Japanese 'Minerva' Robot Lost in Space

space_weasel writes "A little Japanese robot that was supposed to land on the surface of an asteroid has accidentally been flung into space by its mothership. New Scientist Space reports that the accident occurred as the data link with the spacecraft was being switched from an station in Japan to one in Australia. Mission controllers still plan to punch a hole in the asteroid and collect samples, which will be returned to Earth."

Comments

Re:That's why we need AI in space

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds good, but apparently doesn't work in practice. See DART. People who who work with space stuff are by necessity very VERY conservative since stuff costs so much (of course, things cost so much because everything is endlessly tested and evaluated which costs a small fortune for each piece of electronics on the vehicle, but that's a different story). But regardless, the managers who have to sign off to take the financial responsibility for a vehicle are going to be highly suspicious of an autonomous vehicle given the limited success we've had it in it so far.

Of course, I understand the russians have been doing it for years (Progress Cargo Spacecraft).

Disclaimer: IWARE (i *was* a rocket engineer)