RIP Kepler

RIP Kepler

3/6/2009-8/15/2013

NASA has confirmed that there is no hope for correcting the problem with the Kepler spacecraft.  It seems that two of its four positioning wheels (reaction wheels) are non-operational and can't be freed up.  Kepler did manage to function for its intended four year mission, so it was still a successful mission. 

During its mission, the Kepler spacecraft has found 3,548 (and counting) candidate planets, and 135 of them have been confirmed by ground based telescopes.  Of those 135 confirmed planets, about five are in the habitable zone, in other words they are of the right temperature that they could have liquid water on their surface.  And, the Kepler mission isn't done yet, the spacecraft has collected a lot of data, and going through all that data takes time.  The Kepler mission team may continue to find new planet candidates for many more months to come.  Also, there is a proposal to re-task the Kepler spacecraft for other purposes that don't require precision positioning (the two wheel proposal).  

Kepler's replacement spacecraft, the TESS mission,  isn't set for launch till 2017.  Till then, we'll have to rely on ground based planet finding missions.  These are very exciting times to be alive.