What Comes After Kepler

People love a comeback story. It can be an athlete rehabilitating from a devastating injury, or a politician regrouping after an electoral defeat, or an entertainer who has fallen out of the limelight. In all those cases, the story of recovering from that setback and trying to reclaim their former fame and glory can be a compelling one.

The same came be true for space missions as well. In the early 1990s, the Hubble Space Telescope was the butt of comedians’ jokes because of its blurry optics. After servicing missions to correct its optics and perform other upgrades, Hubble has become one of NASA’s most beloved missions in the minds of public, so much so that there was a public outcry ten years ago after NASA cancelled the final Hubble servicing mission, a reaction that fueled the successful effort to restore it. Now, some scientists and engineers are hoping that another NASA mission, all but declared dead last year, can write a comeback story of its own.

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