NASA Abandons Kepler Repairs, Looks To the Future 73
cylonlover writes "If NASA has anything to say about it, Kepler is down, but not out. At a press teleconference on Thursday it announced that it has abandoned efforts to repair the damaged unmanned probe, which was designed to search for extrasolar planets and is no longer steady enough to continue its hunt. But the space agency is looking into alternative missions for the spacecraft based on its remaining capabilities. 'On Aug. 8, engineers conducted a system-level performance test to evaluate Kepler's current capabilities. They determined wheel 2, which failed last year, can no longer provide the precision pointing necessary for science data collection. The spacecraft was returned to its point rest state, which is a stable configuration where Kepler uses thrusters to control its pointing with minimal fuel use.'"
A partial success (Score:3, Interesting)
It was supposed to have a 3.5 year mission. It appears that it might have come pretty close to that, but it didn't get nearly the data it was supposed to. This is pretty disappointing and they should probably hold a formal design review to determine what went wrong in the design and construction and determine if a replacement should be built to finally accomplish the mission that was planned.
Re:A partial success (Score:5, Interesting)
as with most satellite missions gone wrong -- its was the gyroscope.... remember it was replaced on Hubble a few times... its seems to be the weakest link in a lot of missions as it has to be a moving part to induce counter rotation in the satellite. it's only feasible to put so many on board ... so maybe a redesign of this one part will save future missions ... but maybe its time to think outside the box now that we know ion drives work a kg of propellant and three exhuast ports would fix this issue with new tech
Other than that it was an awesome mission.
Heard about this on NPR (Score:5, Interesting)
a fix (Score:5, Interesting)
deploy another gyroscope and rpg in a package that can be attached to Kepler, a practice run for comet sampling missions
Proposals due at the end of the month (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is Kepler doesn't really have the resolution for things we're interested in and may not actually be able to be pointed in certain directions due to solar panel and communications relay positioning. Best we could come up with at our brainstorming meeting this morning was parallax with our upcoming mission to Pluto and to resolve a bet on whether or not ISON will explode when it passes close to the sun later this year.