Japan, US team probes Dreamliner battery maker

TOKYO: Japanese and American safety inspectors were on Monday probing the company that makes batteries for Boeing's Dreamliner after the aircraft's worldwide fleet was grounded over safety fears.

Aviation regulators were focusing on the lithium-ion batteries as the cause of a glitch that forced an All Nippon Airways (ANA) flight into an emergency landing last week.

Despite the investigation shares in GS Yuasa, which manufactures the batteries for the Dreamliner's advanced electronics systems, were up 0.95 percent to 318 yen in afternoon Tokyo trade.

The Japanese firm is just one of many contractors in a complex global chain that led to three years of delays before Boeing delivered its first 787 to ANA in 2011.

"Engineers from the FAA (US Federal Aviation Administration), Boeing and our aviation bureau started a probe this morning that is mainly focusing on GS Yuasa's production line," said Yasuo Ishii, a transport ministry safety official.

"They are checking on whether there have been any issues in the production process. We still don't know what caused the battery problem and so we are looking into all possibilities."

Ishii said the inspection does not mean authorities think GS Yuasa, headquartered in the western city of Kyoto, was to blame for the problems.

Investigators on Friday released a picture showing the blackened remains of the battery in the ANA plane. They are also inspecting the aircraft's black box which contains data from the flight that may help to assess how the battery was affected.

Boeing's cutting-edge new planes suffered a series of glitches earlier this month, prompting a global alert from the FAA that led to the worldwide grounding of all 50 operational 787s.

The risk of fire from overheating power packs emerged as a major concern after pilots were forced to land a domestic ANA flight on January 16 due to smoke apparently linked to the lithium-ion battery.

US investigators probing a fire on a Japan Airlines 787 after it landed in Boston on January 7 ruled out an overcharged battery as the cause, although the power packs were undergoing further tests.

On Monday, ANA said the Dreamliner's grounding forced it to cancel 335 flights up to next Sunday, affecting nearly 48,000 passengers.

Cancellations on domestic routes from January 16 to January 27 amount to 292 flights for 44,074 passengers, while 43 international flights have been cut, affecting 3,778 passengers, the airline said.

Flights affected include those from Tokyo to San Jose, Seattle and Beijing.

ANA also said it would not receive a Dreamliner that was on order due to the grounding, but declined to say if it would cancel any purchases it has made to date.

"We were supposed to receive our 18th plane from Boeing later this month," a company spokesman said.

"But as the suspension continues, it may be difficult for us to receive it as scheduled. So far, we have no plans to review anything related to our 787 contracts," he added.

ANA and its domestic rival JAL are key Dreamliner customers with Japan's two biggest airlines having ordered a combined 111 aircraft so far.

- AFP/al

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Where to watch Obama's inauguration online

President Obama was sworn in for his second term today in a quiet ceremony at the White House. But it was a simple prelude to the festivities that will take place tomorrow when Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are sworn in outside of the U.S. Capital before hundreds of thousands of spectators -- and countless more who will be tuning in online to watch the event.

The last presidential inauguration ceremony in 2009 was considered by many to be the most interactive ever. But thanks to multimedia content -- including the return of high-resolution satellite imagery from GeoEye -- we may see just as many innovative forms of coverage for this year's event, even though this one is expected to be more low-key.

The public swearing-in ceremony begins at 11:30 a.m. ET, with the official event happening at 11:55 a.m.

Here's just a partial list of where to tune in. Feel free to add to it in the comments below.

• The 2013 Presidential Inaugural Committee will be hosting a live stream of the swearing-in ceremony starting at 11:30 a.m. ET, as well as live video of the inaugural parade and the Commander-in-Chief's Ball.

• The Wall Street Journal will be presenting the inauguration live at 11 a.m ET. It will be anchored by Washington bureau chief Gerald F. Seib, Wendy Bounds and Simon Constable from its New York studios. You can watch it on multiple platforms including WSJ Live, YouTube, Hulu, and Ustream.

• CBS News, our sister site, will be offering live coverage on TV and the Web starting at 10 a.m. ET. The site will also feature live coverage of related events, interactive slide shows, and analysis of Obama's first term and what's ahead in his next term.

• NBCNews.com and the NBC Politics app, which is available on the iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch, will carry live streams of NBC News' coverage starting at 10 a.m. ET.

• C-SPAN's online live coverage of the inauguration starts at 7 a.m. ET and will include the swearing in, followed by the president's address, the inaugural luncheon, and the inaugural parade.

• Fox News will offer a live stream of the inaugural address as well as coverage of related events around Washington. Fox's coverage will also be available on Hulu.

• ABC News and Yahoo News have teamed up to produce three feeds of online video coverage across ABCNews.com, Yahoo News, GoodMorningAmerica.com, ABC News' iPad and iPhone apps and ABC News affiliate websites, as well as on the ABC News YouTube channel.

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Attack at Algeria Gas Plant Heralds New Risks for Energy Development

The siege by Islamic militants at a remote Sahara desert natural gas plant in Algeria this week signaled heightened dangers in the region for international oil companies, at a time when they have been expanding operations in Africa as one of the world's last energy frontiers. (See related story: "Pictures: Four New Offshore Drilling Frontiers.")

As BP, Norway's Statoil, Italy's Eni, and other companies evacuated personnel from Algeria, it was not immediately clear how widely the peril would spread in the wake of the hostage-taking at the sprawling In Amenas gas complex near the Libyan border.

Map by National Geographic

Algeria, the fourth-largest crude oil producer on the continent and a major exporter of natural gas and refined fuels, may not have been viewed as the most hospitable climate for foreign energy companies, but that was due to unfavorable financial terms, bureaucracy, and corruption. The energy facilities themselves appeared to be safe, with multiple layers of security provided both by the companies and by government forces, several experts said. (See related photos: "Oil States: Are They Stable? Why It Matters.")

"It is particularly striking not only because it hasn't happened before, but because it happened in Algeria, one of the stronger states in the region," says Hanan Amin-Salem, a senior manager at the industry consulting firm PFC Energy, who specializes in country risk. She noted that in the long civil war that gripped the country throughout the 1990s, there had never been an attack on Algeria's energy complex. But now, hazard has spread from weak surrounding states, as the assault on In Amenas was carried out in an apparent retaliation for a move by French forces against the Islamists who had taken over Timbuktu and other towns in neighboring Mali. (See related story: "Timbuktu Falls.")

"What you're really seeing is an intensification of the fundamental problem of weak states, and empowerment of heavily armed groups that are really well motivated and want to pursue a set of aims," said Amin-Salem. In PFC Energy's view, she says, risk has increased in Mauritania, Chad, and Niger—indeed, throughout Sahel, the belt that bisects North Africa, separating the Sahara in the north from the tropical forests further south.

On Thursday, the London-based corporate consulting firm Exclusive Analysis, which was recently acquired by the global consultancy IHS, sent an alert to clients warning that oil and gas facilities near the Libyan and Mauritanian borders and in Mauritania's Hodh Ech Chargui province were at "high risk" of attack by jihadis.

"A Hot Place to Drill"

The attack at In Amenas comes at a time of unprecedented growth for the oil industry in Africa. (See related gallery: "Pictures: The Year's Most Overlooked Energy Stories.") Forecasters expect that oil output throughout Africa will double by 2025, says Amy Myers Jaffe, executive director of the energy and sustainability program at the University of California, Davis, who has counted 20 rounds of bidding for new exploration at sites in Africa's six largest oil-producing states.

Oil and natural gas are a large part of the Algerian economy, accounting for 60 percent of government budget revenues, more than a third of GDP and more than 97 percent of its export earnings. But the nation's resources are seen as largely undeveloped, and Algeria has tried to attract new investment. Over the past year, the government has sought to reform the law to boost foreign companies' interests in their investments, although those efforts have foundered.

Technology has been one of the factors driving the opening up of Africa to deeper energy exploration. Offshore and deepwater drilling success in the Gulf of Mexico and Brazil led to prospecting now under way offshore in Ghana, Mozambique, and elsewhere. (See related story: "New Oil—And a Huge Challenge—for Ghana.") Jaffe says the Houston-based company Anadarko Petroleum has sought to transfer its success in "subsalt seismic" exploration technology, surveying reserves hidden beneath the hard salt layer at the bottom of the sea, to the equally challenging seismic exploration beneath the sands of the Sahara in Algeria, where it now has three oil and gas operations.

Africa also is seen as one of the few remaining oil-rich regions of the world where foreign oil companies can obtain production-sharing agreements with governments, contracts that allow them a share of the revenue from the barrels they produce, instead of more limited service contracts for work performed.

"You now have the technology to tap the resources more effectively, and the fiscal terms are going to be more attractive than elsewhere—you put these things together and it's been a hot place to drill," says Jaffe, who doesn't see the energy industry's interest in Africa waning, despite the increased terrorism risk. "What I think will happen in some of these countries is that the companies are going to reveal new securities systems and procedures they have to keep workers safe," she says. "I don't think they will abandon these countries."

This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.

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Obamas Share the Love, Even for Michelle's Bangs

Jan 20, 2013 10:49pm

(Charles Dharapak/AP Photo)

President Obama used the first public remarks of his second term to address what he called the “most significant” event of this weekend: his wife’s much-talked-about new haircut.

“I love her bangs,” Obama told supporters at an inaugural reception at the National Building Museum. “She looks good. She always looks good.”

First lady Michelle Obama, wearing a black sequined cocktail dress and showcasing her new hairdo, also heaped compliments on her husband.

“Let me tell you, it has just been a true thrill to watch this handsome, charming individual grow into the man and the president that he is,” she said, as she reached out to playfully touch the president’s face, sparking laughter from the crowd.

Praising his compassion and courage, the first lady introduced the president as the “love of her life.”

Obama, who was sworn in for a second term in a small White House ceremony earlier today, kept his remarks short, noting he has another big speech to deliver Monday.

“There are a limited amount of good lines and you don’t want to use them all up tonight,” he joked.

Because the Constitutionally mandated date for the inauguration, Jan. 20, fell on a Sunday this year, the traditional, public ceremony was delayed until Monday.

Saving the best for his official inaugural address, the president instead dedicated the bulk of his remarks to thanking supporters for their hard work and dedication to getting him re-elected.

“You understood this was not just about a candidate; it was not just about Joe Biden or Barack Obama. This was about us, who we are as a nation, what values we cherish, how hard we’re willing to fight to make sure that those values live not just for today but for future generations,” he said.

“All of you here understood and were committed to the basic notion that when we put our shoulders to the wheel of history, it moves… It moves forward. And that’s part of what we celebrate when we come together for inauguration,” he said.

SHOWS: World News

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Earth may be crashing through dark matter walls

Earth is constantly crashing through huge walls of dark matter, and we already have the tools to detect them. That's the conclusion of physicists who say the universe may be filled with a patchwork quilt of force fields created shortly after the big bang.

Observations of how mass clumps in space suggest that about 86 per cent of all matter is invisible dark matter, which interacts with ordinary matter mainly through gravity. The most popular theory is that dark matter is made of weakly interacting massive particles.

WIMPs should also interact with ordinary matter via the weak nuclear force, and their presence should have slight but measurable effects. However, years of searches for WIMPs have been coming up empty.

"So far nothing is found, and I feel like it's time to broaden the scope of our search," says Maxim Pospelov of the University of Victoria in Canada. "What we propose is to look for some other signatures."

Bubbly cosmos

Pospelov and colleagues have been examining a theory that at least some of the universe's dark matter is tied up in structures called domain walls, akin to the boundaries between tightly packed bubbles. The idea is that the hot early universe was full of an exotic force field that varied randomly. As the universe expanded and cooled, the field froze, leaving a patchwork of domains, each with its own distinct value for the field.

Having different fields sit next to each other requires energy to be stored within the domain walls. Mass and energy are interchangeable, so on a large scale a network of domain walls can look like concentrations of mass – that is, like dark matter, says Pospelov.

If the grid of domain walls is packed tightly enough – say, if the width of the domains is several hundred times the distance between Earth and the sun – Earth should pass through a domain wall once every few years. "As a human, you wouldn't feel a thing," says Pospelov. "You will go through the wall without noticing." But magnetometers – devices that, as the name suggests, measure magnetic fields – could detect the walls, say Pospelov and colleagues in a new study. Although the field inside a domain would not affect a magnetometer, the device would sense the change when Earth passes through a domain wall.

Dark matter walls have not been detected yet because anyone using a single magnetometer would find the readings swamped by noise, Pospelov says. "You'd never be able to say if it's because the Earth went through a bizarre magnetic field or if a grad student dropped their iPhone or something," he says.

Network needed

Finding the walls will require a network of at least five detectors spread around the world, Pospelov suggests. Colleagues in Poland and California have already built one magnetometer each and have shown that they are sensitive enough for the scheme to work.

Domain walls wouldn't account for all the dark matter in the universe, but they could explain why finding particles of the stuff has been such a challenge, says Pospelov.

If domain walls are found, the news might come as a relief to physicists still waiting for WIMPs to show up. Earlier this month, for instance, a team working with a detector in Russia that has been running for more than 24 years announced that they have yet to see any sign of these dark matter candidates.

Douglas Finkbeiner of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who was not involved in Pospelov's study, isn't yet convinced that dark matter walls exist. But he is glad that physicists are keeping an open mind about alternatives to WIMPs.

"We've looked for WIMP dark matter in so many ways," he says. "At some point you have to ask, are we totally on the wrong track?"

Journal reference: Physical Review Letters, DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.021803

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China 'strongly dissatisfied' with US island remarks

BEIJING: China said it was "strongly dissatisfied" Sunday after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a veiled warning to Beijing not to challenge Tokyo's control of disputed islands at the centre of a bitter territorial row.

China is "strongly dissatisfied with and resolutely opposes" the remarks, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said in a statement on the ministry's website.

The maritime dispute, which has simmered off and on for years, intensified last year when the Japanese government nationalised islands in the small chain it did not already own, triggering angry responses in China.

China has since increased maritime and air patrols near the East China Sea territory, and in further escalations in recent weeks both Beijing and Tokyo have scrambled fighter jets, though there have been no clashes.

"We urge the US side to treat the issue of the Diaoyu islands with a responsible attitude," Qin said, referring to the territory by its Chinese name. Japan calls the islands the Senkakus.

He also called for Washington to be "careful in words, cautious in actions" and to take "realistic actions to protect the peace and stability of the region and Chinese-US relations".

Qin's statement came after Clinton on Friday said the US opposed "any unilateral actions that would seek to undermine Japanese administration" of the islands.

Clinton, speaking at a press conference with Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida in Washington, did not mention Beijing directly but said she wanted China and Japan to settle the issue peacefully.

"We do not want to see any action taken by anyone that could raise tensions or result in miscalculation that would undermine the peace, security and economic growth in this region," she said.

The US insists it is neutral on the ultimate sovereignty of the islands but also says they are under Japan's de facto administration.

China has persistently criticised the US position and Beijing's sending of maritime surveillance ships to the potentially gas-rich area is seen by experts as a way to contest the notion of Japanese control.

Complicating the issue is a security treaty that obliges the US -- which keeps military bases in Japan -- to aid the country in the event it is attacked.

Another factor that has raised tensions is the coming to power last month of hawkish Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose party won a landslide victory in elections.

Last week, state media said China will carry out a geographical survey of the islands and also reported that China's armed forces have been instructed to raise their fighting ability in 2013 with "the objective of being able to fight and win a battle".

China's official reaction to Clinton's comments came a day after state media harshly criticised them.

The official Xinhua news agency called it "unwise" for Washington "to throw support behind Japan in Tokyo's islands dispute with Beijing", adding: "This unbalanced position has betrayed its declared intention to stay neutral on the issue."

- AFP/ck

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WikiLeaks says Aaron Swartz may have been a 'source'

WikiLeaks said late yesterday that recently deceased Internet activist Aaron Swartz assisted the organization, was in contact with Julian Assange, and may have been one of the organization's sources.

Reached in Iceland on Saturday evening, California time, WikiLeaks representative Kristinn Hrafnsson confirmed to CNET that the tweets were authentic but declined to elaborate.

In the tweets, the organization said it was revealing the information "due to the investigation into the Secret Service involvement" with Swartz.

Here are screenshots of the tweets:

The phrasing of the last tweet ("strong reasons to believe, but cannot prove") may be related to the precautions WikiLeaks says it takes to ensure its sources' anonymity. WikiLeaks' policy says:

...we operate a number of servers across multiple international jurisdictions and we we do not keep logs. Hence these logs can not be seized. Anonymization occurs early in the WikiLeaks network, long before information passes to our web servers. Without specialized global internet traffic analysis, multiple parts of our organisation must conspire with each other to strip submitters of their anonymity.

The Secret Service has a legal mandate to investigate computer crime, a task it shares with the FBI and other federal agencies, which the agency describes including "unauthorized access to protected computers" -- which Swartz is alleged to have been guilty of. It also investigates forgery, identity fraud, visa fraud, money laundering, food stamp fraud, wire fraud, and a host of other federal offenses.

It would not be unusual, in other words, for the Secret Service to be involved in a criminal probe of Swartz's alleged bulk downloading from the JSTOR database. Some other examples: The Secret Service, which is now part of the Department of Homeland Security, has investigated an artist who installed photo-taking software in Apple stores, a credit card theft ring, spyware installed on college campuses, and a possible theft of GOP candidate Mitt Romney's income tax returns.

The ambiguous WikiLeaks tweets have prompted speculation about what the group was trying to suggest. The Verge's Tim Carmody wrote that "the aim of these tweets could be to imply that the US Attorney's Office and Secret Service targeted Swartz in order to get at WikiLeaks, and that Swartz died still defending his contacts' anonymity. Taking that implied claim at face value would be irresponsible without more evidence." And blog emptywheel wrote that if true, the tweets "strongly indicate" that "the US government used the grand jury investigation into Aaron's JSTOR downloads as a premise to investigate WikiLeaks."

Until WikiLeaks elaborates on what it intended to say by highlighting the Secret Service's involvement, and provides supporting evidence, it will be difficult to draw any conclusions.

After confirming the authenticity of the tweets, WikiLeaks representative Hrafnsson asked that we contact him later with any further questions. We'll do that and let you know what we find out.

It seems the only thing that's now certain is that criticisms of, and speculation about, the government's handling of the Swartz-Jstor case isn't likely to die down overnight.

CNET's Declan McCullagh contributed to this report.

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Attack at Algeria Gas Plant Heralds New Risks for Energy Development

The siege by Islamic militants at a remote Sahara desert natural gas plant in Algeria this week signaled heightened dangers in the region for international oil companies, at a time when they have been expanding operations in Africa as one of the world's last energy frontiers. (See related story: "Pictures: Four New Offshore Drilling Frontiers.")

As BP, Norway's Statoil, Italy's Eni, and other companies evacuated personnel from Algeria, it was not immediately clear how widely the peril would spread in the wake of the hostage-taking at the sprawling In Amenas gas complex near the Libyan border.

Map by National Geographic

Algeria, the fourth-largest crude oil producer on the continent and a major exporter of natural gas and refined fuels, may not have been viewed as the most hospitable climate for foreign energy companies, but that was due to unfavorable financial terms, bureaucracy, and corruption. The energy facilities themselves appeared to be safe, with multiple layers of security provided both by the companies and by government forces, several experts said. (See related photos: "Oil States: Are They Stable? Why It Matters.")

"It is particularly striking not only because it hasn't happened before, but because it happened in Algeria, one of the stronger states in the region," says Hanan Amin-Salem, a senior manager at the industry consulting firm PFC Energy, who specializes in country risk. She noted that in the long civil war that gripped the country throughout the 1990s, there had never been an attack on Algeria's energy complex. But now, hazard has spread from weak surrounding states, as the assault on In Amenas was carried out in an apparent retaliation for a move by French forces against the Islamists who had taken over Timbuktu and other towns in neighboring Mali. (See related story: "Timbuktu Falls.")

"What you're really seeing is an intensification of the fundamental problem of weak states, and empowerment of heavily armed groups that are really well motivated and want to pursue a set of aims," said Amin-Salem. In PFC Energy's view, she says, risk has increased in Mauritania, Chad, and Niger—indeed, throughout Sahel, the belt that bisects North Africa, separating the Sahara in the north from the tropical forests further south.

On Thursday, the London-based corporate consulting firm Exclusive Analysis, which was recently acquired by the global consultancy IHS, sent an alert to clients warning that oil and gas facilities near the Libyan and Mauritanian borders and in Mauritania's Hodh Ech Chargui province were at "high risk" of attack by jihadis.

"A Hot Place to Drill"

The attack at In Amenas comes at a time of unprecedented growth for the oil industry in Africa. (See related gallery: "Pictures: The Year's Most Overlooked Energy Stories.") Forecasters expect that oil output throughout Africa will double by 2025, says Amy Myers Jaffe, executive director of the energy and sustainability program at the University of California, Davis, who has counted 20 rounds of bidding for new exploration at sites in Africa's six largest oil-producing states.

Oil and natural gas are a large part of the Algerian economy, accounting for 60 percent of government budget revenues, more than a third of GDP and more than 97 percent of its export earnings. But the nation's resources are seen as largely undeveloped, and Algeria has tried to attract new investment. Over the past year, the government has sought to reform the law to boost foreign companies' interests in their investments, although those efforts have foundered.

Technology has been one of the factors driving the opening up of Africa to deeper energy exploration. Offshore and deepwater drilling success in the Gulf of Mexico and Brazil led to prospecting now under way offshore in Ghana, Mozambique, and elsewhere. (See related story: "New Oil—And a Huge Challenge—for Ghana.") Jaffe says the Houston-based company Anadarko Petroleum has sought to transfer its success in "subsalt seismic" exploration technology, surveying reserves hidden beneath the hard salt layer at the bottom of the sea, to the equally challenging seismic exploration beneath the sands of the Sahara in Algeria, where it now has three oil and gas operations.

Africa also is seen as one of the few remaining oil-rich regions of the world where foreign oil companies can obtain production-sharing agreements with governments, contracts that allow them a share of the revenue from the barrels they produce, instead of more limited service contracts for work performed.

"You now have the technology to tap the resources more effectively, and the fiscal terms are going to be more attractive than elsewhere—you put these things together and it's been a hot place to drill," says Jaffe, who doesn't see the energy industry's interest in Africa waning, despite the increased terrorism risk. "What I think will happen in some of these countries is that the companies are going to reveal new securities systems and procedures they have to keep workers safe," she says. "I don't think they will abandon these countries."

This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.

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Algeria Hostage Crisis Over, One American Dead

After the Algerian military's final assault on terrorists holding hostages at a gas complex, the four-day hostage crisis is over, but apparently with additional loss of life among the foreign hostages.

One American, Fred Buttaccio of Texas, has been confirmed dead by the U.S. State Department. Two more U.S. hostages remain unaccounted for, with growing concern among U.S. officials that they did not survive.

But another American, Mark Cobb of Corpus Christi, Texas is now confirmed as safe. Sources close to his family say Cobb, who is a senior manager of the facility, is safe and reportedly sent a text message " I'm alive."

Inside Algerian Hostage Crisis, One American Dead Watch Video

American Hostages Escape From Algeria Terrorists Watch Video

In a statement, President Obama said, "Today, the thoughts and prayers of the American people are with the families of all those who were killed and injured in the terrorist attack in Algeria. The blame for this tragedy rests with the terrorists who carried it out, and the United States condemns their actions in the strongest possible terms. ... This attack is another reminder of the threat posed by al Qaeda and other violent extremist groups in North Africa."

According to Algerian state media, 32 militants are dead and a total of 23 hostages perished during the four-day siege of the In Amenas facility in the Sahara. The Algerian Interior Ministry also says 107 foreign nationals who worked at the facility for BP and other firms were rescued or escaped from the al Qaeda-linked terrorists who took over the BP joint venture facility on Wednesday.

The Japanese government says it fears "very grave" news, with multiple casualties among the 10 Japanese citizens working at the In Amenas gas plant.

Five British nationals and one U.K. resident are either deceased or unaccounted for in the country, according to British Foreign Minister William Hague. Hague also said that the Algerians have reported that they are still trying to clear boobytraps from the site.

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NASA planet-hunter is injured and resting

Lisa Grossman, physical sciences reporter

(Image: NASA/Kepler mission/Wendy Stenzel)

NASA's planet-hunting Kepler telescope has put its search for alien Earths on hold while it rests a stressed reaction wheel.

The injured wheel normally helps to control the telescope's orientation, keeping it pointed continuously at the same patch of sky. Kepler stares at the thousands of stars in its field of view to watch for the telltale blinks that occur when a planet crosses in front of its star. It has found nearly 3000 potential planets outside our solar system since its launch in 2009, transforming the field of exoplanet research and raising hopes of someday finding alien life.

When it launched, Kepler had four reaction wheels: three to control its motion along each axis, and one spare. But last July, one wheel stopped turning. If the spacecraft loses a second wheel, the mission is over.

So when another wheel started showing signs of elevated friction on 7 January, the team decided to play it safe. After rotating the spacecraft failed to fix the problem, NASA announced yesterday that they're placing Kepler in safe mode for 10 days to give the wheel a chance to recover.

The hope is that the lubricating oil that helps the wheel's ball bearings run smoothly around a track will redistribute itself during the rest period.

The telescope can't take any science data while in safe mode. But if the wheel recovers on its own, Kepler's extended mission will run until 2016, leaving it plenty of time to make up for the lost days.

"Kepler is a statistical mission," says Charlie Sobeck, Kepler's deputy project manager at NASA's Ames Research Centre in Mountain View, California. "In the long run, as long as we make the observations, it doesn't matter a lot when we make the observations."

Despite the high stakes, the team doesn't seem too worried.

"Each wheel has its own personality, and this particular wheel has been something of a free spirit," Sobeck says. "It's had elevated torques throughout the mission. This one is typical to what we've seen in the past, and if we had four good wheels we probably wouldn't have taken any action."

"I prefer to picture the spacecraft lounging at the shore of the cosmic ocean sipping a Mai Tai so that she'll be refreshed and rejuvenated for more discoveries," wrote Kepler co-investigator Natalie Batalha in an email.

The team will check up on the wheel on 27 January and return to doing science as soon as possible.

There are two exoplanet missions currently being considered for after Kepler is finished, says Doug Hudgins at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. One, TESS (Terrestrial Exoplanet Survey Satellite), would scan the entire sky for planets transiting the stars nearest to the sun. The other, FINESSE (Fast Infrared Exoplanet Spectroscopy Survey Explorer), would take spectra of planets as they passed in front of their stars as a way to probe their atmospheres.

The missions are being evaluated now, and NASA will probably select one this spring, Hudgins says. The winner will launch in 2017.

If Kepler goes down with its reaction wheel, that won't affect which mission wins, he adds. "That's a straight-up competition based on the merits of the two concept study reports."

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