Kepler spacecraft to hunt Earthlike worlds

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Kepler-ready students
The Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado here is under contract to Ball Aerospace to operate Kepler. The mission operations center will be staffed by a mix of students and professionals from the university and technicians from nearby Ball Aerospace.

"Our job is to do on-orbit commanding," said Bill Possel, director of mission operations and data systems at LASP. LASP is currently flying four Earth-orbiting satellites, he said: the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere; the Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment; the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite; and the Quick Scatterometer.

In terms of the challenge presented by operating Kepler, Possel said it is "maybe a notch above" the level of complexity of ICESat.

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Possel said a compliment of eight to 10 students are presently considered Kepler-ready, in addition to a mix of professionals from the university and Ball. Using LASP for Kepler mission operations not only saves NASA money, he said, it also provides an invaluable, career-enhancing opportunity for students.

"We're the first line of defense for the spacecraft, instrument health and safety," Possel added. "It's a win-win ... for the science team because it's less expensive and the aerospace industry wins because you get a trained engineer that has hands-on experience for the work force."

This all adds up to getting more science at lower cost, a LASP credo, Possel said.

"For the students, Kepler is so cool," Possel said. "To look for habitable-sized planets ... and doing it as a student. The science is complex, but not complex enough that you can't explain it to your parents."

Spotter-scope capability
The ongoing search for exo-planets is an exciting field, said James Fanson, Kepler project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

"Kepler fits very timely into this growing field by giving us an opportunity for the first time to determine how frequently Earth-size planets form and orbit in a habitable zone around other stars," Fanson said. "We're focused on trying to find Earth analogs. So we've designed Kepler specifically to detect planets that are the size of the Earth and even slightly smaller."

Kepler will serve as a spotter scope, Fanson said, finding candidate planets that can then be targeted by Earth-based observations to rule out false-positive detections.

Of course, Kepler could come up dry in its hunt for Earth-sized planets circling distant stars. Conversely, there exists the prospect of discovering scads of Earth-sized planets, thereby adding more gusto to the belief that Earth is part of a rich tapestry of habitable worlds.

"Personally, the way I think about it is that we just have no data. We just don't know the answer," Fanson said. "We're simply privileged to live at a time when we have the technology and the science to actually answer that question finally for humankind."

Borucki of NASA Ames said Kepler is a step forward, offering a spotter-scope capability that will support future decision-making about building more powerful spacecraft to home in on candidate worlds capable of sustaining life.

"We need to know if this is a wild goose chase or not," Borucki added. "We're at a bifurcation point and Kepler is just a step, one step in many steps as we explore the galaxy."

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