Headquarters, Washington
202-358-5241
j.d.harrington@nasa.gov
Whitney Clavin
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-4673
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov
Michael Mewhinney
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
650-604-3937
michael.s.mewhinney@nasa.gov
George Diller
Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
321-861-7643
george.h.diller@nasa.gov
J.D. HarringtonHeadquarters, Washington202-358-5241Whitney ClavinJet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.818-354-4673Michael MewhinneyAmes Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.650-604-3937George DillerKennedy Space Center, Fla.321-861-7643
RELEASE : 09-052
NASA's Kepler Mission Rockets to Space in Search of Other Earths
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA's Kepler mission successfully launched into space from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II at 10:49 p.m. EST, Friday. Kepler is designed to find the first Earth-size planets orbiting stars at distances where water could pool on the planet's surface. Liquid water is believed to be essential for the formation of life."It was a stunning launch," said Kepler Project Manager James Fanson of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Our team is thrilled to be a part of something so meaningful to the human race -- Kepler will help us understand if our Earth is unique or if others like it are out there."Engineers acquired a signal from Kepler at 12:11 a.m. Saturday, after it separated from its spent third-stage rocket and entered its final sun-centered orbit, trailing 950 miles behind Earth. The spacecraft is generating its own power from its solar panels."Kepler now has the perfect place to watch more than 100,000 stars for signs of planets," said William Borucki, the mission's science principal investigator at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif. Borucki has worked on the mission for 17 years. "Everyone is very excited as our dream becomes a reality. We are on the verge of learning if other Earths are ubiquitous in the galaxy."Engineers have begun to check Kepler to ensure it is working properly, a process called "commissioning" that will take about 60 days. In about a month or less, NASA will send up commands for Kepler to eject its dust cover and make its first measurements. After another month of calibrating Kepler's single instrument, a wide-field charge-couple device camera, the telescope will begin to search for planets.The first planets to roll out on the Kepler "assembly line" are expected to be the portly "hot Jupiters" -- gas giants that circle close and fast around their stars. NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes will be able to follow up with these planets and learn more about their atmospheres. Neptune-size planets will most likely be found next, followed by rocky ones as small as Earth. The true Earth analogs -- Earth-sized planets orbiting stars like our sun at distances where surface water, and possibly life, could exist -- would take at least three years to discover and confirm. Ground-based telescopes also will contribute to the mission by verifying some of the finds.In the end, Kepler will give us our first look at the frequency of Earth-size planets in our Milky Way galaxy, as well as the frequency of Earth-size planets that could theoretically be habitable."Even if we find no planets like Earth, that by itself would be profound. It would indicate that we are probably alone in the galaxy," said Borucki.As the mission progresses, Kepler will drift farther and farther behind Earth in its orbit around the sun. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, which was launched into the same orbit more than five years ago, is now more than 62 million miles behind Earth.Kepler is a NASA Discovery mission. Ames is the home organization of the science principal investigator and is responsible for the ground system development, mission operations and science data analysis. JPL manages the Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. of Boulder, Colo., is responsible for developing the Kepler flight system and supporting mission operations. NASA's Launch Services Program at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla., managed the launch service including payload integration and certifying the Delta II launch vehicle for NASA's use.For more information about the Kepler mission, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/kepler
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The Kepler telescopeNASA's Kepler Telescope, which will search for planets orbiting other stars, was successfully launched by a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at approximately 10:51 p.m. (EST). 

NASA regained the rocket's signal at 12:11 a.m. EDT Saturday, shortly after confirming the satellite's separation from the rocket.

According to the Kepler Mission page on NASA's website, the telescope "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 how many of the billions of stars in our galaxy have such planets." The telescope is named after Johannes Kepler, an astronomer, astrologist and mathematician from Germany in the late 1500 and early 1600s.

The Kepler Telescope will use the 'Transit Method' of detecting planets. When planets pass in front of their parent star, a small black dot is cast over the star, called a transit. Transits by terrestrial planets produce a small change in a star's brightness of about one part in ten thousand (.01%), lasting for 2 to 16 hours.

Kepler's view is 105 square degrees and will be focused on one area all the time. It will orbit around our Sun, maintaining a constant distance from Earth of 950 miles. It will continuously and simultaneously monitor the brightnesses of more than 100,000 stars for the life of the mission, which is expected to be three and a half years.
The Milky Way Galaxy, showing Kepler's range of view. 
"Even if we find no planets like Earth, that by itself would be profound. It would indicate that we are probably alone in the galaxy," said William Borucki, the mission's science principal investigator.

Although planets orbiting stars other than the Sun had been theorized for centuries, it was only in 1988 that a team of Canadian astronomers made the first detection of extrasolar planets orbiting the star Gamma Cephei. Now over 300 extrasolar planets are said to have been discovered.

The launch comes just weeks after NASA's failed launch of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, which crashed into the ocean off Antarctica's coast. It would have been the first spacecraft dedicated to studying atmospheric carbon dioxide, the most significant human-produced greenhouse gas and the principal human-produced driver of climate change. The cost of the project was US$273 million.