Solar Pressure May Help Kepler Return To Planet-Hunting Duties 46
Zothecula writes "Last August, it looked as if NASA's Kepler space telescope was as good as scrap due to the failure of its attitude control system. Now the space agency proposes what it calls the K2 mission concept, which may fix the problem by using the Sun to regain attitude control and allow Kepler to resume its search for extrasolar planets."
forget the sun (Score:4, Funny)
Solar pressure? The only thing that works for attitude control is peer pressure (for lack of a timeout corner in orbit).
Tell Grandpa Hubble to shame Kepler into behaving.
just gotta say... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Attitude Control? (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, no, they have an attitude all right. If you point them in the wrong direction they won't even talk to you. God forbid you give one a command it doesn't like or understand; you may never hear from it again. Fussy, high-maintenance, only responding to what it wants to hear; if that's not attitude I don't know what is...
Re:just gotta say... (Score:4, Funny)
Such mercurial joviality mars this saturnine thread. Something about venereal disease...
Re:Light Sail (Score:2, Funny)
the Sun is pretty stable when it comes to that
Then how do you explain global warming?
(I keed, I keed...)