spacecraftemergency

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  • NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/T Pyle

    NASA's Kepler spacecraft is in 'emergency mode'

    by 
    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    04.09.2016

    NASA's Kepler space telescope was supposed to be continuing its K2 extended mission to hunt down hidden exoplanets, but now scientists say the spacecraft is in trouble (again). While trying to make regularly scheduled contact on Thursday engineers found that it is operating in "emergency mode" and are focused on trying to recover it. That's a bit tricky however, since it's almost 75 million miles away from Earth, and it takes 13 minutes for signals to make a round trip.