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.