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."
Re:Light Sail (Score:4, Insightful)
Variability and unpredictability of the solar wind?
It could work, but it would be like reverting from steamships to sail power, and in the billion dollar satellite business, answering the question "when will our gizmo be working?" with something like "well, between 10 and 40 days, depending on what kind of winds we get..." might not be as satisfying for the businessmen as "27 days, 13 hours and 6 minutes, +/- 30 seconds, depending on interference from the solar wind."