Kepler satellite launch

On March 7 the major press agencies reported event of the day space-launch Kepler mission, the first series of astronomical observatoarelor to be carried out in 2009, International Year of astronomy. 
A raised Delta2 rocket at 03:49 GMT from Cape Canaveral the satellite which is named after the famous astronomer. To be noted under that Europe will pay homage or german astronomers and mathematician Johannes Kepler in the year in which implinesc 400 years of publishing his book "Astronomy Nova" with the appointment of the second ATV (automated transfer vehicle) scheduled for launch in mid-2010. 
Returning to launch Kepler mission astronomical, Delta2 rocket scored at the 141 th flight or at the onset in 1989 of which 139 were successful. Moreover, since the last incident occurred in May 1997 he was one of the 86 th consecutive flight resulted in success and the second this year (after the launch of the satellite NOAA-N Prime on February 6). Next release will be everything from Cape Canaveral on March 24 when the cargo will be in the new platform for the American GPS system. 
Rocket with a length of 39 ma was originally designed and built by McDonell Douglas and then was taken over by Boeing Integrated Defense Systems. Series of 7925 compared with three steps: 1 RS-27A engine for the first step, 1 engine AJ-10-118k-ITIP for second gear and an engine PAM-D/Star-48B last step. To these add 9 additional boost. Rocket is allowing versatile depending on configuration, both for launch low orbite LEO and GEO for orbite geostationare, all at a cost of about 40 million dollars per launch. 
Launching on March 7 went according to expectations, after about an hour (4:54 UTC) satellite was separated from the third stage of the missile at 05:11 UTC Goldstone ground station network DSN (Deep Space Network) to the NASA the first reception of telemetry from the satellite confirming the success of the mission. Continued to follow a period of several weeks of training systems on board before its own scientific mission themselves. 
Kepler satellite cost 591 million dollars with the prime contractor Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corporation under NASA and practical answer to the U.S. agency similar to the Canadian satellite MOST (Microvariability and OSCILLATIONS telescope of stars) launched in 2003 and the European Corot (Convection Rotation and planetary transists) that the launch of December 2006 succeeded in detecting more planets like Earth and extrasolare three stars with characteristics similar to our Sun. 
The difference between the two satellites is given by mass (630 kg for Corot), size telescope (27 cm diameter for Corot), capacity data processing (up to 12,000 stars simultaneously for Corot) and one orbit (if the orbit has a Corot polar height of 827 km around the Earth, Kepler will have an orbit heliocentrica). 
Subject astronomical explorations to search for planets that could host any human colonies or that could in turn be host to other life forms, is relatively new and of great interest for the future, but how these missions are extremely costly and generally limited to the technology of mankind today is still controversy regarding their practice. 
Originally planned Europa mission that Eddington's Corot improvement but was withdrawn from the list of priorities. ESA for 2015 took into account in the program launched last year's "Cosmic Vision" to further this mission-which is in Darwin to launch a band of 4-5 telescopes each with a diameter of 3-4m. Also in the plan is a NASA program like Terrestrial Planet Finder (a band of small astronomical telescopes in the infrared with a spatial telescope 4 times larger and 10 times more precise than Hubble) and separately from this program missions New Worlds Mission and SIM Planet Quest (Space interferometry Mission). 
And controversy exists regarding the optimal orbit can be chosen for such a mission. If Americans have a favorite so far orbit heliocentrica Europe instead makes use of an orbit around the L2 point lagrangian. 
The Hubble space telescope that will be retired from work in the next years (2013) and the NASA Spitzer telescope already in orbit, the international astronomical observatoarelor series will be completed in April with ESA missions Herschel and Planck. On a longer term follow GAIA (ESA) and JWST (James Webb Space Telescope-NASA). 
Why wait so NASA from the new mission? For the next 4 years, Kepler will determine the frequency of planets like Earth that is in the area of stars with different spectra will determine the order of size and shape of the planet orbits, will calculate how many such planets are in multiple star systems, will determine order of the orbit size, brightness, size, mass and density of the huge planet, will complement information already discovered planetary systems through the use of new techniques and will determine the properties of stars belonging to these planetary systems. 
Orbit used in this case is so heliocentrica with an orbital period of 372.5 days built in so as to provide protection against optical interferences that could arise from the Earth, Sun or Moon. Another major advantage is that being in an orbit around the Earth, there is no disturbance orbital (gravity, resistance inaintare because of the atmosphere or moments caused by magnetic field) or electromagnetic radiation, thus resulting in a very good stabilization of the position in flight and lower the risk of exposure to radiation of electronic equipment on board. Practically the only disturbing element is the solar pressure which may result in the most unfavorable case after four years of operating in a removal of the satellite at about 0.5 astronomical units from Earth. In addition, due carateristicilor orbital maneuvers will be carried out targeting the satellite to the sun solstice and Equinox so that solar panels to be perfectly perpendicular to the direction of sunlight and radiators to be oriented in the direction opposite to outer space. 
Satellite has a mass of 1039kg and marks the launch of several elements: it is the largest telescope ever launched by NASA that do not revolve around the Earth and holds the largest CCD ever flown in space (94,617,600 pixels) to record probably take until 2011 when the ESA plans to send into space a continuation of the Hipparcos-satellite mission Gaia will be equipped with an impressive camera 1 billion pixels designed to achieve the most accurate star maps of our galaxy. 
The instrument is a differential fotometru with a field of vision of 105 degrees x 105 degrees, which collect a sensor CCD grupand 42 sites each with 2200x1024 pixels and size of 50x25mm, light signals from groups of up to 100,000 stars of spectral classes AK and magnitude less than 14. More specifically it will make observations in the 430-890 nm banda. Data from each image will be done on board and then integrate (each process analysis durand approximately 15 minutes). Telescope, whose diameter is 0.95 m, is protected by a retractable element which can prevent penetration of light rays inside. 
Communication is done twice a week in banda X network using antennas of NASA DSN, when necessary, and send commands to a rate 2kbps and receives telemetry to check the satellite (at a rate of 10-16 kbps) . Scientific data collected by telescopes will be analyzed on board and autonomously downloaded once a month through a banda Ka Downlink in a maximum rate of 4.33 Mb / s. 
The position of the flight control is achieved in systems that maintain volante position accuracy (better than 9 milliseconds of arc) and from a system hidrazina engines. Satellite is also equipped with sensors to detect the position of the Sun and two rooms for determining stellar inertial position in space. 
It is very interesting watching the evolution of future mission even more with how expectations have been communicated to the press are extremely ambitious-for every year of observation 50 planets with a radius equal to that of Earth, 185 planets by a factor of 1.3 radius of the Earth and 640 planets by a factor of 2.2 in the radius of Earth. All this varying from a distance of 600 to a distance of 3000 light years away from Earth. 
As in many other cases of international cooperation, the data collected will be classified into categories according to their importance. Most important will be investigated directly by NASA (through the network of research institutes and laboratories in U.S. universities), but some will be disclosed in the international scientific community so that any researcher interested and enrolled in the program will have access to them and it will expose, after investigations, their conclusions and models.