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NASA placed the Kepler Space Telescope in hibernate mode after the mission team was informed that the spacecraft fuel was running very low. Kepler should wake up in August for the time of the Deep Space Network. (NASA
NASA revealed on Saturday, July 7 that the Kepler Space Telescope is nearing exhaustion and that the space agency has decided to put the spacecraft into hibernation.
Fuel running very
NASA reported that Kepler's team was notified that Kepler's fuel tank is running very low.The planet's fighter spacecraft was placed in hibernation yesterday to prepare for the download scientific data collected during the last observation campaign of the observatory
NASA expects the observations for the next campaign
Kepler is in its 18th campaign d & # 39; Observing since May 12, collecting data from the part of the sky to the constellation of Cancer that he had studied in 2015. Astronomers hope that the latest data will give them a chance to confirm this. previous exoplanets and find new ones. The restitution of these data to the Earth is the highest priority for the remaining fuel of the spacecraft
Deep Space Network Time
The transmission of these data requires that the spacecraft point its large antenna towards the Earth during network time. set at the beginning of August. Until then, Kepler remains stable and is parked in a safe mode for fuel use.
Kepler's team will wake the spacecraft on August 2nd and maneuver it in the right direction to link the data. The team will begin its 19th observation campaign on August 6th if the download is successful.
Mission scheduled to end soon
NASA is already waiting for the mission to finish soon because the spacecraft is running out of fuel. Given the amount of fuel that Kepler had at launch and estimates of the amount used in the last nine years, NASA determined that the fuel reserves of the gear would deplete this year.
In deep space, the spacecraft will run out of fuel and we hope to reach that moment in a few months, "said Charlie Sobeck, Kepler Space Telescope mission system engineer in March. "According to our current estimates, Kepler's reservoir will dry out in a few months."
Kepler Successor
NASA has already launched Kepler's successor, the Transiting Exoplanet Satellite Survey, or TESS, which will also look for exoplanets. The spacecraft is designed to find Earth-sized planets orbiting the "habitable zone" of stars
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