Hmmm... UPS, Or FedEx?
Here's one holiday package with a
VERY high declared value. Engineers are getting ready to pack
NASA's Kepler spacecraft into a container and ship it off to its
launch site at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL.
The mission, scheduled to launch on March 5, will seek to answer
an age-old question -- are there other Earths in space?
"Kepler is ready to begin its journey to its launch site, and
ultimately to space, where it will answer a question that has been
pondered by humankind at least as long ago as the ancient Greeks,"
said James Fanson, the project manager for the mission at NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA.
Kepler will monitor more than 100,000 stars for signatures of
planets of various sizes and orbital distances. It has the ability
to locate rocky planets like Earth, including those that lie in a
star's "habitable zone," a region where liquid water, and perhaps
life, could exist. If these Earth-size worlds do exist around stars
like our sun, Kepler is expected to be the first to find them, and
the first to measure their frequency.
"Kepler's mission is to determine whether Earth-size planets in
the habitable zone of other stars are frequent or rare; whether
life in our Milky Way galaxy is likely to be frequent or rare,"
said William Borucki, the Kepler science principal investigator at
NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.
Kepler is currently at Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.
in Boulder, CO. It passed all its environmental tests ensuring that
it is prepared for the harsh trip to space. It also passed what's
called the "pre-ship review," meaning that it is ready to be
shipped via convoy to Florida in early January. Its first stop will
be Astrotech in Titusville, Fla., where the spacecraft will be
processed before being carried to its launch pad at Cape Canaveral.
Kepler will launch atop a Delta II rocket.
"An outstanding team of engineers overcame some difficult
hurdles to achieve this considerable milestone," said Ball
Aerospace Program Manager John Troeltzsch. "The culmination of this
effort will put a spectacular mission in orbit designed to increase
our understanding of the cosmos."
Kepler is a NASA Discovery mission. In addition to being the
home organization of the science principal investigator, NASA Ames
Research Center is responsible for the ground system development,
mission operations and science data analysis. Kepler mission
development is managed by JPL. Ball Aerospace & Technologies
Corp. is responsible for developing the Kepler flight system and
supporting mission operations.