  The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), launched successfully on
18th of April, 2018, will observe nearly the full sky and will provide
time-series imaging data in ~27-day-long campaigns. TESS is equipped with 4
cameras; each has a field-of-view of 24x24 degrees. During the first two years
of the primary mission, one of these cameras, Camera #1, is going to observe
fields centered at an ecliptic latitude of 18 degrees. While the ecliptic plane
itself is not covered during the primary mission, the characteristic scale
height of the main asteroid belt and Kuiper belt implies that a significant
amount of small solar system bodies will cross the field-of-view of this
camera. Based on the comparison of the expected amount of information of TESS
and Kepler/K2, we can compute the cumulative etendues of the two optical
setups. This comparison results in roughly comparable optical etendues, however
the net etendue is significantly larger in the case of TESS since all of the
imaging data provided by the 30-minute cadence frames are downlinked rather
than the pre-selected stamps of Kepler/K2. In addition, many principles of the
data acquisition and optical setup are clearly different, including the level
of confusing background sources, full-frame integration and cadence, the
field-of-view centroid with respect to the apparent position of the Sun, as
well as the differences in the duration of the campaigns. As one would expect,
TESS will yield time-series photometry and hence rotational properties for only
brighter objects, but in terms of spatial and phase space coverage, this sample
will be more homogeneous and more complete. Here we review the main analogues
and differences between the Kepler/K2 mission and the TESS mission, focusing on
scientific implications and possible yields related to our Solar System.
