Full recovery unlikely for NASA's Kepler planet-hunting spacecraft

By Mike Wall /
Space.com/ July 25, 2013, 2:47 PM
Full recovery unlikely for NASA's Kepler planet-hunting spacecraft

NASA's Kepler spacecraft probably won't bounce back completely from the malfunction that stalled its planet-hunting efforts two months ago, mission officials say.

The Kepler space telescope was hobbled in May when the second of its four orientation-maintaining reaction wheels failed, robbing the instrument of its precision pointing ability. Engineers managed to get the balky wheels turning again recently, but both devices are far from healthy, showing much higher levels of friction than they once did.

So the odds that Kepler will return to business as usual are not good, mission team members said. [7 Greatest Kepler Discoveries (So Far)]

"It's not going to go back to its original mission; it's going to be something less than that," said Kepler deputy project manager Charlie Sobeck of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "But how much less, and how much usefulness it'll have -- it's really still very much up in the air."

More:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57595541/full-recovery-unlikely-for-nasas-kepler-planet-hunting-spacecraft/