Kepler Mission Launch Live Thread (10:49pm EST)

03/06/09 | Kevin Davis

[al baby]

I have a strange feeling that Kepler wont make orbit just a hunch

[KevinDavis]

I bet you will be wrong..

[KevinDavis]

Loading of the Delta 2 rocket's first stage liquid oxygen tank has been accomplished. Tonight's 27-minute, 18-second process concluded at 9:33:39 p.m.

The rocket is now fully fueled for launch. The vehicle's first stage was successfully loaded with RP-1 kerosene fuel an hour ago. The second stage was filled with its storable nitrogen tetroxide and Aerozine 50 fuels on Tuesday. The third stage and nine strap-on booster rockets are solid-propellant.

[al baby]

I hope your right

[KevinDavis]

If you are heading out to the beach to watch tonight’s launch and want to receive occasional countdown updates, sign up for our Twitter feed to get text message updates on your cellphone. U.S. readers can also sign up from their phone by texting “follow spaceflightnow” to 40404. (Standard text messaging charges apply.)

[KevinDavis]

The checks of the rocket’s safety systems are underway. That will be followed a short time from now by engine steering tests.

[KevinDavis]

Everything continues to look good with 60 minutes left in the countdown for the launch of Kepler aboard a Delta 2 rocket from Cape Canaveral.

Kepler will stare at the same part of the sky for more than three years, carefully measuring the brightness of 100,000 stars. The observatory will catch the moments when planets pass in front of their stars and detect the worlds blinking out the starlight. The data will tell scientists the size and orbit of the discovered planet.

"Trying to detect Jupiter-size planets crossing in front of their stars is like trying to measure the effect of a mosquito flying by a car's headlight. Finding Earth-sized planets is like trying to detect a very tiny flea in that same headlight," said Jim Fanson, the Kepler project manager.

# Debra Fischer, professor of astronomy at San Francisco State University explains what is expected during the Kepler mission: "What I'm hoping, expecting to see as a community scientist is in the first six months to a year, the big, massive hot Jupiters are going to roll off the Kepler assembly line. This is exciting because these are bizarre planets. We don't really understand the statistics, how they form, how they moved into their current position and just the sheer number of these objects that Kepler will find is going to help us learn a lot about the systems." # "And then the next class of planets I think will roll out will be perhaps the hot Neptunes...Significantly smaller than Jupiter, these objects are thought to exist around something like 30 percent of stars like our sun and low-mass stars. And if that is correct, then Kepler should see quite a few of these very large, something like 17 times the mass of the Earth, orbiting." # "And then the hardest detection and by far the most exciting is going to be the detection of bona fide Earths -- small, rocky planets, Earth-size planets."

Jon Morse, director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters, adds:

"This is why I call Kepler our planetary census taker. We're going to get the full sweep of the types of planets in different types of orbits around different types of stars through a big cross-section of our galaxy....It is going to shape the way that we formulate our plans for future missions on our quest to find Earth-like planets and study their atmospheres and look for the bio-markers like the types of molecules in our atmosphere that may indicate life."

[KevinDavis]

The launch team is beginning the “slew” or steering checks of the first and second stage engines. These are gimbal tests of the nozzles on the first stage main engine and twin vernier engines and second stage engine to ensure the rocket will be able to steer itself during launch.

[KevinDavis]

The second stage engine slews are complete. First stage tests have begun.

[KevinDavis]

The first stage engine steering checks just finished. Technicians will take the next few minutes to review the data from tests to confirm all went per the plan.

[KevinDavis]

T-minus 15 minutes and holding. Clocks have entered the first of two planned hold periods during the final portion of the Terminal Countdown. This pause will last 20 minutes in duration.

These holds are designed to give the launch team a chance to deal with any problems and catch up on work that could be running behind schedule.

[KevinDavis]

Kepler will become the 215th primary payload put into space by the venerable Delta 2 rocket. Here's a look at some other stats about tonight's mission. This will be:

* The 339th Delta rocket launch since 1960
* The third Delta of 2009
* The 141st Delta 2 rocket mission since 1989
* The 44th Delta 2 mission for NASA
* The 67th Delta 2 rocket fly in the 7925 configuration
* The 106th Delta 2 rocket to fly from Cape Canaveral
* The 46th Delta 2 launch from pad 17B

[NormsRevenge]

Five Things About Kepler
03.05.09
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/news/keplerf-20090305.html
Here are some quick facts about the Kepler mission, scheduled to launch March 6, 2009:

— Kepler is the world’s first mission with the ability to find true Earth analogs — planets that orbit stars like our sun in the “habitable zone.” The habitable zone is the region around a star where the temperature is just right for water — an essential ingredient for life as we know it — to pool on a planet’s surface.

— By the end of Kepler’s three-and-one-half-year mission, it will give us a good idea of how common or rare other Earths are in our Milky Way galaxy. This will be an important step in answering the age-old question: Are we alone?

— Kepler detects planets by looking for periodic dips in the brightness of stars. Some planets pass in front of their stars as seen from our point of view on Earth; when they do, they cause their stars to dim slightly, an event Kepler can see.

— Kepler has the largest camera ever launched into space, a 95-megapixel array of charge-coupled devices, or CCDs, like those in everyday digital cameras.

— Kepler’s telescope is so powerful that, from its view up in space, it could detect one person in a small town turning off a porch light at night.

[KevinDavis]

T-minus 15 minutes and counting. Countdown clocks are running again following the planned 20-minute hold. The count will continue to the T-minus 4 minute mark where another planned hold is scheduled. Launch remains set to occur at 10:49:57 p.m. EST

[Red Steel]

ELV Countdown Portal page

http://countdown.ksc.nasa.gov/elv/

[NormsRevenge]

Launch controllers monitor the progress of the countdown from their consoles
inside the Mission Director's Center at Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
Image credit: NASA TV

[KevinDavis]

The launch weather officer confirms the current conditions are acceptable for liftoff of the Delta 2 rocket this evening.

[KevinDavis]

United Launch Alliance mission director Rich Murphy just conducted a readiness poll of his team.

[KevinDavis]

Kepler is just 10 minutes away from leaving Earth on its mission to find planets orbiting other stars in our galactic neighborhood.

"Kepler will push back the boundaries of the unknown in our patch of the Milky Way Galaxy, and it's discoveries may fundamentally alter humanity's view of itself," said Jon Morse, director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters.

The mission is named for the German scientist who pioneered the fields of optics and planetary motion. "Now 400 years later, we're using his discoveries in order to answer a profound and fundamental question about our place in the Universe: are there other Earth-like planets out there?"

[MinuteGal]

I'm lucky I can see the spectacular lights from all the launches from my pad on the Gulf on Florida's west coast almost directly across from the Cape.

Leaving now to put on a jacket (chilly outside) to see what I can see. Hope the skies are clear. Ciao till later, alligators.

Leni