The Pandora SmallSat: Target Selection and Early Science
The Pandora spacecraft is a smallsat selected in NASA's inaugural class of Pioneers missions. The aim of the Pandora mission is to disentangle stellar activity signals from exoplanet atmospheric transmission spectroscopy measurements. Pandora accomplishes this goal with its combined visible photometry and NIR spectroscopy that observe each target in the prime mission for 10 separate transit observations, each spanning 24 hours at a time. Targets were carefully selected for the Pandora prime mission. Pandora is specifically studying planets around low-mass stellar hosts (K and M dwarf stars) spanning a range of rotation periods and activity levels. The planets range in size from 1.5 - 15 Earth radii and orbital periods ranging from 1.7 - 11.5 days. In addition to the 10 transit visits planned for each of the 20 prime mission targets, Pandora is observing a number of auxiliary targets encompassing a variety of science topics. This includes topics such as stellar activity and young systems, transit timing variations of exoplanets, brown dwarf compositions, exoplanet phase curves, etc. We will discuss the selection of these targets, how they have been scheduled to fill in gaps in prime mission operations, and early science results. If the mission is extended, there is further opportunity for accomplishing additional science. Here we will discuss the possible options for extended mission operations and science.