Founded by British exomoonologist David Kipping and affiliated with the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, HEK submitted its first paper on June 30, 2011.

[1] HEK has since submitted five more papers, finding some evidence for an exomoon around a planet orbiting Kepler-1625b in July 2017.

In the second method, the interval at which a planet transits its host star may be made slightly shorter or longer under the gravitational influence of a moon, revealing its existence.

[6] Despite the lack of positive results in one-and-a-half years of operation, several commentators, including Shannon Hall of Universe Today[3] and Markus Hammonds of Discovery News,[7] have expressed hope that there are billions of exomoons, many habitable, remaining to be found in the Milky Way.

Citing the fact that the first exoplanets were not found in the first discovery efforts, and the fact that the Milky Way is extremely large and diverse, both commentators contend that exomoons will be found eventually.