NASA announced that it succeeded in restoring the Kepler space telescope after a few days it entered Emergency Mode. The mission’s engineers restored the communications during the last Sunday but the time table to resume its work is still to be determined. Communications also made it possible to start downloading telemetry and event data to determine the causes of the emergency.
The problem was discovered on April 7, when Kepler mission engineers contacted the Space Telescope for a scheduled routine call. Space probes, satellites and other spacecraft have a number of systems that are designed to prevent damage by limiting the activity of their on-board equipment.
Among the various possibilities, Emergency Mode is the one with the minimum level of operation. At the same time, it uses more fuel to maintain the telescope trajectory stable because it uses only its thrusters following the deactivation of the systems that manage the use of reaction wheels.
Immediately after the discovery, the Kepler mission managers also declared a spacecraft emergency at NASA control center. This is not only a formal act to bring the engineers from less important activities but also gives them priority access to the Deep Space Network which allows to manage communications from Earth to space probes and in this case to the space telescope.
The Kepler space telescope is orbiting the Sun just like the Earth and at this time its distance from Earth is about 120 million kilometers (about 75 million miles). That’s an additional problem in case of emergency because it’s a distance equivalent to about six and a half light minutes so when a signal is sent to Kepler from Earth it takes at least 13 minutes to get an answer even if’t is sent immediately.
In recent days, the Kepler space telescope was about to start a new campaign of observations but about 14 hours before performing the maneuver scheduled to direct it towards the center of the Milky Way it entered Emergency Mode. In seven years spent in space it’s the first time that this happens and NASA engineers have already started investigating the possible causes.
It’s also important to put the Kepler space telescope back to work as soon as possible because in its position it can observe the center of the Milky Way only until July 1. For now the NASA engineers’ quick intervention during the weekend allowed to restore its normal functions.
In the past, the Kepler space telescope’s mission was interrupted because of its reaction wheels’ failure but an ingenious solution allowed to approve new mission K2 for the main exoplanet hunter. In recent days there was quite a scare and for the moment we can only hope that there’s no damage to its on-board systems.
