NASA's planet-hunting space telescope Kepler is slated to launch the night of March 6 from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a mission to find Earth-sized planets that could have liquid water at the surface and potentially harbor life."It's not just another science mission. This one has historical significance built into it," said Ed Weiler of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA headquarters. "It very possibly could tell us that earths are very, very common, that we've got lots of neighbors out there. Or it could tell us that Earths are really, really, really rare."
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IXO and LISA are dead and disbanded as NASA missions.
We are looking at a very thin pipeline and few new missions for a while, unless there is drastic new direction from above and strong guidance on funding.
The class I'm teaching right now is "writing intensive" - so the homework is biased towards short essays and written discourse.
Every other year NASA conducts a Senior Review of its astrophysics missions that have completed their nominal mission and are requesting an extension of their mission.
The 2012 review panel just reported.
This just in from NASA: