NASA's planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft has been out of commission for a while due to the failure of two of its four reaction wheels. Reaction wheels keep a probe precisely oriented in space. Three are necessary for the system to work.
Engineers at NASA have been working on ways to bring one if not both of the balky wheels back into service, and they will begin trying to do that later this month. If they succeed, Kepler can continue planet hunting, but if the wheels are truly gone, Kepler might be given a less demanding mission.
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