Will Only Release Summary Of Findings

NASA announced last week it will only release a summary of its report outlining when and why things went wrong with a failed orbital rendezvous of two spacecraft last year, saying the information contained in the full report is too sensitive for public release.

That summary is expected to shed some -- but maybe not all -- light on why the Demonstration for Autonomous Rendezvous Technology, or DART, spacecraft failed in its automated rendezvous with an orbiting Pentagon satellite last April.

As was reported last year in Aero-News, scientists lost contact with the DART about halfway into the spacecraft's 24-hour mission to rendezvous with the satellite, and failed to complete several automated tasks including flying a close approach to the Pentagon satellite.

NASA initially said DART suffered from a fuel problem, although no leak was detected. The probe also detected errors with its onboard navigational systems.

Had the $110 million DART project been successful, it would have been the first completely autonomous rendezvous and docking between spacecraft -- a mission scientists hoped would pave the way for robots being able to perform more tasks once thought to be possible only with human oversight.

FMI: www.nasa.gov