The Kepler space telescope, first launched into orbit in 2009, has been approved for the second phase of its mission to discover new planets orbiting alien stars.
The K2 mission will help revitalize a mission that went out of operation a year ago, after discovering hundreds of new worlds. Two of the four reaction wheels, used for orientating the spacecraft to the stars, broke down, leaving astronomers without a way to point the telescope.
"After the second wheel of Kepler's guidance control system failed last year during the spacecraft's extended mission, engineers devised a clever solution to manage the sun's radiation pressure and limit its effect on the spacecraft pointing. K2 will observe target fields along the ecliptic plane, the orbital path of planets in our solar system also know as the zodiac, for approximately 75-day campaigns," NASA program managers wrote in a press release announcing the K2 mission.
The first phase of the Kepler mission uncovered as many as 3,600 possible worlds beyond our own family of planets. The study revealed that most stars are accompanied by a least one, if not more, planets. Planet candidates discovered by Kepler make up roughly half of all such bodies known to astronomers.
Many of the planets discovered by Kepler orbit within the "habitable zone" of their companion stars. This is the distance from a sun at which water is likely to exist in liquid form on a planet. Although this is no proof of water, much less life, these worlds may be the most likely to have formed alien lifeforms.
"During the last five years, Kepler has produced results needed to take the next big step forward in humankind's search for life in our galaxy - providing information needed for future missions that will ultimately determine the atmospheric composition of Earth-sized exoplanets to discover if they could be habitable," William Borucki, Kepler investigaor at Ames Research Center, said.
Mission managers shut down the Kepler spacecraft in August 2013. Since that time, engineers have designed a new procedure to manage radiation pressure on Kepler. The craft will be slowly rotated to balance pressure from the sun.
The K2 mission will allow Kepler to continue its mission of finding alien worlds orbit stars along the ecliptic. This is the plane followed by the planets in our solar system, and the constellations seen along that plane comprise the zodiac.
Astronomers are preparing for Campaign One, the first part of the K2 mission.
Leadership of the Kepler team recently changed, when Roger Hunter stepped down as Kepler project manager, being replaced with Charlie Sobeck.
