![]() Artist's impression of the Kepler telescope | |
Mission type | Space telescope |
---|---|
Operator | NASA / LASP |
COSPAR ID | 2009-011A |
SATCAT no. | 34380 |
Website | www |
Mission duration | Planned: 3.5 years Final: 9 years, 7 months, 23 days |
Spacecraft properties | |
Manufacturer | Ball Aerospace & Technologies |
Launch mass | 1,052.4 kg (2,320 lb)[1] |
Dry mass | 1,040.7 kg (2,294 lb)[1] |
Payload mass | 478 kg (1,054 lb)[1] |
Dimensions | 4.7 m × 2.7 m (15.4 ft × 8.9 ft)[1] |
Power | 1100 watts[1] |
Start of mission | |
Launch date | March 7, 2009, 03:49:57[2] | UTC
Rocket | Delta II (7925-10L) |
Launch site | Cape Canaveral SLC-17B |
Contractor | United Launch Alliance |
Entered service | May 12, 2009, 09:01 UTC |
End of mission | |
Deactivated | November 15, 2018 |
Orbital parameters | |
Reference system | Heliocentric |
Regime | Earth-trailing |
Semi-major axis | 1.0133 AU |
Eccentricity | 0.036116 |
Perihelion altitude | 0.97671 AU |
Aphelion altitude | 1.0499 AU |
Inclination | 0.4474 degrees |
Period | 372.57 days |
Argument of perihelion | 294.04 degrees |
Mean anomaly | 311.67 degrees |
Mean motion | 0.96626 deg/day |
Epoch | January 1, 2018 (J2000: 2458119.5)[3] |
Main telescope | |
Type | Schmidt |
Diameter | 0.95 m (3.1 ft) |
Collecting area | 0.708 m2 (7.62 sq ft)[A] |
Wavelengths | 430–890 nm[3] |
Transponders | |
Bandwidth | X band up: 7.8 bit/s – 2 kbit/s[3] X band down: 10 bit/s – 16 kbit/s[3] Ka band down: Up to 4.3 Mbit/s[3] |
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The Kepler space telescope is a defunct space telescope launched by NASA in 2009[5] to discover Earth-sized planets orbiting other stars.[6][7] Named after astronomer Johannes Kepler,[8] the spacecraft was launched into an Earth-trailing heliocentric orbit. The principal investigator was William J. Borucki. After nine and a half years of operation, the telescope's reaction control system fuel was depleted, and NASA announced its retirement on October 30, 2018.[9][10]
Designed to survey a portion of Earth's region of the Milky Way to discover Earth-size exoplanets in or near habitable zones and to estimate how many of the billions of stars in the Milky Way have such planets,[6][11][12] Kepler's sole scientific instrument is a photometer that continually monitored the brightness of approximately 150,000 main sequence stars in a fixed field of view.[13] These data were transmitted to Earth, then analyzed to detect periodic dimming caused by exoplanets that cross in front of their host star. Only planets whose orbits are seen edge-on from Earth could be detected. Kepler observed 530,506 stars, and had detected 2,778 confirmed planets as of June 16, 2023.[14][15]
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