Apparently something has gone wrong with Kepler, and it has been found in safe mode with a motor problem at a slightly different altitude.

It could be the end of its life as repair may be impossible .
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/main/index.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/news/keplerm-20130515.html

And

http://news.discovery.com/space/alien-life-exoplanets


John3760

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Especially since we no longer have the space truck to take a repair crew up to fix it.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

Especially since we no longer have the space truck to take a repair crew up to fix it.

Kepler is in a Sun centered orbit, not in a low Earth orbit like Hubble. I don't think any manned spacecraft could reach it.
Tullio

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Ooops, of course you are right. Well I hope they can diagnose the problem and come up with a fix. It would be a shame for it to completely fail so early in it's service life.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

Ooops, of course you are right. Well I hope they can diagnose the problem and come up with a fix. It would be a shame for it to completely fail so early in it's service life.

It's exceeded it's mission time with one of the four reaction wheels failed. Looks like they're pushing the expected life of the reaction wheels with now another failing quite soon after the first...

Hopefully some ingenuity can nurse some further interesting science from it yet. It does have a phenomenal detector to view certain aspects of the cosmos...


Keep searchin',
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

I don't suppose they could just narrow their field of research to wherever it can still point to and get data,and do more extensive research on a smaller area of the sky.

Kepler could still be useful even in its crippled state.
Just a thought ( probably totally wrong ). :)

John3760

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The spacecraft would drift away from any direction it was pointing over time without the stabilizing influence of at least three reaction wheels. They could probably maintain sufficient pointing accuracy by using thrusters, but the fuel for these would eventually be exhausted. They may get the balky wheel to work again, or may be able to bring the fourth reaction wheel back into service. It, too, gave trouble at one point and was turned off.

Another testament to the fact that space is a harsh environment. We may never know the exact cause of the failure as it could be anything from a flawed component to a micro meteor strike. Unfortunately they can only afford to provide limited redundancy as it adds to the launch weight and may never be called on to take over a function. Maybe we should invest in a robotic repair vehicle that could be launched with case specific replacement components. If the original vehicle had universal docking ports the repair craft could just dock, reroute the circuits and take over the function of the failed components. Just a thought.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

Kepler Mission Manager Update

Following the apparent failure of reaction wheel 4 on May 11, 2013, engineers were successful at transitioning the spacecraft from a Thruster-Controlled Safe Mode to Point Rest State at approximately 3:30 p.m. PDT on Wednesday, May 15, 2013. The spacecraft has remained safe and stable in this attitude and is no longer considered to be in a critical situation.

"Nature" says it can't do much with 2 out of 4 gyroscopes not working. I wonder if the gyroscopes were not of the same quality of the gyroscopes of the Gravity Probe 2, probably much costlier because they were cryogenic.
Tullio

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"Nature" says it can't do much with 2 out of 4 gyroscopes not working. I wonder if the gyroscopes were not of the same quality of the gyroscopes of the Gravity Probe 2, probably much costlier because they were cryogenic.
Tullio

Very different gyroscopes between those two spacecraft.

The gyroscopes on Kepler are 'control moment gyroscopes' that are spun up, spun down, and deliberately forcibly twisted around to 'push' the spacecraft in the opposite direction (by Newton's law of reaction) to deliberately orient the spacecraft. For Kepler, that is to keep a very steady orientation despite whatever buffet there might be from the solar wind and drift from radiation pressure.

The gyroscopes on Gravity Probe 2 are smaller and are designed to run in complete isolation to all outside influences. The Gravity Probe 2 spacecraft was a very clever design to not disturb the gyroscopes to allow any spacetime perturbations to be detected. As it turned out, there was horrendous complexity introduced into the measured results due to the small uneven forces from unwanted electrostatic charging! Gravity Probe 2 used the exhaust from the cryogenic helium boil-off as reaction thrusters to "fly" the space craft around the gyroscopes all without the gyroscopes coming into contact with any of the protective housing surfaces.


The multiple 'control moment gyroscopes' on the ISS are the size of big washing machines!

Keep searchin',
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Kepler Stars (And Planets) Are Bigger Than Thought

I have been skeptical all along about some of the conclusions drawn from analyzing just a few pixels of light. Some of the stuff I've been reading and seeing on TV appears to be based on wishful thinking more than hard data.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

In the field of planet hunting, Geoff Marcy is a star. The astronomer at the University of California at Berkeley found nearly three-quarters of the first 100 planets discovered outside our solar system. But with the hobbled planet-hunting Kepler telescope having just about reached the end of its useful life and reams of data from the mission still left uninvestigated, Marcy began looking in June for more than just new planets. He's sifting through the data to find alien spacecraft passing in front of distant stars.

Moving on...

Seti is also mentioned.


Astronomer casts new light on the search for alien life

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The universe wastes nothing, it's simply transferred.
Lynn

I am not familiar with Berkeley U. structure and policies. But why does a Berkeley astronomer like Marcy seem to ignore the existence of SETI@home? The linked article mentions only the ATA telescope.
Tullio

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The prolific Kepler space telescope has had to give up its prime planet-hunting mission after engineers failed to find a fix for its hobbled pointing system.

Kepler has so far confirmed 135 planets beyond our Solar System.

Source

Yes, but a lot of data is yet to be analyzed. This is common to most "big science" projects like LHC at CERN.
Tullio

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Yes, but a lot of data is yet to be analyzed. This is common to most "big science" projects like LHC at CERN.
Tullio

Update:



Kepler Mission Manager Update: Pointing Test Results

Following months of analysis and testing, the team is ending its attempts to restore the spacecraft to full working order as the recent pointing test proved unsuccessful. We are now considering what new science research it can carry out in its current condition.

Yes, but a lot of data is yet to be analyzed. This is common to most "big science" projects like LHC at CERN.
Tullio

Update:



Kepler Mission Manager Update: Pointing Test Results

Following months of analysis and testing, the team is ending its attempts to restore the spacecraft to full working order as the recent pointing test proved unsuccessful. We are now considering what new science research it can carry out in its current condition.

Isnt just me ? but since a while Lynn i have extremly hard to click your links, each time i try to click it jumps and move one line higher. i always need to quote and copy paste the url. i think it s cause you always put (lately) an 'enter' or 2 between the url= and the name of the link like that:


Michel448a, Very strange about the link or links. They work for me on my end.
Sorry about that.

Update:


[*url=http://www.nasa.gov/content/kepler-mission-manager-update-pointing-test-results/]

Kepler Mission Manager Update: Pointing Test Results[/url]

Following months of analysis and testing...


it s like i m trying to catch a fly with chopsticks ^^

Isnt just me ? but since a while Lynn i have extremly hard to click your links, each time i try to click it jumps and move one line higher.

I've had no problems with accessing or clicking Lynn's links. I've seen the problem you describe before and it is usually a browser problem. Frequently it is misbehaving plugins that are the cause. Try another browser to see if the same behavior happens to confirm.