Good stuff, although I admit I was hoping when I saw the announcement of a press conference that they might have a few probable candidates for transit events around new stars.
There is a mistake in the Nature article. The Kepler Mission is actually doing very well and is producing planet discoveries that will be announced early next year. Data from 3 of the 84 channels that have more noise than the others will be corrected or the data flagged to avoid being mixed in with the low noise data prior to the time an Earth twin could be discovered.
Kepler has problems with its CCD signal amplifiers!http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091030/full/news.2009.1051.html?s=news_rss
Don't they have a review before launch? Shouldn't someone of said, "Hey, we have a known issue that might affect the mission, perhaps we should make sure everything is in working order before we send it off."
This is a really exciting and important mission and I'm bummed that there's a problem that could of been handled here even if it meant a delay.
Random noise is present in all measurements and cannot be calibrated out. Therefore, strict requirements were placed on the design of Kepler’s spacecraft systems to limit random noise to a low level. Measurements taken in space confirm that Kepler meets its random noise requirements.Systematic noise results from the imperfect nature of any measuring device. It represents the instrument’s “finger print” placed upon the measurement, and must be calibrated out of the data in post-processing on the ground. Because systematic noise depends on the specific characteristics of the instrument, the best calibration requires that the noise sources be characterized and modeled based on measurements made in space.
The tiny brightness dips from a transiting Earth-size planet could be lost amid these fluctuations. But since the problem affects only a few of the 84 channels, it is not expected to hide all Earth-size planets, Borucki says."People have found a pimple here and they are trying to make it into a mountain," he told New Scientist. "A lot of the planets will show up regardless."
Don't they have a review before launch?
Shouldn't someone of said, "Hey, we have a known issue that might affect the mission, perhaps we should make sure everything is in working order before we send it off." If that conversation actually happened and someone signed a wavier and said, "Just fly the dang thing". This is the time they should be held accountable.
I'm not sure whether to believe any of this reporting or not. Three years to write post-processing software? Noisy amplifiers are not exactly a new problem -- this is prior art.
The article says that the new software will be ready in 2010. (We're two months away from 2010).
A hypothetical earth-like object really needs three transits to confirm, so an exact earth twin would take three years to confirm with the Kepler system.
Quote from: jimvela on 11/06/2009 02:46 pmThe article says that the new software will be ready in 2010. (We're two months away from 2010).I admit I miscounted (2 versus 3), but SA said that the "rigourous testing" of the post-processing software would take until 2011, which strained credibility. It's not like poor post-processing software on the ground will make Kepler explode
Jim, did you have a chance to read the Nature article before it was edited?
QuoteA hypothetical earth-like object really needs three transits to confirm, so an exact earth twin would take three years to confirm with the Kepler system.I know that... You know that... But whoever wrote the Nature article didn't seem to know that; honestly, it was the sort of reporting I might expect from a tabloid.
My understanding is that it actually is FSW that is being updated- it is well worth testing thoroughly.
If someone wanted to fairly criticize the Kepler mission, the deletion of the gimballed HGA and the size of the propellant tank would be two of the most significant limitations of the Kepler mission, IMHO- even more so than the noise issue.