The Complete Book of Spaceflight: From Apollo 1 to Zero Gravity

220 Kennedy Space Center (KSC)
Kennedy Space Center (KSC)
America’s primary civilian space launch facility, operated
by NASA and located at Cape Canaveral. All Space
Shuttle launches and many unmanned launches take
place from here. Selection of the site was influenced by
the fact that the Missile Firing Laboratory had been
launching missiles from Cape Canaveral since 1953. Originally
called the Launch Operations Center, the facility
was renamed the John F. Kennedy Space Center in 1963.
Kepler
A NASA Discovery mission, scheduled for launch in
2006, to detect and characterize Earth-sized planets by
photometry (light-intensity measurements). Kepler’s
objectives over a four-year lifetime are to determine: (1)
the frequency of Earth-like and larger planets in and near
the habitable zone of a wide variety of spectral types of
stars; (2) the distribution of diameter and orbital size of
Earth-like planets; (3) the distribution of diameter, mass,
density, albedo (reflectivity), and orbital size of giant
inner planets; (4) the frequency of planets orbiting multiple
star systems; and (5) the properties of stars that have
planetary systems. Kepler’s main instrument will be a
one-m-aperture photometer with a 12° field of view,
about equal to the area covered by a hand at arm’s
length; it will continuously and simultaneously monitor
the light from 90,000 main-sequence stars in a star field
in Cygnus. Planets will be discovered and characterized
by the tiny periodic light dips they cause as they pass in
front of (transit) their parent stars as seen from Earth.
Detection of two transits will be taken as evidence of a
candidate planet, with a third and subsequent transits
providing confirmation.
Kepler, Johannes (1571–1630)
A German mathematician and astronomer who assisted
the great observer Tycho Brahe and later used Brahe’s
observations to deduce three key laws of planetary motion,
now known as Kepler’s laws. Kepler lived when telescopes
were first being used to look at the Moon and planets, and
was one of the few vocal supporters of Galileo’s claim that
the planets orbited the Sun instead of the other way
around. He was also the author of a lunar tale called Somnium
(The Dream), 167 published posthumously in 1634.
The hero, Duracotus, an Icelander and a self-proclaimed
student of Brahe, is conveyed to the Moon by winged
Selenites who trafficked with his mother, a notorious
witch—an arrangement not unfamiliar to Kepler, since his
own mother was tried for witchcraft.
Keplerian trajectory
An elliptical orbit followed by an object in accordance
with the first of Kepler’s laws of celestial motion.
Johannes Kepler George Philip & Son
Kepler’s laws
Three laws of planetary motion, published by Johannes
Kepler and based on accurate observations by Tycho
Brahe; they were subsequently shown by Isaac Newton
to be a direct result of his theory of gravitation and laws
of motion. They are: (1) A planet orbits the Sun in an
ellipse with the Sun at one focus; (2) A line drawn from
the Sun to a planet (the radius vector) sweeps out equal
areas in equal amounts of time; and (3) The square of
the period of a planet’s orbit varies as the cube of the
planet’s semimajor axis, the constant of proportionality
being the same for all planets. The first law corrects
the simpler model of Copernicus, which assumed circles.
The second law expresses the way a planet speeds
up when approaching the Sun and slows down when
drawing away. The third law gives the exact relation by
which planets move faster on orbits that are closer to
the Sun.
kerosene
A commonly used rocket fuel, especially in a mixture
known as RP-1.
Kerwin, Joseph Peter (1932–)
An American astronaut who, as science pilot aboard the
first Skylab mission in 1973, became not only the first
medical doctor to practice in orbit but also the first space
repairman. He received a B.A. in philosophy from the
College of the Holy Cross in 1953 and an M.D. from
Northwestern University Medical School in 1957. Kerwin
completed his internship at the District of Columbia