* Astronomy

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RE: Kepler mission

Blobrana · L

The telescope Nasa is preparing for launch next month won't reveal if there is intelligent life in the Universe, but it should at least provide concrete evidence that there are places like Earth for ET to live.

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NASA will hold a media briefing on Thursday, Feb. 19, at 1 p.m. EST, to discuss the upcoming Kepler mission. Kepler is the first spacecraft with the ability to find Earth-size planets orbiting stars like our sun in a zone where liquid water could exist. The televised briefing will take place in the James E. Webb Memorial Auditorium at NASA Headquarters, 300 E St. S.W., Washington.

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NASA unveiled a modest telescope on Friday with a sweeping mission to discover if there are any Earth-type planets orbiting distant stars.
Though astronomers have found more than 330 planets circling stars in other solar systems, none has the size and location that is believed to be key to supporting life.
Once in position trailing Earth in orbit, Kepler will spend at least 3 1/2 years focused on a star-rich patch of sky between the constellations Cygnus and Lyra.

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The launch of NASA's Kepler telescope, the first mission capable of finding Earth-size and smaller planets around other stars, is scheduled for March 5 at 10:48 p.m. EST, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

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Kepler space telescope

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RE: Kepler mission

Blobrana · L

NASA's Kepler Spacecraft Baked and Ready for More Tests
NASA's planet-hunting Kepler mission, scheduled to launch in 2009, has survived an extreme temperature test.
The thermal vacuum test is part of a series of environmental tests the spacecraft will undergo before it blasts into space aboard a Delta II rocket from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.

"Kepler functioned extremely well at the intense temperatures it will encounter in space" - James Fanson, Kepler project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena , California.

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Put your name on board the Kepler spacecraft.
Would you like to send your name into space? Submit your name and it will be stored on a DVD and rocketed into space on board the Kepler spacecraft.
The deadline to submit your name is November 1, 2008.

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The largest optical mirror ever built for a mission beyond Earth’s orbit has arrived at Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. for environmental testing and spacecraft integration.

NASA’s Kepler mission, with a field of view 70,000 times greater than the Hubble Space Telescope, will attempt to detect Earth-like planets orbiting stars beyond our solar system. By continuously monitoring the brightness of more than 100,000 stars, Kepler will search for planets that transit in front of stars. As a planet passes in front of its parent star, Kepler will detect the star’s brightness change to determine the planet's size and orbit. The possible discovery of Earth-size planets in the habitable zone of other stars will be the first step in determining the extent of life in our galaxy.

Ball Aerospace is the prime contractor for the Kepler mission, managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for the NASA Ames Research Centre. In addition to the 0.95-meter photometer, Ball Aerospace is building the spacecraft, and will perform system integration and testing. The 1.4-meter primary mirror was produced by subcontractor L-3 Communications Brashear.

"Arrival of the technologically advanced Kepler mirror is an important milestone. By leveraging our spacecraft design from the successful Deep Impact mission and our instrument expertise from the Hubble Space Telescope and Spitzer Space Telescope, we will further contribute to NASA’s search for extrasolar planets" - David L. Taylor, president and chief executive officer of Ball Aerospace.

Kepler, which is scheduled to launch in 2008, was one of two NASA Discovery-class missions selected in 2001.

Ball Aerospace is celebrating its 50th year in business in 2006. The company began building pointing controls for military rockets in 1956, and later won a contract to build one of NASA’s first spacecraft, the Orbiting Solar Observatory. Over the years, the company has been responsible for numerous technological and scientific ‘firsts’ and now acts as a technology innovator in important national missions.
Ball Corporation is a supplier of high-quality metal and plastic packaging products and owns Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., which develops sensors, spacecraft, systems and components for government and commercial customers. Ball reported 2005 sales of $5.8 billion and the company employs 15,600 people worldwide.

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