Aug 21 2003
From The Space Library
NASA announced that the Demonstration for Autonomous Rendezvous Technology (DART) spacecraft had completed the lengthy design-certification review for the Orbital Space Plane (OSP) program, verifying the craft's safety, performance, and functional requirements. The DART team, based at NASA's MSFC, planned to demonstrate the vehicle without a human pilot in 2004, launching it on a Pegasus rocket dropped from an L-101 1 jet. At 40,000 feet (12,192 meters) over the Pacific Ocean, the Pegasus rocket and the DART craft would separate, and DART would travel from a parking orbit to maneuver close to a target satellite or to rendezvous with it. The demonstration would require 24 hours. DART was the first of three flight-testing demonstrators: Boeing Expendable Launch Systems was developing the X-37 flight demonstrator, and Lockheed Martin Corporation was developing the launchpad-abort demonstrator. DART was NASA's first completely computer-controlled, rendezvous-capable spacecraft. (NASA, “Space Flight Demonstrator Completes Design Certification,” news release 03-274, 21 August 2003, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2003/aug/HQ_03274_dart_design.html (accessed 29 December 2008).
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