After four years and over a hundred confirmed exoplanets, the Kepler spacecraft will end its search for habitable worlds beyond our solar system. NASA confirmed today that it had abandoned attempts to repair two failing wheels that kept Kepler steady, meaning that the telescope will no longer have the precision to target faraway planets. Instead, NASA is looking at alternative uses for Kepler. Earlier this month, it put out a call for papers on other missions it could undertake, as well as minor repairs or modifications that could give it a new lease on life. Then, next spring, NASA will decide how to fund a new Kepler program for launch in the summer of 2014.
Kepler completed its first three-year mission in 2012, but NASA hoped it...
via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/science/2013/8/15/4625264/nasa-abandons-repairs-on-kepler-space-telescope
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