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NASA's Kepler Spacecraft Pauses Science Observations to Download Science Data
Earlier this week, NASA's Kepler team received an indication that the spacecraft fuel tank is running very low. NASA has placed the spacecraft in a hibernation-like state in preparation to download the science data collected in its latest observation campaign. Once the data has been downloaded, the expectation is to start observations for the next campaign with any remaining fuel.
[...] To bring the data home, the spacecraft must point its large antenna back to Earth and transmit the data during its allotted Deep Space Network time, which is scheduled in early August. Until then, the spacecraft will remain stable and parked in a no-fuel-use safe mode. On August 2, the team will command the spacecraft to awaken from its no-fuel-use state and maneuver the spacecraft to the correct orientation and downlink the data. If the maneuver and download are successful, the team will begin its 19th observation campaign on August 6 with the remaining fuel.
Also at The Verge and Engadget.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2018, @07:54PM (3 children)
Merican NADA space telescopes ain't be using Solar poweed EM Drive yet??
Why the hell not?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2018, @10:17PM
FTFY!
And, obviously, weed had not been legalized in the US of Aia when Kepler was launched. Silly rabbit. And more to the point, why is there not a re-fueling/repair capability for such a valuable instrument?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Sunday July 08 2018, @11:23PM (1 child)
This is what the previous reporting on that [soylentnews.org] looked like:
'Impossible' EmDrive Space Thruster May Really Be Impossible [space.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 09 2018, @08:08PM
Which was sad on the one hand, as we can't have an EM drive, but on the other, it also meant that the EM drive didn't require us to re-write physics again.