From the article, the cover was popped off a week ago - well after Kepler
had left Earth's gravity.  This would put the cover into solar orbit rather
than Earth orbit.  While junk orbiting the Earth is starting to mount up, I
suspect it is a bit early to start worrying about filling the whole of
Earth's orbit around the Sun with debris.

Barry

2009/4/18 Helge Moulding <[log in to unmask]>

>
> http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9131683
>
> No, Kepler is not space junk, but you'd think they'd design their missions
> so they wouldn't produce any extra junk:
>
> "The cover released and flew away exactly as we designed it to do," said
> Kepler project manager James Fanson, in a statement made last week.
>
> --
>  Helge Moulding
>  mailto:[log in to unmask]                        Just another guy
>  http://hmoulding.cjb.net/                        with a weird name
>



-- 
I am a Statistician.  One False move and you're a Statistic.