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Kepler Recovered from Emergency and Stable (nasa.gov)

Here's an exciting update on NASA's Kepler, which entered "emergency mode" last week. An anonymous reader points us to a press release on NASA's official website: Mission operations engineers have successfully recovered the Kepler spacecraft from Emergency Mode (EM). On Sunday morning, the spacecraft reached a stable state with the communication antenna pointed toward Earth, enabling telemetry and historical event data to be downloaded to the ground. The spacecraft is operating in its lowest fuel-burn mode. The mission has cancelled the spacecraft emergency, returning the Deep Space Network ground communications to normal scheduling. Once data is on the ground, the team will thoroughly assess all on board systems to ensure the spacecraft is healthy enough to return to science mode and begin the K2 mission's microlensing observing campaign, called Campaign 9. This checkout is anticipated to continue through the week. Earth-based observatories participating in Campaign 9 will continue to make observations as Kepler's health check continues. The K2 observing opportunity for Campaign 9 will end on July 1, when the galactic center is no longer in view from the vantage point of the spacecraft.

70 comments

  1. GIG can save earth now! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    www.gig15.com

    hello . my name is charles webster baer of tianjin china . I want to tell you what gig is . gig is many things . gig is global internet government . gig is my web site . www.gig15.com . gig is the future of the world media . gig is a social network and news outlet . gig is the world government . gig is how my species , humans , are going to save the environment by peacefully decreasing the population to a sustainable level over the next few centuries .

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    what Im really trying to say here is that Im sick of stupid people and Im sick of the lame media and its time for me , and other sane humans , to organize and save the planet why we still have the opportunity to do this . thats what Im really trying to say and it really does feel very good to say that because its true . I created gig in the spring of the year 2000 in portland oregon usa and I have been promoting it ever since . you can also promote gig on line and off line . so go ahead and do that please . thank you very much .

    charles webster baer

    president , founder and owner of global internet government .www.gig15.com

    tianjin china

    charlesbaer@outlook.com

    1. Re:GIG can save earth now! by ITRambo · · Score: 0

      Get lost super spammer and troll Baer.

  2. Missing information by 110010001000 · · Score: -1, Troll

    There is tons of missing information in the summary: what are the races and genders of the people involved? Without this information how can we form an opinion about this? I propose for the new "SJW" Slashdot we require that complete (cis)gender and race information about all participants of stories be released.

    1. Re:Missing information by msmash · · Score: 1

      What do you mean? We are talking about a spacecraft here.

    2. Re:Missing information by 110010001000 · · Score: -1, Troll

      No, we are talking about the hard work of many PEOPLE who have worked tirelessly to bring this spacecraft back from its error state. We need to know if these people were working in a safe space? Was there microaggressive behavior during this stressful period? Did it create a toxic environment? These are all important issues you missed in your summary.

    3. Re:Missing information by msmash · · Score: 1

      1. It's an unmanned spacecraft -- so be rest assured that there is no person inside it that was trying to fix it. 2. It's a submission by an anonymous reader. 3. NASA hasn't made available the details of the people who worked on getting the spacecraft back to shape. Thanks for the feedback, nonetheless.

    4. Re:Missing information by 110010001000 · · Score: -1, Troll

      I don't think you understand: there were many people ON THE GROUND who worked to get the spacecraft up and running. From the summary you called them "mission operations engineers". You need to find out more about these people ASAP. That is what is missing from this summary. I hope that makes it more clear. Thanks.

    5. Re:Missing information by schitso · · Score: 1

      I think you're missing the pretty blatant sarcasm, homie.

    6. Re:Missing information by hey! · · Score: 2

      You're the one who brought up the whole thing, so pardon me if I draw my own conclusions about who has an axe to grind with obnoxious intrusiveness...

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    7. Re:Missing information by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      WOOSH!!!!!

    8. Re:Missing information by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's some fantastic trolling: hooks a clueless Slashdot employee not once, but twice!

    9. Re:Missing information by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      1. It's an unmanned spacecraft -- so be rest assured that there is no person inside it that was trying to fix it. 2. It's a submission by an anonymous reader. 3. NASA hasn't made available the details of the people who worked on getting the spacecraft back to shape.

      Thanks for the feedback, nonetheless.

      You understand this this is only because white males were not available to man the spacecraft. Womyn, persons of higher skin absorbance of photons and the repressed migroaggressed were exluded from manning the craft. That is why the patriarchy left it unmanned out of spite.

    10. Re:Missing information by 110010001000 · · Score: 0

      I didn't bring it up. I am just following along with the new Slashdot story style. We need to be consistent. Sorry if you don't agree, but I don't need your hostile microaggressions.

    11. Re:Missing information by sycodon · · Score: 1

      It's like watching the Zoo keeper feed the animals.

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    12. Re:Missing information by inode_buddha · · Score: 1

      YHBT. YHL. HAND.

      --
      C|N>K
    13. Re:Missing information by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Call someone that gives a shit. I sure don't, fuck stick.

    14. Re:Missing information by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Those up-modders will never get mod points again.

    15. Re:Missing information by inode_buddha · · Score: 1

      gotta admit that was a rare sight. Usually I can spot the trolls a mile away and the occasional crapflood is still going on.... but anything posted after the troll post is as good as wasted IMHO... I just chalk it up to another slow news day

      --
      C|N>K
    16. Re:Missing information by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      "What do you mean? We are talking about a spacecraft here."

      It's a reference to Shirtstorm, one of the primary examples that we of the dark side cite in our war against SJWs:
      http://time.com/3589392/comet-...

    17. Re:Missing information by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      (cis)gender

      You keep misusing this word. You have literally no idea why it exists or what it means. You're a feminist dipshit as far as I can tell.

    18. Re:Missing information by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 1

      Quick! Label everyone who has defeated me in a debate as an 'SJW' so that I can save face!

      --

      "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

    19. Re:Missing information by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      This so much deserves a +1 troll mod, you just totally epically trolled a Slashdot employee. I tip my hat to you sir.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
  3. Why is this corporate welfare garbage... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    being advertised on /.? This just helps those wealthy republican corporations.

  4. Go for a political bent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Lookup the politicians that were most for Kepler, label them by party and count them. Then lambast the party with the most.

    1. Re:Go for a political bent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "look up". Lookup is a noun.

  5. The trolls are in full force today! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Quite entertaining.

    1. Re:The trolls are in full force today! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      About fucking time. The trolling is getting pretty boring here

  6. Amazing geekdom... by taiwanjohn · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Given all the troubles the Kepler craft has encountered, I just want to raise a toast to the geeks in charge of this project. They have overcome some incredible obstacles through ingenuity and determination, and yet again they have brought the bird back under some semblance of control... from seventy-five million miles away. Now THAT is a hack.

    To quote Wayne & Garth: We're not worthy.

    --
    XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
    1. Re:Amazing geekdom... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Given all the troubles the Kepler craft has encountered, I just want to raise a toast to the geeks in charge of this project.

      Except the ones who designed the reaction wheels, screw those guys.

    2. Re:Amazing geekdom... by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      [Kudos] Except the ones who designed the reaction wheels, screw those guys.

      Aren't you being a bit reactionary?

      Seriously, though, I'm glad they got the probe stable again. Thinking about discoveries of all the strange new worlds where no man has gone before gives me visions of green Orion babes. Keep it up!.....the good work, that is.

  7. Steely Eyed Missile Men by Slagothor · · Score: 1

    Wow. That's Outstanding work (at those distances and times required for communication). These truly are some steely eyed missile men.

    1. Re:Steely Eyed Missile Men by 110010001000 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Men? Seriously?

    2. Re:Steely Eyed Missile Men by ITRambo · · Score: 1

      The historic use of the word men refers to humanity. I suspect that no one intended to offend you or others that think the word "men" now only means male humans, and not all people. Take a chill pill.

    3. Re:Steely Eyed Missile Men by 110010001000 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      The use of "men" is a microaggresive term that creates a toxic environment. Please refrain from using it when the proper term is "people".

    4. Re: Steely Eyed Missile Men by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Next thing you know, the word Human will be deemed sexist...but woman will be OK and they will be the only ones allowed to refer to themselves as men.

    5. Re:Steely Eyed Missile Men by sjames · · Score: 1

      Quacking about microagressions is itself a microagression and also creates a toxic environment.

      This is especially true given that the phrase in question has a historic basis.

      Do you also insist we re-do the Gettysburg address?

    6. Re:Steely Eyed Missile Men by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Anything to miss the message and libel the messenger, right?

      This is why we can't have nice things.

      By the way, the term "toxic environment" is much more "micro-aggressive" according to Pierce and his progeny.

    7. Re:Steely Eyed Missile Men by 110010001000 · · Score: 2

      I'm in my hugbox now. I can't hear you.

    8. Re:Steely Eyed Missile Men by hey! · · Score: 1

      Historically "bimbo" meant a thuggish male criminal. "Silly" meant "blessed". "Egregious" meant distinguished. That's because words shift meaning over time. The process of "man" coming to refer exclusively to male persons started in the 1300s (before that a male person was a "wer" and a female person was a "wif"), and for whatever reason it continues to this day. If I told you a group of "men" were protesting in the park, you'd be surprised if you went there and saw they were all female. That's neither good nor bad, it just is the what the word means in everyday usage.

      The phrase "Steely-eyed missile men" is a historical one, like "all men are created equal," so you just have to picture a mixed gender group "people" when you hear it. In point of fact the project manager and a number of senior personnel on Kepler are women. They no doubt have more important things to worry about than people referring to the team as "men", but you should use common sense in referring to the team as "men". "Steely-eyed missile men" is probably OK, but in other instances it might come off as a bit dick-ish.

      In the case of the Kepler project the PIs are male, but the project manager is female and a

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    9. Re:Steely Eyed Missile Men by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Go to hell you asshole.

    10. Re:Steely Eyed Missile Men by Gavagai80 · · Score: 1

      a historical one, like "all men are created equal," so you just have to picture a mixed gender group

      Well, "all men are created equal" clearly didn't intend to include women or negros. If it had, the authors would've been lynched for the radical thought.

      --
      This space intentionally left blank
    11. Re: Steely Eyed Missile Men by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I applaud whipsnake and our new corporate overlords here to keep sd around while making a buck but it gets hard to visit. Outside of this site I've never seen or heard of sjw, I don't even know what one is, but here on slashdot it's a menace to be fought in boring detail. The cow person, the repubican poster, app apping apps (actually sort of funny). This place reminds me of Craigslist rants-and-raves now, no intelligent comments on the post, no more interesting and intelligent nerds marveling and explaining how other nerds fixed that gadget at extreme long range- just rascist, misogynist garbage. Stay off my lawn.

    12. Re:Steely Eyed Missile Men by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The historic use of the word men refers to humanity. I suspect that no one intended to offend you or others that think the word "men" now only means male humans, and not all people. Take a chill pill.

      No Trigger Warning was given, you heartless bastard.
      "male" is one of my partner's trigger words. What kind of clueless shit-eating aspie fucktard uses that word without giving a trigger warning?

      You really need to take a couple of weeks off to sit in the forest and consider how your insensitivity has made the world just a little bit worse.
      Thank you.

    13. Re:Steely Eyed Missile Men by starbird56 · · Score: 1

      While I agree that the term "men" is not really gender specific, there is a funny poem about this subject: http://murielrukeyser.emuengli... God bless all of the men and women who work so hard to expand our knowledge.

  8. No fuel. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They should not need any fuel except for putting it on it's correct course.

    When it comes to Yaw, Pitch, Roll, all of that should be done with an on board electric gyroscope.

    1. Re: No fuel. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except when the reaction wheel control system is down, or when most of the reaction wheels are failed.

    2. Re:No fuel. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How do you propose to store infinite angular momentum (which happen if the external disturbing torque has a non-zero mean in the S/C reference frame and you don't use any external force/torque) using only internal electric gyroscope?

  9. spacecraft go WHOOOOOOSSSSHHH! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    Wait, what is important here is are the engineers' shirts are ideologically correct?!

  10. What OS? by sycodon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What OS is this craft using?

    Is there a standard OS NASA uses on all it's space born computers? Or, is everything written from scratch?

    Anyone know where you can read about the code, or even read the code?

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    1. Re:What OS? by 110010001000 · · Score: 0, Troll

      You are asking technical questions on a non-technical site. There are more important questions to ask.

    2. Re:What OS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      RTEMS at http://www.rtems.org/ is used on some spacecraft instruments but I don't know about this specific spacecraft.

      As for programming languages, Ada is still quite a popular choice in some areas; this is exactly the kind of thing it's designed for.

    3. Re:What OS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are technically correct, the best kind of correct.

      What I want to know is does Kepler have a fetish for gas giants or what?

    4. Re:What OS? by TFlan91 · · Score: 1

      ^ This, I'm interested in this - I would mod, but never have points when I need em

    5. Re:What OS? by Danathar · · Score: 1

      It's running on a RAD750 and probably VxWorks.

    6. Re:What OS? by Danathar · · Score: 4, Informative

      Wikipedia says VxWorks (confirmed..kinda)

    7. Re:What OS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, Vx actually works!

    8. Re: What OS? by peter303 · · Score: 1

      VxWorks is an ancient version of realtime UNIX. It has been rigorously tested for decades. That doesnt mean they still find new bugs. The 2003 Mars rovers had defective relatively new flash memory drivers. The free memory list was broken. The flash appeared full and caused continuous safety reboots. The driver was patched from Earth.

    9. Re: What OS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Minus the UNIX part, which implies a multi-user, single rooted filesystem environment. Ancient may or may not apply.

    10. Re:What OS? by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      What I want to know is does Kepler have a fetish for gas giants or what?

      I know I do...those sexy sexy gas giants. Oh, you were talking about the planets, nevermind.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
  11. Uhmmm.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Both Luna (4.4) and Mars (4.5) have been out for a while, expecting stable Neon (4.6) soon. Remember to keep that software up to date...

  12. Kepler's Refractory Period by Freshly+Exhumed · · Score: 1

    Incoming message from Kepler: "Wow, that was amazing! I need a smoke."

    --
    I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
  13. Headlines by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Funny

    Recovered? I thought he died in 1630.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  14. Why Emergency Mode uses more fuel by arielCo · · Score: 5, Informative

    User Statistical at Ars Technica explained it nicely:

    Normally Kepler (in K2 mode) uses the pressure from sunlight combined with the two remaining reaction wheels to maintain orientation. It still does need periodic thruster usage but the heavy lifting is done by solar pressure and reaction wheels which makes the propellent usage very efficient. However it is a complicated and precarious balancing act. It needs full instrumentation, computer operation, and periodic updates from Earth to work.

    When it goes into emergency mode it falls back on 100% station keeping thrusters because that is simpler although far more expensive in terms of fuel. They don't know exactly why it went into emergency mode but for whatever reason Kepler believed it could not maintain orientation without it.

    In emergency mode it has to expand propellent because without some station keeping it would begin to tumble uncontrollably. If you have a spacecraft millions of kms away from Earth, tumbling out of control with its communication array no longer pointed at Earth you will probably never regain control. So it is a last ditch effort to maintain proper orientation on the hope that command & control update can fix the problem. It begins "looking" for an command & control signal from Earth (using propellent to orient the spacecraft). If/when it finds it, it then tries to keep that orientation using 100% station keeping thrusters regardless of fuel consumption. It will continue to do so until standard operation is restored or it runs out of fuel.

    About Kepler's K2 mode:

    Kepler's Second Light: How K2 Will Work | NASA

    --
    This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
    1. Re:Why Emergency Mode uses more fuel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was wondering about that. Fascinating, and thank you very much :)

    2. Re: Why Emergency Mode uses more fuel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're kindly welcome.

  15. Bummed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    I wished it would crash on Earth on some orphanage and killed a lot of children and shit.

  16. Aw C'mon! Campaign 9? by mark_reh · · Score: 1

    Plan 9!

  17. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  18. Alien detection and confirmation avoided by pr0t0 · · Score: 1

    "Ask yourself why an antenna won't deploy on a deep space probe. Or ask how they can launch a six billion dollar telescope without testing it's mirror."

    From the movie, "The Arrival".

    I always think about that scene when something goes wrong.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    --
    I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
    1. Re:Alien detection and confirmation avoided by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Such a great movie I never hear people talking about. And with Charlie fricking Sheen too, back when he was more likeable.