Kepler Ready For Delivery to Space Coast

A NASA spacecraft designed to search for habitable planets is ready for delivery to the Space Coast in early January.

The Kepler spacecraft is scheduled to launch March 5 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket.

A convoy of trucks is expected to deliver Kepler and support equipment from Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo., to Astrotech in Titusville on Jan. 5 or Jan. 6.

Kepler, shown above, will search habitable zones around more than 100,000 stars in our region of the Milky Way for the presence and frequency of planets close in size to Earth.

Habitable zones are areas where liquid water could be present that could foster life.

"Kepler's mission is to determine whether Earth-size planets in the habitable zone of other stars are frequent or rare; whether life in our Milky Way galaxy is likely to be frequent or rare," said William Borucki, the Kepler science principal investigator at NASA's Ames Research Center, in a NASA press release.

The probe has passed a battery of environmental tests to ensure its readiness for space and delivery to the launch site, according to the release.

It will be processed at Astrotech before being carried to the launch pad.

The rocket's second stage, shown above, was mated to the first stage this week at Launch Complex 17-B.

The spacecraft's name honors Johannes Kepler (1571 to 1630), the German astronomer and mathematician for whom several laws of planetary motion are named.

You can read more about NASA's Kepler mission by clicking this link.

Check out this Wikipedia link for more about Johannes Kepler here.







IMAGE NOTES: Click on the images to enlarge them. Above, the fully assembled Kepler spacecraft and photometer is seen from View from the radiator side. Credit: NASA and Ball Aerospace. Below, at Launch Complex 17-B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station this week, the second stage of the Delta II rocket for the launch of NASA's Kepler spacecraft is moved inside the mobile service tower. In the tower, the second stage was mated to the first stage of the Delta II. Photo credit: NASA/Jim Grossmann. The portrait of Johannes Kepler was painted in 1610 by an unknown artist, according to Wikipedia.