Johannes Kepler

We witnessed the historic launch of the Kepler space telescope from the Gulf Coast of Florida some 145 miles away !!! It lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Base at 10:49 PM (3/6) and was visible from our location about 25 seconds later. Saw the main engine cutoff, castaway of the solid rocket boosters, second stage coast and then second stage burn (first two minutes). Half moon actually illuminated the rocket quite well. Pretty impressive even from such a great distance.



Now Kepler is positioning itself to orbit the sun and trail planet earth. Once in position it will look for earth like planets around other stars. For more information see ... http://kepler.nasa.gov/about/faq.html

For more information about Kepler, the father of orbital mechanics see ....

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/main/