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.'"

Comments

Re:Lessons learned?

[tsotha]

Certainly not complete success: the Russians almost lost MIR due to a problem with a Progress resupply spacraft in 1997.

That's not fair to the Russians. They had a working system and were testing a new video system which would have been cheaper to operate, had it worked out. If they'd stuck with the original system everything would have been fine.

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).

I don't see how that can actually work out. The people you have standing around at launch aren't there to guide the spacecraft. You could hire one retired porn star for that. All those guys are there in case something goes wrong. You'll still need them even if the computer controlls the flight, for the same reason.

Re:Lessons learned?

[DerekLyons]

"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.

Wrong. NASA asked Russia to ensure a continued supply of docking computers (they are manufactured in the Ukraine, who insists on being paid in hard currency). Russia was so hard up for docking computers during Shuttle/MIR they salvaged them from Progress before it undocked and begged NASA to carry them back on the Shuttle!

Russia decided to cheap it out and try a manual method instead. Then, they decided to perform the test with a crew that had already been in orbit for months, and whose training was questionable. Then, they made things worse by not outfitting the Progress with visual aids, and by not outfitting MIR with proper hardware (windows, cameras, viewing aids, rangefinding aids etc..), and by conducting a shitty approach against a bad background.

Just a few weeks ago, Russia announced they had set up a factory to produce KURS computers in Russia, from Russian components. (Their native TORU system having proved problematical.)