NASA to Attempt Fix for Planet-Hunting Kepler Spacecraft This Month
NASA will try to revive its ailing Kepler spacecraft this month in the hope of resurrecting a mission that has revolutionized the search for alien planets.
But that exoplanet hunt stalled in mid-May of this year, when the second of Kepler's four orientation-maintaining reaction wheels failed, hobbling the spacecraft.
There's no guarantee that the recovery attempt will work, Kepler team members have stressed. If at least one of the two failed wheels cannot be brought back to life, the spacecraft will almost certainly be tasked with a new mission, probably one that incorporates more of a scanning approach (as opposed to Kepler's original point-and-stare operations).
The $600 million Kepler mission has detected 3,277 alien planet candidates to date. Just 134 of them have been confirmed so far by follow-up observations, but mission scientists expect that at least 90 percent will end up being the real deal.
http://www.space.com/21862-kepler-exoplanet-mission-recovery-plans.html
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so all is not lost, maybe they'll get lucky
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