Kepler Recovered from Emergency and Stable

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.

Re:

[ITRambo]

Get lost super spammer and troll Baer.

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[msmash]

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

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[msmash]

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.

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[Coren22]

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

Re:

[schitso]

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

Re:

[sycodon]

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

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[inode_buddha]

YHBT. YHL. HAND.

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[Applehu Akbar]

"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-... [time.com]

Re:

[hey!]

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...

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[110010001000]

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.

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[inode_buddha]

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

Re:

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

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

Amazing geekdom...

[taiwanjohn]

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.

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[Anonymous Coward]

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.

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[Tablizer]

[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.

Steely Eyed Missile Men

[Slagothor]

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

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[110010001000]

Men? Seriously?

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[ITRambo]

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.

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[110010001000]

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

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[sjames]

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 [wikipedia.org].

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

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[110010001000]

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

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[hey!]

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

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[Gavagai80]

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.

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[starbird56]

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

What OS?

[sycodon]

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?

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[Coren22]

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.

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[Anonymous Coward]

RTEMS at http://www.rtems.org/ [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.

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[TFlan91]

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

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[Danathar]

It's running on a RAD750 and probably VxWorks.

Re: What OS?

[peter303]

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.

Re:What OS?

[Danathar]

Wikipedia says VxWorks (confirmed..kinda)

Kepler's Refractory Period

[Freshly Exhumed]

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

Headlines

[PopeRatzo]

Recovered? I thought he died in 1630.

Why Emergency Mode uses more fuel

[arielCo]

User Statistical at Ars Technica explained it nicely [arstechnica.com]:

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 [nasa.gov]

Aw C'mon! Campaign 9?

[mark_reh]

Plan 9!

Alien detection and confirmation avoided

[pr0t0]

"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?... [youtube.com]