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Kepler Mission Manager Update
“The operations staff at Ball Aerospace did a wonderful job at developing and implementing PRS. As a result, the spacecraft is not in an emergency condition, and work can be conducted at a more deliberate pace. For the next week or so, we will contact the spacecraft on a daily basis to ensure PRS continues to operate as expected.”
Biologist, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Biologist and Payload integrator, Editor of NASAWatch.com and Astrobiology.com, Lapsed climber, Explorer, Synaesthete, Former Challenger Center board member... More by Keith Cowing
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This is good, but it’s small comfort if Kepler is no longer capable of performing its mission (or any observation).
If they can continue any meaningful science, it will be a pleasant surprise.
The success of the mission so far suggests the spacecraft should be replaced if it fails. Generally a second copy of a spacecraft can be produced for a fraction of the cost of the first, and could include improved reaction wheels.
However another approach would be to build two telescopes, one mounted on the ISS and one orbiting 180 degrees away from ISS but in a similar orbit. This would provide continuous coverage of the target star field and the remote satellite could easily be returned to the ISS for servicing.
Kepler is not in Earth orbit. It’s in a heliocentric orbit in a position that slowly trails ours, gradually falling father away over time.
Still, if we had two of them in opposite heliocentric orbits with a nice long baseline between them couldn’t we be getting even more amazing results? As long as they’re synchronized in timing, the only trick I see is maintaining a known length for the baseline in real time. Yes/No?
No, there would be no scientific purpose served by doing this.
Okay, thanks Tod. I was thinking that since the process involves seeing something that is very hard to see, having a second, simultaneous point of view would improve detection. In the event where both satellites saw a “transit” would the time between the two sightings not be usable data? And the time between sightings of a given “transit” is much less than the time between “transits.” which might allow for faster tentative categorization. Those were my thoughts, but I guess I’m not understanding the process correctly.
The transits would be observed at different times, but that only reflects the position of the star relative to the baseline. Having two spacecraft would boost the S/N by sqrt(2), but the distance between them is irrelevant.
If servicing is not planned, the helicentric orbit is ideal, as it allows continuous observation. But in that case we should have the capability to replace (or upgrade) the spacecraft if it fails. A replacement spacecraft might be directed at the southern starfield (the current spacecraft looks only at a field in the northern sky).
An instrument mounted on the ISS, however could be serviced and upgraded whenever needed, although any given star field would be occluded by Earth about half the time. If two or three star fields of interest in different directions are chosen, observation could be almost continuous.