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DART Succumbs to Fuel Problems
qw0ntum writes "The AP reports that NASA's experimental DART (Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology) spacecraft mission ended early when the craft's onboard computers detected a fuel-system problem. The craft, which was entirely computer-controlled, came within 300 feet of its target rendezvous target, a Pentagon satelite, before detecting the problem. Despite the failure, mission leaders 'called the mission a partial success because it demonstrated that an entirely computer-controlled craft could find a satellite in space.'"
The Russians do it by having an active system on both the spacecraft that is docking and the craft/satellite that is being docked to. It's much much easier to do it that way, what NASA was trying to do was have the spacecraft do it ALL by itself with absolutely no human intervention and no active docking systems on the targetted satellite.
Oooo does the truth hurt troll?
Enormous success? Certainly not complete success: the Russians almost lost MIR due to a problem with a Progress resupply spacraft in 1997.
An automated docking spacecraft is a simpler design than DART. DART navigated only by GPS, received no navigation information from the Earth after it launched, and then once the satellite was located it navigated within 300 feet visually. DART failed to navigate within 15 feet and do maneuvers around the satellite prior to going into a parking orbit due to a fuel issue. I think it is obvious that the method that DART was using is much more complicated than used on Progress supply ships (which can count on a beacon from the space station and additional information from the Earth--not to mention a manual override).
The difference between DART and Progress is that Progress requires ground and space support in order to dock. DART requires neither. In the future, if a successful DART 2 mission occurs, it may be possible to launch a spacecraft and forget about it until it docks or performs its mission (like a computer program). This could reduce costs for automated spacecraft (logisitics costs).
"The Progress/Mir accident was caused when Russia decided to save money by ditching the autopilot and having a human remotely dock Progress from Mir via a joystick remote control and looking out the window at it."
Wrong; NASA insisted that the Russians develop and test methods to dock manually because NASA didn't trust the Russian computers.
When they did it the NASA way, they had their first major accident in a docking maneuver.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.