NASA to Attempt to Rescue Marooned Planet-Hunting Space Telescope Kepler

There's hope for the planet-hunting space telescope Kepler yet, as NASA plans to attempt new repairs.

The telescope has been having problems and currently can't operate properly due to the malfunction of two reaction wheels. The reaction wheels align the telescope and keep it staring at the same portion of space, crucial for the type of research Kepler was built for.

The telescope has four of these wheels, but only needs three to operate. The first failed last year and recently a second one stopped working.

Without the reaction wheels, which are powered by the solar panels, the telescope would need to burn fuel, which would quickly run out, to position itself.

Kepler works by looking at the same portion of the sky and detecting minute changes in the amount of light coming from the few hundred thousand stars it monitors. These variations indicate that there are planets coming in front of the stars.

But Kepler is also moving through space and needs constant adjustments to position the lens correctly. While the engineering team is working on a fix, adjustments to the telescope's fuel usage were made, hopefully giving the team more time to find a solution.

"The engineering team has devised initial tests for the recovery attempt and is checking them on the spacecraft test bed at the Ball Aerospace facility in Boulder, Colo. The team anticipates that exploratory commanding of Kepler’s reaction wheels will commence mid-to-late July," NASA said in its latest update on the state of the craft.

There's no guarantee that any of this will work. If it doesn't, Kepler's primary mission will be abandoned or changed, but the telescope could still provide valuable scientific data.

Meanwhile, a new software version is being prepared for the telescope and will be uploaded later this month. The new software improves small planet detection and also decreases the false positive rate. Of course, it won't matter much if Kepler can't operate properly.