Demonstrating Robotic Capabilities

NASA officials announced Friday that the DART spacecraft will launch on April 15th. The DART Spacecraft is an unmanned vehicle for the Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology. It is designed to perform maneuvering tasks without human assistance.

"We're prepared for launch," launch director Omar Baez said Friday during a news conference from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. "The next two weeks are crucial. There's a lot of work that's got to be done, but we're getting there."

A November launch was scrubbed to work out some technical issues. The California launch will send the DART into orbit to maneuver around an orbiting DOD satellite, the Multiple Paths, Beyond-Line-of-Sight Communications (MUBLCOM) satellite that was launched in May 1999. The MUBLCOM satellite was built with optical retroreflectors designed for future use with a video guidance system such as the Advanced Video Guidance Sensor (AVGS) onboard DART.

The mission is planned for the DART to make multiple approaches to the MUBLCOM satellite, maneuver around it, and eventually, to fly away. All of this should be accomplished with no human intervention. This technology demonstration could lead to future robotic missions including unmanned resupply missions to the international space station, and docking and repair of spacecraft in orbit.

"The goal of DART is to basically have an autopilot," said Jim Snoddy, DART project manager at Marshall. "If you don't have astronauts, you have a way to totally turn it over to an autonomous system."

DART will be launched on a Pegausus XL rocket that will be dropped from an L-1011 at approximately 40,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean. The 51,300 pound launch vehicle will propel the 800 pound DART into a polar orbit.

Key to the success of the mission are the Advanced Video Guidance Sensor (AVGS) and the Autonomous Rendezvous and Proximity Operations (ARPO) software. The system can handle faults, or challenges by skipping events, changing the order of operations, or even replanning the mission literally "on the fly."

FMI: http://www11.msfc.nasa.gov/news/dart/