The American space agency, NASA, said that an unmanned spacecraft, guided by a computer, failed in its mission to connect to a satellite at an altitude of about 800 km, due to a malfunction in the fuel system.
Avi Blizovsky
The launch of the DART spacecraft on Friday from a plane in California
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A malfunction caused the mission of a computer-guided robotic spacecraft to end prematurely, after it came within 100 meters of an American military satellite. This is due to a malfunction that caused a fuel leak or an increased burning of it so that she did not have enough fuel to perform the task.
The spacecraft was able to track the satellite at a height of 760 kilometers above the Earth, without the assistance of astronauts or controllers from the ground, but it ended the tracking after a malfunction and was sent into an independent orbit around the Earth. NASA announced the night between Friday and Saturday.
"The mission achieved many of its goals," said NASA spokesman Steve Roy. "The scientists are looking at several possible reasons that caused the early retirement of the spacecraft." said.
NASA said that an investigation team was established to determine the cause. Mission manager Jim Snoddy and representatives from the Orbital Sciences company, which built the spacecraft weighing about 360 kg, have not responded so far.
The mission, which cost 110 million dollars and lasted 24 hours, was designed to prepare the infrastructure for future missions such as flying cargo to a space shuttle in orbit, including automatic attachment and making repairs of satellites in space.
The DART spacecraft, short for "Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology" (Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology) was launched from a plane on Friday morning. The mission was organized at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
DART was supposed to perform several automated tasks during its mission, including maneuvering around the Pentagon's satellite, approaching it, and then moving away. The satellite in question was launched in 1999 and carries special reflectors and uses a guidance system similar to that of DART.
Now the spaceship will circle the Earth until it burns up upon entering the atmosphere. The DART spacecraft was operated by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. A previous launch of the spacecraft last fall was canceled due to Technion malfunctions and severe weather.
They knew of malfunctions in space
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