Barriers to the Development of the Kepler Mission

No one had ever proposed nor flown a spacecraft mission that could do automated photometry of many thousands of stars simultaneously with the 10 ppm photometric precision necessary to detect the transits of Earth-size planets. Consequently, several barriers needed to be overcome before the Kepler Mission concept was accepted by the Discovery Program review panel. To overcome these barriers it was necessary to; 1) demonstrate that an appropriate combination of detectors and data analysis techniques was available that had the precision necessary to detect transits of Earth-size planets, 2) prove that the variability of solar-like stars was likely to be sufficiently low that SNR of transits from Earth-size planets could be detected with high reliability, 3) demonstrate the automated observations of thousands of stars simultaneously and the automated analysis of the observations, 4) develop a lab test facility to demonstrate the 10ppm photometric precision necessary to find Earth-sized planets orbiting solar-like stars and do it in the presence of the noise expected from on-orbit operation including thermal variations, the presence of nearby stars, and the impact of energetic particles, 5) form a team of experienced, technically qualified people who agreed that the technique would work and that they would support the mission development, operation, and the analysis of the results. The approaches used to overcome these barriers will be presented.