NASA Launches Dart Spacecraft to Demonstrate Automated Rendezvous Capability

"Jacques van Oene" wrote in message
...
For more information about the DART mission, please visit:


http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/dart/main/index.html

This page contains a link to this article:

On Orbit Anomaly Ends DART Mission Early
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/da...ia/05-051.html

Sad really. Automated rendezvous and docking is a technology that NASA
really ought to have. The Russians first did this nearly 40 years ago (way
back in 1967):

Cosmos 186
http://www.friends-partners.org/part...s/cosos186.htm

Jeff
--
Remove icky phrase from email address to get a valid address.

On 4/16/05 10:51 AM, in article ,
"Jeff Findley" wrote:


"Jacques van Oene" wrote in message
...
For more information about the DART mission, please visit:


http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/dart/main/index.html

This page contains a link to this article:

On Orbit Anomaly Ends DART Mission Early
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/da...ia/05-051.html

Sad really. Automated rendezvous and docking is a technology that NASA
really ought to have. The Russians first did this nearly 40 years ago (way
back in 1967):



And NASA could have built the same in the mid-60's, had there been any
need. I know I worked a proposal (that went no where) for an automated
rendezvous/docking system for an umanned cargo vehicle in the mid-80's (want
to say, maybe 1988) and we came up with a working simulation using Agena
technology in about a week. It's not overly difficult - proof being that
even the Russians managed it with rudimentary technology in the 60's.

Except for the docking part, I believe that the ground could have done
99% of the rendezvous sequence even on Gemini.

Brett

Jeff Findley wrote:

This page contains a link to this article:

On Orbit Anomaly Ends DART Mission Early
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/da...ia/05-051.html


Orbital Sciences (OSC), who built DART, doesn't seem to
be getting it done lately. Two OSC boosters failed to
launch during missile defense tests recently, wasting
two target missiles. The first X-43 Hyper-X booster
went haywire for NASA. And the X-34 program costs
ballooned so much that NASA had to cancel the program.

For our $110 million spent on DART, we (the taxpayers)
probably got less than 6 hours of mission time. All
we may learn, it seems, is that bad control algorithms
cause propellant to deplete quickly.

- Ed Kyle

Ed Kyle wrote:
Orbital Sciences (OSC), who built DART, doesn't seem to
be getting it done lately. Two OSC boosters failed to
launch during missile defense tests recently, wasting
two target missiles. The first X-43 Hyper-X booster
went haywire for NASA. And the X-34 program costs
ballooned so much that NASA had to cancel the program.

While Orbital is guilty as charged on most counts, I think that laying
the X-34 debacle at their feet is a bit much. The MSFC-mandated
Fastrac engine was hugely behind schedule and under performance, and
the MCO/MPL failures prompted MSFC to completely change the
requirements a few months before flight was supposed to occur.

For our $110 million spent on DART, we (the taxpayers)
probably got less than 6 hours of mission time. All
we may learn, it seems, is that bad control algorithms
cause propellant to deplete quickly.

Perhaps XSS-11 will be more successful. And I'd assume that a DART
v1.1 would cost much less than $110M, so it's not like all of the
technology development went to waste. That said, it does seem like the
DART mission plan didn't have a whole lot of contingency margin -
"success oriented planning" strikes again, I see.

-jake

"Jake McGuire" wrote:

That said, it does seem like the
DART mission plan didn't have a whole lot of contingency margin -
"success oriented planning" strikes again, I see

Or maybe... something failed that couldn't be recovered from. (Which
out here in the real world does happen.)

But then, that would require something like actual thought as opposed
to knee-jerk slams.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

On 16 Apr 2005 16:52:08 -0700, in a place far, far away, "Ed Kyle"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

Jeff Findley wrote:

This page contains a link to this article:

On Orbit Anomaly Ends DART Mission Early
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/da...ia/05-051.html


Orbital Sciences (OSC), who built DART, doesn't seem to
be getting it done lately.

"Lately"?

"Ed Kyle" wrote in news:1113695527.988635.317100
@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com:

For our $110 million spent on DART, we (the taxpayers)
probably got less than 6 hours of mission time. All
we may learn, it seems, is that bad control algorithms
cause propellant to deplete quickly.

- Ed Kyle


What we got is a great oppertunity to learn from our mistakes. We should
be able to go through telemetry and find out exactaly what part of the
control loop caused the excess propellent depeltion, and fix it. That's
exactly the point of experiments. If DART was designed to get some payload
to a satellite it would have been a total loss of the $110 million...but
since it gave us something to learn from, I'd consider it worth it (though
not necissarily a success).

Hopefully they'll try again (for maybe $60 million or so?) and have more
success.

Tom

Jake McGuire wrote:
Ed Kyle wrote:

Perhaps XSS-11 will be more successful. And I'd assume that a DART
v1.1 would cost much less than $110M, so it's not like all of the
technology development went to waste. That said, it does seem like
the
DART mission plan didn't have a whole lot of contingency margin -
"success oriented planning" strikes again, I see.


According to Spaceflightnow reports, the XSS-11
mission is costing $80 million for a one year+
mission (including launch), $30 million less than
NASA's XSS-11 cost for a one day mission. Both
missions were designed to test rendezvous
techniques.

- Ed Kyle

Ed Kyle wrote:
Jake McGuire wrote:
Ed Kyle wrote:

Perhaps XSS-11 will be more successful. And I'd assume that a DART
v1.1 would cost much less than $110M, so it's not like all of the
technology development went to waste. That said, it does seem like
the
DART mission plan didn't have a whole lot of contingency margin -
"success oriented planning" strikes again, I see.


According to Spaceflightnow reports, the XSS-11
mission is costing $80 million for a one year+
mission (including launch), $30 million less than
NASA's XSS-11 cost for a one day mission. Both
missions were designed to test rendezvous
techniques.


One of the things I noticed in the launch video from
NASA Select was the shot of what appeared to be a
VIP viewing area (a control-room looking place with
tiered consoles, etc) that was chock full of observers
- lots of observers - who didn't appear to actually
be doing anything. (Since the mission was totally
automatic, there wouldn't have been anything for
them to do anyway). There must have been 50 or more
people there - where ever "there" was. I'm pretty
sure we (taxpayers) were paying the one or two days
salary and benefits it took for them to be there. We
paid for their flights, hotels, rental cars, meals,
etc. We may have even gotten stuck for a minibar tab
along the way. There was another, entirely separate
room where a smaller number of engineers/technicians
were looking at downlink, but of course they were
also merely "observers" in the sense that they had
no control over the spacecraft once launched. The
entire launch and mission sequence actually could
have been handled by just a few people.

When XSS-11 lifted off, there were no TV shots of
VIP viewing areas. That's not to say there weren't
any. ...

- Ed Kyle

Derek Lyons wrote:
That said, it does seem like the
DART mission plan didn't have a whole lot of contingency margin -
"success oriented planning" strikes again, I see

Or maybe... something failed that couldn't be recovered from.
(Which
out here in the real world does happen.)

But then, that would require something like actual thought as opposed
to knee-jerk slams.

Actual thought as opposed to knee-jerk slams? Into which category do
you place your last sentence?

I know that I have the benefit of hindsight, which makes my
editorializing of marginal utility. But if you look at the pre-launch
DART press releases, they talk up the inability of manual commanding.
Our timeline has clearly demonstrated the downside of this - any
non-automatically-recoverable problem causes loss of mission. But it's
not clear what the potential upside is. Would you have any more
confidence in an automated system that had been demonstrated to work
without requiring manual intervention as opposed to one that that had
been demonstrated to work without the ability for manual intervention?

The USAF and NASA are developing very similar technology at the same
time; the USAF has split the technology into several test missions
while NASA chose to lump a lot of it into one. Had things gone well,
they'd be in the same place, if things go poorly NASA's out of look.
This is what I meant by "success-oriented planning".

I suppose we'll find out what happened in a few months when the Mishap
Report comes out.

-jake