Images: NASA's Kepler to seek Earth-like planets

A squad of technicians at a Titusville, Fla., hazardous processing facility check out Kepler on February 3. While work on the spacecraft is all but completed, it didn't happen as quickly as planned. When the spacecraft takes off Friday, the launch will be nine months behind schedule, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office on a number of large-scale NASA projects. The GAO document, released Monday, also puts the Kepler project's total cost (as of December 2008) at $594.8 million, a nearly 20 percent overrun from the baseline cost of $497.5 million established for fiscal year 2007.

Photo by NASA/Tim Jacobs

Caption by Jonathan Skillings