The Briefing Room
General Category => Science, Technology and Knowledge => Space => Topic started by: corbe on October 31, 2018, 05:27:14 pm
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RIP Kepler: NASA's elite planet-hunting spacecraft pronounced dead
By The Associated Press
1 Hour Ago
By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA's elite planet-hunting spacecraft has been declared dead, just a few months shy of its 10th anniversary.
Officials announced the Kepler Space Telescope's demise Tuesday.
Already well past its expected lifetime, the 9 1/2-year-old Kepler had been running low on fuel for months. Its ability to point at distant stars and identify possible alien worlds worsened dramatically at the beginning of October, but flight controllers still managed to retrieve its latest observations. The telescope has now gone silent, its fuel tank empty.
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https://www.circa.com/story/2018/10/31/science/rip-kepler-nasas-elite-planet-hunting-spacecraft-pronounced-dead (https://www.circa.com/story/2018/10/31/science/rip-kepler-nasas-elite-planet-hunting-spacecraft-pronounced-dead)