Managers put Kepler into safe mode Jan. 17 when reaction wheel no. 4, one of the spacecraft’s three remaining reaction wheels, showed rising friction. The reaction wheels were spun down and the observatory switched to chemical rocket thrusters to control its attitude for a 10-day “wheel rest” period.
The wheel rest period was designed to allow the wheel bearings to cool and lubricant to redistribute inside the wheel housings, hopefully resolving the friction issue.
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Engineers will review the performance of wheel no. 4 over the next month to evaluate the effectiveness of the wheel rest scheme, NASA said in an update. More wheel rest periods may be needed in the future if the procedure proves effective, according to Sobeck.
Nearly all comet discoveries nowadays are made by automated telescopes which scan the skies with robotic eyes and check new appearances in a computer. But the Edgar Wilson Award celebrates the few lone amateurs that still practice the old ways of comet watching, scanning the skies during freezing cold nights to get that once-in-a-lifetime finding. Spotting comets is very competitive because the first person to report it gets the honor of having the comet named for him or herself.
The five winners this year all made their discoveries in 2011. For most of the recipients, it is their first time winning. The prize money was split evenly among the discoveries.
NASA’s ScienceCast program reports on the upcoming close fly-by of asteroid 2012-DA14:
On Feb. 15th an asteroid about half the size of a football field will fly past Earth closer than many man-made satellites. Since regular sky surveys began in the 1990s, astronomers have never seen an object so big come so close to our planet.
The latest Planetary Society Hangout included asteroid hunter Gary Hug who
scans the skies every night looking for new near-Earth objects and refining orbital measurements for existing ones. He is also one of the Planetary Society‘s Gene Shoemaker Fellows, which is our program to provide highly-skilled amateur astronomers with the equipment and support needed to continue the search for potentially hazardous asteroids.
Join Casey Dreier and Dr. Bruce Betts, who manages the Shoemaker program, as they talk to Gary Hug about how he hunts the night skies, the new NEO he discovered in January, and what drives him.
Twitter / mrtommyb: “To be clear, we are resting the spacecraft as a precaution. There is no evidence to suggest that a reaction wheel failure is imminent.”