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All eyes are on NASA's new exoplanet fighter, TESS, but the Kepler Space Telescope is still alive. The aging spacecraft is up and running, and in a brief update to its mission diary, NASA has announced that the telescope is back to work.
Kepler's spacecraft already has 18 missions to his credit, but NASA scientists hope that he still has enough power to go ahead. Unfortunately, the telescope begins to show its age and could be somewhat embarrassed during maneuvers for its latest series of observations.
"The Kepler spacecraft began collecting scientific data on August 29 for its 19th observation campaign," NASA said. "After being awakened from standby mode, the spacecraft configuration was changed due to the unusual behavior of one of the thrusters. According to preliminary indications, the pointing performance of the telescope could be somewhat degraded. We still do not know how much fuel remains; NASA continues to monitor the health and performance of the spacecraft.
It may sound disastrous, but we expect it a little. Kepler, launched in 2009, is approaching 10 years in space. The spacecraft has a finite amount of fuel that it needs to maneuver and position its powerful lens on distant objects. In a somewhat humorous way, the spacecraft has no way of telling its drivers in the field how much fuel is actually available, so NASA simply needs to continue issuing commands until the craft gives way .
Kepler completed his previous science mission earlier this year and was hibernated before rebooting to allow NASA to download the recovered data. He woke up in August, when he transferred his data to Earth, and then went to sleep until August 29 when he woke up to begin his latest series of tests. # 39; s comments.
With more than 2,000 exoplanets already discovered by Kepler, let's hope the telescope will continue for a long time.
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