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With Fuel Exhausted, NASA Retires Kepler Telescope (space.com)
ewhac writes: NASA today announced that it is retiring the Kepler telescope after nearly ten years of service -- double its initial mission life. In that time, Kepler discovered over 2,600 exoplanets, most of which are between the size of Earth and Neptune, sparking an entirely new field of astronomical research, and revealing for the first time just how common exo-planetary systems are. With its fuel supply exhausted, Kepler is no longer able to maneuver or reorient itself to make observations. NASA has elected to decommission the spacecraft and leave it in its current, safe orbit away from Earth.
For Hubble, maybe. But Kepler is currently 187 million kilometers behind Earth on a heliocentric orbit and drifting back at 31km/s. Nothing we had, have or will have for a long time can reach there to do a refueling job. It was designed as a sacrificial instrument from the start.
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Farewell and thank you for a job well done. It's important to remember to count all the victories and remind ourselves at how good it can be. Who would have thought that astronomy would be a hot field? But with better eyes and better thoughts we can peer deeper into the inky blank and make better sense of what we're seeing. Human advancement is possible. The stars are ever closer. Thank you Kepler.
Kepler orbits the sun, not the earth, in an earth trailing orbit. So, yes, the cost of refueling it would be a bit high. One might say the cost would be astronomical.
No, they can't do either.
- spiral into the sun needs alot of delta-V Kepler doesn't have
- use light reflection to sail it requires an active system to keep the attitude stable, Kepler doesn't have that either.
We have a replacement, it's called TESS https://tess.mit.edu/ It's not quite the same as Kepler, but has a similar mission. Good news is TESS's imaging sensors cover a LOT more area than Kepler.