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Schedule including this lecture.
Goddard Space Flight Center Engineering Colloquium
Date: Monday, November 27, 2000
Launched on October 24, 1998, Deep Space 1 (DS1) is the first mission of NASA's New Millennium program, chartered to validate in space high-risk new technologies important for future space and Earth science programs. The advanced technology payload tested on DS1 comprises solar electric propulsion, solar concentrator arrays, autonomous on-board navigation and other autonomous systems, several telecommunications and microelectronics devices, and two low-mass integrated science instrument packages. The 12 technologies have been rigorously exercised so that subsequent flight projects will not have to incur the cost and risk of being the first users of these new capabilities.
Although the primary mission was planned to last 11 months, all of the technology experimenting was completed successfully by July 1999. The technology testing phase was followed by an extremely challenging encounter with asteroid Braille, with closest approach on July 29. Although the DS1 project was driven by the requirements of the technology validation and the encounter was not a required part of the mission, the event did present an opportunity to conduct solar system science; but such science was considered a "bonus". By the end of the Prime mission, DS1 had met or exceeded all of its mission success criteria.
DS1 is now more than half-way through an ambitious two-year extended mission to achieve the most thorough scientific investigation of a comet yet attempted. This very ambitious mission was made even more remarkable by the in-flight failure of DS1's sole star tracker, and subsequent recovery through new software and new operational procedures using the science camera. Prospects now look good for a close-up investigation of comet Borrelly in September 2001. The presentation will give an overview of DS1's important technology validations, the overall design and execution of the mission, the mid-space rescue from the star-tracker loss, and the plans and challenges of the much anticipated Borrelly encounter.
Ed Riedel joined the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Voyager Mission Navigation Team in 1978. He participated in the six planetary encounters of both Voyager spacecraft, and was the lead optical navigation engineer for the Neptune flyby. After leading the optical navigation efforts for the Galileo asteroid flybys and early Galilean tour, he became the DS1 Navigation Team chief. In that role, he directed the development and operation of a completely autonomous optical navigation system to guide the cruise, approach and flyby of DS1 past an asteroid and a comet. He is an author of over two dozen papers on navigation, optical navigation, and navigation-related image processing technology, and has received three NASA achievement and service medals for work during the Voyager, Galileo, and DS1 missions. When not working at JPL, Ed is an avid backpacker, and has spent many summers in the California high Sierra Nevada wilderness. He and his wife Melanie are horse enthusiasts as well, and both they and their horses are training in dressage. Ed is also a student of civilian naval architecture and studies the technology and history of passenger steamships from the mid 19th to the mid 20th centuries.
Colloquium Committee Sponsor: Dave Beyer
Engineering Colloquium home page: https://ecolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov