couple of days before lifting off.

Two hours before Monday evening's scheduled launch, SpaceX announced it needed more time to check its rocket, which will carry the satellite to orbit. The next attempt will be Wednesday night.

The satellite known as Tess will survey almost the entire sky, staring at the brightest, closest stars in an effort to find any planets that might be encircling them. These mysterious worlds beyond our solar system, called exoplanets, could harbor life.

Scientists expect Tess — the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite — to discover thousands of rocky and icy planets and gas giants, maybe even water worlds and places defying imagination. Bigger and more powerful observatories of the future will scrutinize these prime candidates for potential signs of life.

SpaceX said extra time is needed to examine the Falcon 9 rocket's guidance, navigation and control system. Additional information was not immediately available, according to a spokesman.

SpaceX sometimes uses recycled rocket boosters, but this one is brand new. The company hopes to land this first stage on a floating ocean platform following liftoff, and reuse it on a space station supply run for NASA this summer.

The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.</s>CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Calling all planets that orbit around bright, nearby stars: NASA's new Tess spacecraft is looking to do a head count.

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite — Tess for short — is embarking Monday on a two-year quest to find and identify mystery worlds thought to be lurking in our cosmic backyard. The spacecraft aims to add thousands of exoplanets, or planets beyond our solar system, to the galactic map for future study.

Life might be out there, whether microbial or more advanced, and scientists say Tess and later missions will help answer the age-old question of whether we're alone.

"It is very exciting. ... By human nature, we look for exploration and adventure, and this is an opportunity to see what's next," NASA's Sandra Connelly, a science program director, said Sunday on the eve of launch.

Tess is flying on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, scheduled to blast off at 6:32 p.m. Monday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

Here's a peek at little Tess and its creators' big ambitions.

SPACECRAFT: At 5 feet (1.5 meters), Tess is shorter than most adults and downright puny compared with most other spacecraft. The observatory is 4 feet across (1.2 meters), not counting the solar wings, which are folded for launch, and weighs just 800 pounds (362 kilograms). NASA says it's somewhere between the size of a refrigerator and a stacked washer and dryer. Four wide-view cameras are surrounded by a sun shade, to keep stray light out as they monitor any dips in brightness from target stars. Repeated dips would indicate a planet passing in front of its star.

ORBIT: Tess will aim for a unique elongated orbit that passes within 45,000 miles of Earth on one end and as far away as the orbit of the moon on the other end. NASA insists there's no chance of Tess hitting any other satellites or running into the moon, which should never be anywhere close. The lunar gravity will keep the spacecraft stabilized in this orbit for decades to come, with no fuel needed. It will take Tess two weeks to circle Earth.

JOB: Tess will scan almost the entire sky during its $337 million mission, staring at hundreds of thousands, even millions of small, faint red dwarf stars. Scientists expect to discover thousands of planets that, over time, will undergo further scrutiny by powerful telescopes in space and on Earth. That's why NASA, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and and other collaborators are targeting stars within hundreds or, at most, thousands of light-years: It will make the detailed searches yet to come that much easier. NASA's planet-hunting pioneer, the Kepler Space Telescope, has spent the past nine years focusing on considerably fainter, more distant stars and discovered nearly three-quarters of the 3,700-plus exoplanets confirmed to date. With Tess, "our planetary census is going to move in" closer to us, MIT researcher Jenn Burt said Sunday. Satellite maker Orbital ATK's Robert Lockwood said he expects Tess to take exoplanet discovery to a whole new level.

ALIEN LIFE: Tess has no instruments capable of detecting life. Its job is to find and characterize planets that will become the main targets of future telescopes. "By looking at such a large section of the sky, this kind of stellar real estate, we open up the ability to cherry-pick the best stars for doing follow-up science," said Burt. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, once launched in 2020 or so, will probe these planets' atmospheres for potential traces of life. Giant telescopes still in construction or on the draw zing board also will lend a hand.</s>Image copyright NASA Image caption Tess will search for temporary drops in brightness caused by planetary transits

The US space agency is about to launch a telescope that should find thousands of planets beyond our Solar System.

The Tess mission will go up on a Falcon rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida and survey nearly the entire sky over the course of the next two years.

It will stare at stars, hoping to catch the dip in brightness as their faces are traversed by orbiting worlds.

Tess will build a catalogue of nearby, bright stars and their planets that other telescopes can then follow up.

Key among these will be the successor to Hubble - the James Webb space observatory, due in orbit from 2020. Its powerful vision will have the capability to analyse the atmospheres of some of Tess's new worlds, to look for gases that might hint at the presence of life.

James Webb will "tease out the chemical compositions of those atmospheres and look for whatever's there," said Paul Hertz, the astrophysics director at Nasa. "People are very interested in looking for, what on Earth, are bio-signatures, such as methane, carbon dioxide, water vapour and oxygen."

Image copyright NASA Image caption What Tess will see: Some 500,000 stars will be surveyed in this way in the first two years

Tess follows in the footsteps of Kepler, a groundbreaking space telescope launched in 2009. It also used the "transit technique" to confirm more than 2,000 so-called exoplanets. But Kepler, for its primary mission at least, only looked at a very small patch of sky, and many of its discoveries were simply too far away or too dim for other telescopes to pursue with further analysis.

The Tess strategy will be different on a number of fronts. First and foremost, it is a wide-field survey.

It has four cameras that will map the sky in segments, dwelling on each one for 27 days at a time before then moving on to the next region.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Jennifer Burt: "Tess will look at 350 times more real estate than Kepler"

In 24 months, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (Tess) should have sampled 85% of the heavens, taking in some 500,000 stars - many of which will be among the nearest and brightest in the sky.

"We're expecting to find 2,000-3,000 planets that are certainly below the size of our Jupiter and most of them below the size of Neptune; so, the ones that have the potential for being terrestrial, for being rocky," said Jennifer Burt from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which leads the mission.

The interest will be in whether they are orbiting at a distance from their host star that allows for liquid water - a prerequisite for life.

For most of the stars observed by Tess, this special distance will be a short one. The reason is that the majority of stars out there are what are termed M-dwarfs, and these are smaller and cooler than our Sun, and therefore the zone of ambient temperature that would keep water in a liquid state is much closer in.

Image copyright Artwork: Tess Image caption Tess's four camera systems will search about 85% of the sky during the primary mission

Another of the missions to follow up Tess data will be the Swiss-led, European Space Agency (Esa) project called Cheops (CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite). This telescope should be ready for launch by the year's end.

"Tess will tell us where and when to point," said Cheops' Esa project scientist, Kate Isaak. "Our purpose will be to very accurately measure the size of planets that have already been identified. If we know their radii and we know their mass, then we can talk about their density and what their likely composition is. Are they rocky? Are they water worlds? Are they gaseous?"

Bill Chaplin is an astroseismologist from Birmingham University, UK. He is interested in the variations in the brightness of the stars that will be observed by Tess.

This variability is a consequence of resonances in the outer layers of the stars, and it allows the British professor to pull out a lot of extra information.

"We can measure the stars' fundamental properties. We can say how massive they are and how old they are. In addition, we can form a picture of what the inside of a star looks like. So, in essence we can do the equivalent of an ultrasound scan on them."

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Why Tess is recording the "sounds of stars"

Lift-off for Tess's rocket was scheduled for 18:32 local time (23:32 BST) on Monday. It will not now lift off until Wednesday at the earliest. The satellite will fly with the Falcon for 44 minutes before being ejected on to a highly elliptical path around Earth.

Mission planners have designed a novel orbit that will see Tess corralled by the gravity of the Moon. This will lead to it using very little fuel to manage operations, enabling the mission to keep on working for a couple of decades, or for as long as Nasa finds value in its science.

A good many of the new planets will be relatively close - within a few dozen light-years of Earth. That is still too far away for humans to visit, but George Ricker, the Tess principal investigator from MIT, seems confident that technologies will emerge this century to allow robotic probes to reach some of his satellite's discoveries in a reasonable timeframe.

"We can imagine an armada of nano-satellites that will be sweeping out from the Earth to send back information," he said. "That will be a lasting legacy of Tess."

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos</s>NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), shown here in a conceptual illustration, will identify exoplanets orbiting the brightest stars just outside our solar system. (Source: NASA)

(RNN) – In spite of an aborted attempt Monday, NASA hopes to launch a new satellite soon that will search for planets outside of our solar system that could support life.

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, also known as TESS, will survey the sky over the course of two years, attempting to find planets orbiting bright stars outside the solar system, according to NASA.

The satellite will travel into space on a two-stage SpaceX rocket known as the Falcon 9. Crews stopped Monday’s launch at Cape Canaveral to conduct additional guidance, navigation and control analysis, SpaceX reported.

Nevertheless, NASA reports TESS is “in excellent health” and remains ready for launch, which has been rescheduled for Wednesday night.

Once launched, scientists expect the satellite, which will observe over 85 percent of the sky, to catalog thousands of potential planets. Approximately 300 of those are expected to be Earth-sized or no larger than twice Earth-sized.

After this list has been compiled, NASA says the TESS mission will use the planets’ size, orbit and mass to determine their composition. The planets could be rocky, like Earth; gas giants, like Jupiter; or “something even more unusual.”

Astronomers in the future, including those working with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, are then expected to be able to study the atmospheres of many of the planets.

"We expect TESS will discover a number of planets whose atmospheric compositions, which hold potential clues to the presence of life, could be precisely measured by future observers,” said George Ricker, TESS principal investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research in Cambridge.

One of the many expected results of the research is that scientists will learn how common is it that planets with a similar mass and size to that of Earth lie in the habitable zone, where planets can support liquid water under the right atmospheric conditions, according to Diana Dragomir, an astronomer at MIT.

“With this, we will be one big step closer to understanding how likely it is that life has evolved elsewhere in the Galaxy,” Dragomir said.

Ultimately, TESS' work will help pave the way toward discovering whether life exists – or could exist – on other planets.

“There's technical astrophysical issues that will interest a lot of the scientists in the community, but I think that the question that is going to catch the attention of the educated public is this big one: Are we alone?” said Harvard astronomer David Latham.

The data obtained by TESS will be publicly available, according to CNN, so anyone can assist in the search for planets. It will collect about 27 gigabytes – or 6,500 song files – per day and send data back every two weeks.

The mission will build on the earlier work of the Kepler space telescope, which launched in 2009, and helped scientists discover planets are extremely common space objects.</s>SpaceX postponed the launch of NASA’s new planet-hunting mission Monday in order to verify the Falcon 9 rocket’s navigation systems, the California-based company said.

The next opportunity to blast off the $337 million satellite — which aims to advance the search for extraterrestrial life by scanning the skies for nearby, Earth-like planets will be Wednesday.

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, is “in excellent health and remains ready for launch,” SpaceX said on Twitter.

“Launch teams are standing down today to conduct additional guidance navigation and control analysis.”

The postponement was announced about two hours before the planned blast off from a NASA launchpad in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The washing machine-sized spacecraft is built to search the nearest, brightest stars for signs of periodic dimming. These so-called “transits” may mean that planets are in orbit around them.

TESS is expected to reveal 20,000 planets beyond our solar system, known as exoplanets, NASA said.

Its discoveries will be studied further by ground- and space-based telescopes for signs of habitability, including rocky terrain, a size similar to Earth and a distance from their sun — neither too close nor too far — that allows the right temperature for liquid water.

NASA predicts that TESS could find more than 50 Earth-sized planets and up to 500 planets less than twice the size of the Earth.

TESS will survey far more cosmic terrain than its predecessor, NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, which launched in 2009, taking in some 85 percent of the skies.

“TESS is equipped with four very sensitive cameras that will be able to monitor nearly the entire sky,” said George Ricker, TESS principal investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

“That is about 20 times what the Kepler mission was able to detect.”

– Kepler vs TESS –

 Kepler, the first planet-hunting mission of its kind, “was launched to answer one single question: How common is a planet like Earth around a star like the Sun?” said Patricia “Padi” Boyd, director of the TESS guest investigator program at NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center.

“It was designed to look at 150,000 stars in a fairly wide field of view without blinking, for four years,” she told reporters on the eve of the launch.

“One of the many amazing things that Kepler told us is that planets are everywhere and there are all kinds of planets out there.

“So TESS takes the next step. If planets are everywhere, then it is time for us to find the planets that are closest to us orbiting bright nearby stars, because these will be the touchstone system.”

TESS and Kepler use the same system of detecting planetary transits, or shadows cast as they pass in front of their star.

While Kepler confirmed some 2,300 exoplanets and thousands more potential planet candidates, many were too distant and dim to be studied further.

With Kepler running low on fuel and nearing the end of its life, TESS aims to pick up the search while focusing closer, on planets dozens to hundreds of light years away.

“TESS is going to dramatically increase the number of planets that we have to study,” said Ricker.

The Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to launch in 2020, should be able to reveal more about planets’ mass, density and the makeup of their atmosphere — all clues to habitability.

The first data from TESS is expected to be made public in July, and NASA says citizen astronomers are welcome to help study the planets.

It may be decades before astronomers know whether or not life exists elsewhere.”TESS is the first step,” said Stephen Rinehart, TESS project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center.

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This post was syndicated from The Guardian Nigeria Newspaper – Nigeria and World News. Click here to read the full text on the original website.</s>CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA's newest planet-hunting spacecraft will have to wait another couple of days before lifting off.

Two hours before Monday evening's scheduled launch, SpaceX announced it needed more time to check its rocket, which will carry the satellite to orbit. The next attempt will be Wednesday night.

The satellite known as Tess will survey almost the entire sky, staring at the brightest, closest stars in an effort to find any planets that might be encircling them. These mysterious worlds beyond our solar system, called exoplanets, could harbor life.

Scientists expect Tess — the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite — to discover thousands of rocky and icy planets and gas giants, maybe even water worlds and places defying imagination. Bigger and more powerful observatories of the future will scrutinize these prime candidates for potential signs of life.

SpaceX said extra time is needed to examine the Falcon 9 rocket's guidance, navigation and control system. Additional information was not immediately available, according to a spokesman.

SpaceX sometimes uses recycled rocket boosters, but this one is brand new. The company hopes to land this first stage on a floating ocean platform following liftoff, and reuse it on a space station supply run for NASA this summer.

The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.</s>Washington: The launch of a new NASA satellite, which will hunt for exoplanets that have the potential to harbour alien life, has been delayed to April 18.

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), was supposed to launch from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida in the early hours today.

“Launch teams are standing down today to conduct additional Guidance Navigation and Control analysis. The @NASA_TESS spacecraft is in excellent health and remains ready for launch on the new targeted date of Wednesday, April 18,” NASA wrote in a tweet.

“We expect TESS will discover a number of planets whose atmospheric compositions, which hold potential clues to the presence of life, could be precisely measured by future observers,” said George Ricker, TESS principal investigator.

With the help of a gravitational assist from the Moon, the spacecraft will settle into a 13.7-day orbit around Earth. Sixty days after launch, and following tests of its instruments, the satellite will begin its initial two-year mission.

The satellite, developed by scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US, aims to discover thousands of nearby exoplanets, including at least 50 Earth-sized ones.

The spacecraft, not much larger than a refrigerator, carries four cameras that will survey the nearest, brightest stars in the sky for signs of passing planets.

TESS will spend two years scanning nearly the entire sky – a field of view that can encompass more than 20 million stars.

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.

The TESS science team at MIT aims to measure the masses of at least 50 small planets whose radii are less than four times that of Earth.

Many of TESS’s planets should be close enough to our own that, once they are identified by TESS, scientists can zoom in on them using other telescopes, to detect atmospheres, characterise atmospheric conditions, and even look for signs of habitability.

“TESS is kind of like a scout,” said Natalia Guerrero, deputy manager of TESS Objects of Interest, an MIT-led effort that will catalogue objects captured in TESS data that may be potential exoplanets.

“We’re on this scenic tour of the whole sky, and in some ways we have no idea what we will see. It’s like we’re making a treasure map,” Guerrero said.

After TESS launches, the team expects that the satellite will reestablish contact within the first week, during which it will turn on all its instruments and cameras.

Then, there will be a 60-day commissioning phase, as engineers at NASA and MIT calibrate the instruments and monitor the satellite’s trajectory and performance.

After that, TESS will begin to collect and downlink images of the sky. Scientists at MIT and NASA will take the raw data and convert it into light curves that indicate the changing brightness of a star over time. (PTI0</s>CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Calling all planets that orbit around bright, nearby stars: NASA's new Tess spacecraft is looking to do a head count.

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite — Tess for short — is embarking Monday on a two-year quest to find and identify mystery worlds thought to be lurking in our cosmic backyard. The spacecraft aims to add thousands of exoplanets, or planets beyond our solar system, to the galactic map for future study.

Life might be out there, whether microbial or more advanced, and scientists say Tess and later missions will help answer the age-old question of whether we're alone.

"It is very exciting. ... By human nature, we look for exploration and adventure, and this is an opportunity to see what's next," NASA's Sandra Connelly, a science program director, said Sunday on the eve of launch.

Tess is flying on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, scheduled to blast off at 6:32 p.m. Monday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

Here's a peek at little Tess and its creators' big ambitions.

SPACECRAFT: At 5 feet (1.5 meters), Tess is shorter than most adults and downright puny compared with most other spacecraft. The observatory is 4 feet across (1.2 meters), not counting the solar wings, which are folded for launch, and weighs just 800 pounds (362 kilograms). NASA says it's somewhere between the size of a refrigerator and a stacked washer and dryer. Four wide-view cameras are surrounded by a sun shade, to keep stray light out as they monitor any dips in brightness from target stars. Repeated dips would indicate a planet passing in front of its star.

ORBIT: Tess will aim for a unique elongated orbit that passes within 45,000 miles of Earth on one end and as far away as the orbit of the moon on the other end. NASA insists there's no chance of Tess hitting any other satellites or running into the moon, which should never be anywhere close. The lunar gravity will keep the spacecraft stabilized in this orbit for decades to come, with no fuel needed. It will take Tess two weeks to circle Earth.

JOB: Tess will scan almost the entire sky during its $337 million mission, staring at hundreds of thousands, even millions of small, faint red dwarf stars. Scientists expect to discover thousands of planets that, over time, will undergo further scrutiny by powerful telescopes in space and on Earth. That's why NASA, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and and other collaborators are targeting stars within hundreds or, at most, thousands of light-years: It will make the detailed searches yet to come that much easier. NASA's planet-hunting pioneer, the Kepler Space Telescope, has spent the past nine years focusing on considerably fainter, more distant stars and discovered nearly three-quarters of the 3,700-plus exoplanets confirmed to date. With Tess, "our planetary census is going to move in" closer to us, MIT researcher Jenn Burt said Sunday. Satellite maker Orbital ATK's Robert Lockwood said he expects Tess to take exoplanet discovery to a whole new level.

ALIEN LIFE: Tess has no instruments capable of detecting life. Its job is to find and characterize planets that will become the main targets of future telescopes. "By looking at such a large section of the sky, this kind of stellar real estate, we open up the ability to cherry-pick the best stars for doing follow-up science," said Burt. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, once launched in 2020 or so, will probe these planets' atmospheres for potential traces of life. Giant telescopes still in construction or on the draw zing board also will lend a hand.</s>CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA's newest planet-hunting spacecraft will have to wait another couple of days before lifting off.

Two hours before Monday evening's scheduled launch, SpaceX announced it needed more time to check its rocket, which will carry the satellite to orbit. The next attempt will be Wednesday night.

The satellite known as Tess will survey almost the entire sky, staring at the brightest, closest stars in an effort to find any planets that might be encircling them. These mysterious worlds beyond our solar system, called exoplanets, could harbor life.

Scientists expect Tess — the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite — to discover thousands of rocky and icy planets and gas giants, maybe even water worlds and places defying imagination. Bigger and more powerful observatories of the future will scrutinize these prime candidates for potential signs of life.

SpaceX said extra time is needed to examine the Falcon 9 rocket's guidance, navigation and control system. Additional information was not immediately available, according to a spokesman.

SpaceX sometimes uses recycled rocket boosters, but this one is brand new. The company hopes to land this first stage on a floating ocean platform following liftoff, and reuse it on a space station supply run for NASA this summer.

The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
SpaceX's scheduled launch of NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station is delayed until April 18. TESS is designed to search for exoplanets using the transit method and is 400 times more powerful than the Kepler space observatory.