Mission not accomplished for NASA's self-docking DART spacecraft

AFP ^ | 04/16/05

[TigerLikesRooster]

Mission not accomplished for NASA's self-docking DART spacecraft

Sat Apr 16, 1:05 PM ET

	Science - AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The mission of NASA's automated, self-docking DART spacecraft -- considered a step toward lunar and Mars missions -- has failed, the US space agency said.

The DART spacecraft is on its way to catch up with the MUBLCOM satellite. The mission of NASA's automated, self-docking DART spacecraft -- considered a step toward lunar and Mars missions -- has failed, the US space agency said.(NASA)

DART, short for Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology, was launched Friday from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California with a boost from a Pegasus rocket but suffered a glitch in orbit that forced NASA to scrap the mission.

DART is designed to find another spacecraft in space, rendezvous and dock, without human guidance. The space agency wants to test the craft as a cost-cutting measure in President George W. Bush's initiative to return humans to the moon and pursue manned exploration of Mars.

"After a successful rendezvous, acquisition of the target spacecraft and approach to within approximately 300 feet (91 meters), DART placed itself in the retirement phase before completing all planned proximity operations, ending the mission prematurely," NASA said in a statement Saturday.

NASA said it was "convening a mishap investigation board to determine the reason for the DART spacecraft anomaly."

[TigerLikesRooster]

I hope it succeeds next time.

[MikefromOhio]

ping

[KevinDavis]

I don't think it would have failed it was a human mission. Try again...

[wolfpat]

Looks to me like proof that you need to send people.

[cripplecreek]

It did find it's target. That's limited success.

[Arkie2]

It retired before it accomplished the mission? Must be a civil servant union member.

[NJ_gent]

"Looks to me like proof that you need to send people."

On some missions, yes, you really do need to send people. On other missions (Voyager, Voyager II, Galileo, etc), you either cannot or would not want to send humans. In the case of DART, it doesn't necessarily replace humans for anything. What it can do is free up the humans for more important tasks that cannot be done by computers while the computers handle the more mundane stuff like docking.

If the ship can fly itself and we can put humans on it safely, they'll have a whole lot more time to do the really interesting and important stuff that astronaughts do.

[robertpaulsen]

"DART, short for Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology"

Well, now they're going to have to rename it -- it's now a Failure of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Re #9

We have a winner!!!:-)

[orionblamblam]

> DART is designed to find another spacecraft in space, rendezvous and dock, without human guidance.

Well, well. Maybe there shoulda been a human in the loop...

[Drammach]

Arkie2: "Must be a civil servant union member."

O'blam: "Maybe there shoulda been a human in the loop..."

Right on both counts..
I would bet on it.. A government programmer... Somebody punched in the wrong code.. or forgot to take out the "end sequence" from a subroutine after it was finally written, tested and debugged..

Rather than go to the next subroutine, it went to "end program"..

[Jabba the Nutt]

LOL! Maybe DART ran out of gas unlike FART.;^)

[Nicholas Conradin]

stuff that astronaughts do

Freudian slip or editorial comment?

[orionblamblam]

> What it can do is free up the humans for more important tasks that cannot be done by computers while the computers handle the more mundane stuff like docking.

You used Voyager and Galileo as examples. Neither of these missions required docking operations. Missiosn to the outer planets are not going to require docking operations *until* we send humans there. And any manned mission requiring docking... docking WILL be the most important task going on at the time. You would not want to have a docking operation handled entirely by computer with no human control abaility, anymore than you're want auto-landing manned aircraft with no capability for the pilot to take over.

[NJ_gent]

More like early morning post with a half-working brain. :)

[NJ_gent]

"Neither of these missions required docking operations."

And their operational capabilities were limited by the fact that whatever they launched with is what they've got to work with. Let me ask you this: how about if Hubble were a far more modular satellite, with entire sections that could be replaced. What if one of those sections developed a major, crippling problem. What if we could fairly easily and relatively cheaply launch an automated craft with a robotic arm which could dock with Hubble and replace the defective parts without risk to human lives? Would a mission like that not be worth it? How about if two unmanned spacecraft were launched and one suddenly lost power? What if we could have the other one dock with it and supply it with power long enough to diagnose and solve the problem? We would then have saved millions in what would have formerly been a scrapped mission. Better yet, what would happen if one of the space shuttles, manned, suddenly lost power? By the time you get the other shuttle up there to repair it, are your astronauts still alive? Or have they run out of oxygen, heat, or some other vital resource dependent on power? How about bringing over some other craft already in space to supply power to the shuttle until the shuttle on standby can be prepped and launched?

Other than the relatively minor costs associated with developing automated docking, I just do not see any drawbacks whatsoever.

"And any manned mission requiring docking... docking WILL be the most important task going on at the time. You would not want to have a docking operation handled entirely by computer with no human control abaility, anymore than you're want auto-landing manned aircraft with no capability for the pilot to take over."

Don't you watch any sci-fi? There's always a manual override. :)

[NJ_gent]

"Rather than go to the next subroutine, it went to "end program".."

Actually, the craft detected a fuel problem. It didn't simply shut down as implied, but rather shut down as per its programming when conditions determined to be mission-fatal were detected onboard the craft. Now, whether the detection was wrong or whether some other problem brought about the fuel issue, that's for the investigation team to determine.

[Captain Rhino]

"After a successful rendezvous, acquisition of the target spacecraft and approach to within approximately 300 feet (91 meters), DART placed itself in the retirement phase before completing all planned proximity operations, ending the mission prematurely," NASA said in a statement Saturday.

Agree. Sounds like it was never really intended to dock with the satellite. Probably just approach closely, and orient on some specific portion of the satellite as a simulation of the docking port, then retire. Probably retired as a default action when it couldn't identify or lock onto the smaller target object within the larger satellite object image.

Control program software seems to have done what you would expect it to do. However, if you are going to call it autonomous, it has to be able to solve the close up image analysis problem(s) (using a multitude of different strategies/approaches) and successfully dock. The image processing hardware and software crew have got a lot of analysis to do.

[RightWhale]

DART placed itself in the retirement phase before completing all planned proximity operations

Sometimes an offer of early retirement can be accepted, it depends on the specific circumstances. They said this ship was autonomous and fairly smart.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Re #19

They want it to be an intelligent slave. However, it may be more than that and have made a political decision.:-)