This Alien Planet Hunter Is About to Retire, Now What?

Kepler is finally retiring after nine long years of searching for exoplanets. Let’s look back on its history and celebrate the little spacecraft that could.

Should We Keep the Hubble Telescope Alive or Let It Crash and Burn? - https://youtu.be/T1uM6W0UqK4

Read More:
Mission Overview - Kepler
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/overview/index.html
“The Kepler Mission, NASA Discovery mission #10, is specifically designed to survey our region of the Milky Way galaxy to discover hundreds of Earth-size and smaller planets in or near the habitable zone and determine the fraction of the hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy that might have such planets.”

NASA’s Kepler Spacecraft Fuel Status Frequently Asked Questions
https://www.nasa.gov/kepler/fuel-status-faq
“Yes, we have begun to see signs of low fuel. The pressure in the fuel tank has dropped to a point that indicates there’s little fuel left.”

NASA put its famous planet-hunting telescope to sleep because it’s almost out of fuel
https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/6/17541886/nasa-kepler-fuel-safe-mode-life
“NASA says it plans to turn Kepler back on in early August, when it will order the spacecraft to point its antenna at Earth to download the data from its most recent survey of the sky. It’s not clear if there’s enough fuel to do that transfer.”

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Special thanks to Julian Huguet for writing this episode of Seeker!
Check Julian out on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jhug00