Last week, the space telescope “Kepler” An unexpected accident, which could lead to a complete cessation of the mission of this powerful telescope to search for exoplanets. The thing is. that out of order of the second four-engine flywheel are required to stabilize the spacecraft in space. The first flywheel broke down a year ago, but when using a spare flywheel, the telescope was able to continue full operation. For normal functioning “Kepler” it is necessary that worked 
at the same time three flywheel, but at this stage there are only only two. The orientation of the spacecraft to become unstable and rotation Kepler will use orientation engines, the fuel for which, as calculated in NASA, will last for several months. If one of the engines, flywheels will not be repaired, the important scientific mission will be completed ahead of schedule.
Scott Hubbard (Scott Hubbard), a professor of aeronautics and astronautics from Stanford Engineering College, said there is little chance to “return the telescope to life,” but the tax money was not spent in vain. During his tenure from 2009 “Kepler” has opened more than 2,700 other people’s worlds and has registered more than 100,000 stars.
However, as yet, not all is lost. According to the professor, you can try two ways to recover “Kepler”. The first is to try to start the engine, flywheel, out of service a year ago. If it still has fuel, there is a chance that it will work. The second way is to use solar panels and make them work as a motor-flywheel, but we’ve never tried.
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