NASA has begun work to recover its Kepler satellite after the agency declared it to be in emergency mode about 36 hours prior to a communications session, Space News reported Saturday.
Jeff Foust writes the emergency has disrupted science observations and the cause of the incident remains unclear.
Charlie Sobeck, Kepler mission manager, said spacecraft operators detected the emergency when they communicated with the spacecraft on April 7, according to the report.
Emergency mode means the spacecraft will gain priority access to NASA’s Deep Space Network in order to fast-track restoration of the spacecraft’s control, according to Sobeck.
Kepler is on an extended mission to study areas of the sky in an effort to find extrasolar planets and observe other astronomical phenomena, Foust reports.
Related Articles
The General Services Administration announced that the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, or FedRAMP, completed 114 cloud security authorizations in July for fiscal year 2025, more than double the number finished in FY 2024. GSA said Monday FedRAMP also authorized four new cloud service offerings through the FedRAMP 20x Phase One pilot. What Is FedRAMP 20x? Launched in March, FedRAMP 20x is a cloud-native authorization approach that seeks to reduce red tape and advance automation to enable companies to continuously validate the security of their cloud offerings. The framework seeks to simplify security requirements to speed up the authorization
The Department of the Air Force, in partnership with the Defense Innovation Unit, has unveiled Finance First, an initiative designed to accelerate development, deployment and financing of secure, resilient and reliable energy solutions at U.S. military installations. Finance First Builds on Private Sector Practices According to DIU, the program aims to improve energy resiliency and maintain uninterrupted mission operations by applying agile private sector practices to the design, financing and deployment of energy systems that can withstand grid instability, cyberattacks and other disruptions, while ensuring on-base power redundancy through an ‘all of the above’ approach to fuel sources and energy
Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla has stepped down as the commander of the U.S. Central Command, concluding a three-year tenure in the role. He handed over the command to Adm. Brad Cooper in a ceremony, CENTCOM said Friday. Commenting on his departure, Kurilla said, “It has been the honor of my life to have been their commander.” He welcomed the appointment of Cooper, saying that under his leadership, the “front lines of freedom will always succeed.” Who Is Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla? Kurilla has been CENTCOM’s commander since April 2022. Over the years, he headed the Airborne, Mechanized, Stryker, Ranger and