Browsing: K2 Mission

The K2 Mission was an extended mission of NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, following the original Kepler mission’s primary goal of searching for exoplanets. Launched in 2009, the Kepler Space Telescope initially focused on a specific region of the sky to detect Earth-like planets orbiting other stars. However, after the failure of two of its reaction wheels in 2013, which compromised its ability to maintain precise pointing, the mission was repurposed and renamed K2. The K2 Mission began in 2014 and took advantage of the spacecraft’s remaining capabilities by using solar pressure to stabilize its pointing, allowing it to survey different regions of the sky along the ecliptic plane. K2 expanded Kepler’s search for exoplanets but also studied other astronomical phenomena, including star formation, supernovae, and the behavior of distant galaxies. The K2 Mission concluded in October 2018 when the spacecraft ran out of fuel, but its data continues to contribute to our understanding of the universe.