Telescope "Kepler" plunged into eternal sleep Bashny.Net

Telescope "Kepler", named after the German mathematician and astronomer who discovered the laws of movement of planets, was launched into space in March 2009. His main mission was to search for Earth-like exoplanets. In four years, the telescope has found around 3,000 candidates, of which 352 are comparable to temnymi sizes, and the 131 exoplanet might Harbor life. Today NASA announced that the telescope "Kepler" is out of order and may be forever lost to science.





Recently NASA experts found that the orbital Observatory moved to the "sleep mode". In order to keep the telescope in the desired direction, use four of the flywheel. Flywheels spin in the same direction, and the orbital Observatory in the back (the law of conservation of angular momentum). In July 2012, NASA reported that one of the flywheels is out of order, but fortunately, the remaining three had to work the telescope as usual. It is the disabling of the second flywheel loaded "Kepler" in eternal sleep. Until NASA experts will decide how to repair the "Kepler" telescope will be considered lost to science.





Fortunately, NASA has a lot of time to think of a way out of an unpleasant situation. NASA experts will be able to activate a special mode Point Rеst Stаte in which the telescope uses the minimum amount of fuel and safely will be able to "hang out" in space. Thus, NASA will gain some time. Without software Point Rest State, which was installed on the "Kepler" telescope should expend all the fuel in a month. Now he can surf the Universe for many years.

Source: /users/413