Kepler observed are roughly the same distance from the galactic center as the Solar System, and also close to the galactic plane. This fact is important if position in the galaxy is related to habitability, as suggested by the Rare Earth hypothesis. Orientation is 3-axis stabilised by sensing rotations using fine-guidance sensors located on the instrument focal plane (instead of rate sensing gyroscopes, e.g. as used on Hubble). and using reaction wheels and hydrazine thrusters to control the orientation. Operations Kepler was operated out of Boulder, Colorado, by the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) under contract to Ball Aerospace & Technologies. The spacecraft's solar array was rotated to face the Sun at the solstices and equinoxes, so as to optimize the amount of sunlight falling on the solar array and to keep the heat radiator pointing towards deep space. Together, LASP and Ball Aerospace control the spacecraft from a mission operations center located on the research campus of the University of Colorado. LASP performs essential mission planning and the initial collection and distribution of the science data. The mission's initial life-cycle cost was estimated at US$600 million, including funding for 3.5 years of operation. In 2012, NASA announced that the Kepler mission would be funded until 2016 at a cost of about $20 million per year. Communications NASA contacted the spacecraft using the X band communication link twice a week for command and status updates. Scientific data are downloaded once a month using the Ka band link at a maximum data transfer rate of approximately 550 kB/s. The high gain antenna is not steerable so data collection is interrupted for a day to reorient the whole spacecraft and the high gain antenna for communications to Earth. The Kepler space telescope conducted its own partial analysis on board and only transmitted scientific data deemed necessary to the mission in order to conserve bandwidth. Data management Science data telemetry collected during mission operations at LASP is sent for processing to the Kepler Data Management Center (DMC) which is located at the Space Telescope Science Institute on the campus of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. The science data telemetry is decoded and processed into uncalibrated FITS-format science data products by the DMC, which are then passed along to the Science Operations Center (SOC) at NASA Ames Research Center, for calibration and final processing. The SOC at NASA Ames Research Center