Kepler mission ends
Posted: Sun, Nov 4, 2018, 8:56 AM ET (1356 GMT)
NASA's Kepler planet-hunting spacecraft has ended operations after running out of fuel. NASA announced Tuesday that the spacecraft would no longer be able to perform science observations after exhausting the last of the hydrazine fuel used for attitude control. Final commands to decommission the spacecraft will be executed in the next week or two. The spacecraft, launched in 2009, changed astronomers' views on the abundance of planets after discovering several thousand exoplanets. Astronomers now believe planets, including small rocky worlds the size of the Earth, are commonplace around stars.
NASA's Kepler planet-hunting spacecraft has ended operations after running out of fuel. NASA announced Tuesday that the spacecraft would no longer be able to perform science observations after exhausting the last of the hydrazine fuel used for attitude control. Final commands to decommission the spacecraft will be executed in the next week or two. The spacecraft, launched in 2009, changed astronomers' views on the abundance of planets after discovering several thousand exoplanets. Astronomers now believe planets, including small rocky worlds the size of the Earth, are commonplace around stars.
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