NASA engineers trying to figure out why a spacecraft 75 million miles away is in emergency mode

NASA might have jinxed itself last month after it declared its Kepler spacecraft's extended mission a "smashing success" that rarely encountered any difficulties.

The $600 million space telescope finished its original assignment in 2012, after discovering more than 1,000 confirmed exoplanets, and has since been studying young stars, supernovae, and other astronomical objects. But on Thursday, just one month after NASA said the spacecraft was running "with scarcely a whiff of trouble," engineers found that the probe is in emergency mode, its lowest operational mode, NBC News reports.

The last regular contact with Kepler was on April 4, and it was operating as expected. Mission manager Charlie Sobeck said his team's top priority is now figuring out why the spacecraft is in emergency mode, but it won't be easy — Kepler is nearly 75 million miles away from Earth, and even at the speed of light, it takes 13 minutes for a signal to travel to Kepler and back.

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