The newly discovered planets named Kepler-62e and -f. Scientists using NASA's Kepler telescope have found two distant planets that are in the right place and are the right size for potential life.AP Photo/Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

A faulty steering apparatus may bring an early end to NASAs Kepler space telescope, a $600 million tool in the space agencys quest for life elsewhere in the universe.

Kepler is the first NASA mission capable of finding Earth-size planets in or near the habitable zone, the range of distance from a star where the surface temperature of an orbiting planet might be suitable for liquid water. Launched in 2009, it has discovered thousands of such planets, including a pair just 1,200 light years away.

Called Kepler-62-e and Kepler-62-f, the news of their discovery came about one month ago. But yesterday, Keplers mission ran into trouble.

- John Grunsfeld, associate administrator, NASA's science mission directorate

Kepler is powered by four solar panels, and the spacecraft must execute a 90-degree roll every 3 months to reposition them toward the sun while keeping its eye precisely aimed. Kepler launched with four wheels to control that motion -- and one of them failed last year.

Yesterday, a second wheel appears to have failed as well, and the space telescope was placed in thruster-controlled safe mode yesterday, said NASA spokesman J.D. Harrington.

Unfortunately, Kepler isnt in a place where I can go up and rescue it, John Grunsfeld, associate administrator, science mission directorate at NASA said during a hastily arranged press conference Wednesday afternoon.

NASA talks to Kepler twice a week. Earlier this week, during one of those communications, NASA noticed that it was in safe mode, something that has happened several times during its mission already.

Our normal response to that is to command it back to wheels. We did that and we initially saw some movement of the wheel, explained Charles Sobeck, deputy project manager with Ames Research Center. That movement quickly ground to a halt, he said.

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NASA Spacecraft in Trouble