KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL - The first mission dedicated to the search for planets similar to Earth blasted off Friday night from Cape Canaveral. Riding atop a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket, NASA's Kepler spacecraft will spend the next three and a half years looking for planets the size of Earth orbiting other stars in what is termed the "habitable zone."
READ: KEPLER FACT SHEET READ: MISSION PRESS KIT READ: LAUNCH HAZARD AREA READ: RESTRICTED AIRSPACE MAP READ: LAUNCH WEATHER FORECAST READ: LAUNCH MISSION BOOKLET WATCH: NASA LAUNCH DIRECTOR OMAR BAEZ POSTLAUNCH INTERVIEW WATCH: KEPLER SEPARATION FROM DELTA WATCH: SECOND STAGE RESTART AND THIRD STAGE BURN WATCH: KEPLER LAUNCH REPLAYS WATCH: THE VIEW OF THE LAUNCH FROM THE BEACH VIEWING SITE WATCH: DELTA LIFTS OFF WITH KEPLER WATCH: LAUNCH COMPUTER ANIMATION WATCH: NASA LAUNCH DIRECTOR POLLS THE TEAM FOR TERMINAL COUNT WATCH: NASA LAUNCH DIRECTOR POLLS THE TEAM BEFORE LIQUID OXYGEN FUELING WATCH: FINAL LAUNCH WEATHER BRIEFING WATCH: HIGHLIGHTS OF MOBILE SERVICE TOWER ROLLBACK WATCH: TIMELAPSE VIDEO OF MOBILE SERVICE TOWER ROLLBACK WATCH: GROUND CREWS PREPARE TO MOVE THE MOBILE SERVICE TOWER AWAY FROM THE ROCKET WATCH: INTERVIEW - DR. GEOFF MARCY, KEPLER CO-INVESTIGATOR WATCH: INTERVIEW - JOHN TROELTZSCH, KEPLER PROGRAM MANAGER WATCH: INTERVIEW - DR. ED WEILER, NASA ASSOC. ADMINISTRATOR FOR SPACE SCIENCE WATCH: INTERVIEW - DAVE BREEDLOVE, KSC MISSION MANAGER ALL-ACCESS SUBSCRIBERS: MOBILE SERVICE TOWER ROLLBACK ALL-ACCESS SUBSCRIBERS: WATCH A REPLAY OF THE ENTIRE LAUNCH COVERAGE (150KBPS BANDWIDTH) ALL-ACCESS SUBSCRIBERS: WATCH A REPLAY OF THE ENTIRE LAUNCH COVERAGE (1.2 MBPS BANDWIDTH) - PART 1 ALL-ACCESS SUBSCRIBERS: WATCH A REPLAY OF THE ENTIRE LAUNCH COVERAGE (1.2 MBPS BANDWIDTH) - PART 2 ALL-ACCESS SUBSCRIBERS: WATCH A REPLAY OF THE ENTIRE LAUNCH COVERAGE (1.2 MBPS BANDWIDTH) - PART 3 ALL-ACCESS SUBSCRIBERS: WATCH A REPLAY OF THE ENTIRE LAUNCH COVERAGE (1.2 MBPS BANDWIDTH) - PART 4 The three-stage Delta launch vehicle lifted off on time at 10:50 p.m. EST, lighting up the night sky around the Cocoa Beach area, delighting thousands of residents, tourists and spring break vacationers. Clear skies offers a beautiful spectacle as far away as Melbourne and Vero Beach and viewers on the ground could clearly see the six ground-lit solid rocket boosters separate about a minute into flight, followed by the three air-start motors a minute later. Just over four minutes later, the rocket's first stage shut down, followed by separation and ignition of the second stage. Nine minutes, 58 seconds after launch, the second stage cutoff and the vehicle began a 43 minute coast phase. The second stage restarted for a 63-second burn 53 minutes, 10 seconds after launch. Then the second stage reoriented the vehicle into the proper orientation for the separation of the third stage and Kepler. The Delta's third stage, a Star 48 motor manufactured by ATK, and the spacecraft began a spinup to 70 RPM before separating from the second stage. The spinning motion of the vehicle ensures a stable flight by balancing out any thrust or mass imbalances. After the third stage's 90-second burn, Kepler de-spun itself using a yo-yo device that slowed the spinning of the craft similar to the way figure skaters slow themselves down by stretching out their arms. Kepler was released from the rocket's third stage at approximately T+1 hour, 1 minute and 50 seconds. Shortly thereafter, ground controllers acquired the spacecraft's telemetry signal, completing another successful Delta II mission. Kepler will launch from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on a Delta II 7925-10L launch vehicle, featuring 9 strapon solid rocket boosters and a stretched version of the standard 10-foot diameter payload fairing. Kepler was placed into an Earth-trailing heliocentric orbit. Kepler will undergo a 60-day on-orbit checkout period before it begins is planet-hunting mission. Kepler is NASA's tenth 'Discovery' mission, designed to survey our region of the Milky Way galaxy to detect potentially hundreds of Earth-size planets orbiting in or near the habitable zone. The habitable zone is the range in distance from a star where liquid water could exist on the surface of a planet orbiting that star. The first step in understanding our place in the universe is to determine the number of terrestrial planets (i.e., planets similar to Earth) in the habitable zone of solar-like stars. While more than 300 planets have been found using ground-based telescopes, most are large Jupiter-size planets. Many are in short-period orbits resulting in incredibly hot surface temperatures. None are as small as Earth. Small, rocky planets in the habitable zone of solar-like stars are considered to be more favorable for the development of life as we know it, than the giant gas planets previously discovered. The results of Kepler's planetary census will allow scientists to develop a more complete understanding of planetary systems - the frequency of formation, structure of planetary systems and the generic characteristics of stars with terrestrial planets. The Kepler Mission is specifically designed to maximize the likelihood of detecting planets as they pass in front of their stars. Kepler will look at just one large area of the sky in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra. Over the course of the mission, the spacecraft will simultaneously measure the variations in the brightness of more than 100,000 stars every 30 minutes, searching for the tiny "winks" in light output that happen when a planet passes in front of its star. The mission is designed to detect these changes in the brightness of a star when a planet crosses in front of it, or "transits the star." This is called the "transit method" of finding planets. The first planets discovered by Kepler will be gas giants, similar in size to Jupiter, in close orbits lasting only a few days around their parent stars. Planets in Mercury-like orbits with orbital periods of only a few months will be discovered using data from the first year of operations. Finding Earth-size planets in Earth-like orbits will require the entire length of the 3.5-year Kepler Mission. By the end of its mission, Kepler's planet census will tell us if Earth-size planets are common or rare in our neighborhood of the Milky Way galaxy. (The Spacearium / SpaceflightNews.net / Space Media Corporation)
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