Wary NASA delays Kepler mission

by Stevie Smith - Mar 2 2009, 16:45

Following a somewhat dour week for the U.S. space program, which resulted in the complete loss of NASA’s climate-monitoring Orbiting Carbon Observatory satellite, wary mission controllers have delayed the imminent launch of the $600 million USD Kepler space telescope.

Originally scheduled to launch on March 05 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the Kepler mission has now been pushed back to approximately 22:50 (EST) on March 06 in order to allow engineers to carry out extra checks on the Delta 2 rocket tasked with carrying the expensive payload into orbit.

According to SPACE.com, the checks will centre on the protective clamshell covering located at the rocket’s nose, which is designed to protect the Kepler satellite during its journey through the Earth’s atmosphere.

It is the very same protective component that abruptly malfunctioned shortly into last week’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory mission, resulting in the Taurus XL rocket and its $273 million USD payload plunging into the ocean off the coast of Antarctica after failing to successfully separate.   

Although the Taurus XL and Delta 2 rockets are built by different manufacturers –Orbital Sciences Corp. and the United Launch Alliance respectively – a spokesperson for NASA has said mission managers are erring on the side of caution, most probably in light of the massive dollar values associated with such missions.

Once safely into orbit, the powerful and ambitious Kepler space telescope will spend the next three years providing star-gazing scientists with the ability to seek out possible life on potential Earth-like planets orbiting other nearby stars in our galaxy.

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