French exoplanet mission ends after seven years

French officials have declared the end of a pioneering science mission after radiation zapped the satellite's instrument, rendering the craft unable to detect the signatures of rocky planets around other stars. The Convection, Rotation and Planetary Transits, or CoRoT, mission scanned the sky for six years, watching for planets orbiting stars with a sensitive 10.6-inch Corotel afocal telescope and a wide-field visible camera. But CoRoT's instrument stopped sending data in November 2012, and months of effort to recover the mission yielded no results. More

(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jun 26)