A successful launch occurred Friday evening for the Kepler spacecraft at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida aboard the United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket... screen captures directly from NASA TV as the liftoff occurred at 07:50:55 PM PST, reaching Mach 1 some 33 seconds after liftoff. The first stage engine cutoff at 07:54:37 with the second stage ignition at 07:55:22 p.m.



The Kepler spacecraft will watch a patch of space for 3.5 years or more for signs of Earth-sized planets moving around stars similar to the sun. The patch that Kepler will watch contains about 100,000 stars like the sun. Using special detectors similar to those used in digital cameras, Kepler will look for a slight dimming in the stars as planets pass between the stars and Kepler. The observatory's place in space will allow it to watch the same stars constantly throughout its mission, something observatories such as NASA's Hubble Space Telescope cannot do.



Here are some quick facts about the Kepler mission...

• Kepler is the world's first mission with the ability to find true Earth analogs -- planets that orbit stars like our sun in the "habitable zone." The habitable zone is the region around a star where the temperature is just right for water -- an essential ingredient for life as we know it -- to pool on a planet's surface.
• By the end of Kepler's three-and-one-half-year mission, it will give us a good idea of how common or rare other Earths are in our Milky Way galaxy. This will be an important step in answering the age-old question: Are we alone?
• Kepler detects planets by looking for periodic dips in the brightness of stars. Some planets pass in front of their stars as seen from our point of view on Earth; when they do, they cause their stars to dim slightly, an event Kepler can see.
• Kepler has the largest camera ever launched into space, a 95-megapixel array of charge-coupled devices, or CCDs, like those in everyday digital cameras.
• Kepler's telescope is so powerful that, from its view up in space, it could detect one person in a small town turning off a porch light at night.

"Official" launch photo by Carleton Bailie, United Launch Alliance. Engineers acquired a signal from Kepler at 12:11 a.m. Saturday EST (9:11 p.m. Friday PST), after it separated from its spent third-stage rocket and entered its final sun-centered orbit, trailing about 1,529 kilometers (950 miles) behind Earth. The spacecraft is generating its own power from its solar panels. The first planets to roll out on the Kepler "assembly line" are expected to be the portly "hot Jupiters" — gas giants that circle close and fast around their stars. NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes will be able to follow up with these planets and learn more about their atmospheres. Neptune-size planets will most likely be found next, followed by rocky ones as small as Earth. The true Earth analogs — Earth-sized planets orbiting stars like our sun at distances where surface water, and possibly life, could exist — would take at least three years to discover and confirm. Ground-based telescopes also will contribute to the mission by verifying some of the finds. Kepler will give us our first look at the frequency of Earth-size planets in our Milky Way galaxy, as well as the frequency of Earth-size planets that could theoretically be habitable. As the mission progresses, Kepler will drift farther and farther behind Earth in its orbit around the sun. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, which was launched into the same orbit more than five years ago, is now more than about 100 million kilometers (62 million miles) behind Earth.