20 years on, DART still a masterclass in how not to rendezvous in orbit

It is twenty years since NASA's DART mission collided with a satellite after depleting its fuel during a rendezvous attempt. The Demonstration for Autonomous Rendezvous Technology (DART) mission, not to be confused with the successful Double Asteroid Redirection Test operation, which smacked into the asteroid Dimorphos in 2023 …

[Doctor Syntax]

It sounds not so much a cautionary tale as a valuable one. As they say, "That's odd".

[Antron Argaiv]

Gemini in 1965?

It's been done.

I realise this was an unmanned attempt, and what's old is new again, but surely, orbital rendezvous is a solved problem?

[Pascal Monett]

Re: Gemini in 1965?

Yes, it is.

The article clearly states that the Russians solved it years ago.

Initially, when I began reading this article, I was confused. I was thinking that I was reading about a failed attempt this year, or maybe in 2024.

It took me a while to realize that I was reading about an "incident" that happened 20 years ago and the lessons had indeed been learned.

So, good to know, but this is more of an historical artifact than actual news.

[PRR]

a while to realize

> It took me a while to realize that I was reading about an "incident" that happened 20 years ago ...

And yet the first three lines start with that specific fact? Or have our fearless editors been mucking with headlines again?

20 years on, .....

Two decades have passed....

It is twenty years since....

[LogicGate]

Acronym failure

I blame the acronym.

By naming the project DART, there was no way there would not be a forceful impact in the end.

With a better acronym, the mission would have progressed perfectly. May I humbly suggest:

Efficient

Maneuvering

By

Remote

Autonomous

Coupling

Effector

[s. pam]

At least Dallas is safe!

I'm sure the boffins running DART (Dallas Area Rabid Transport) feel better seeing this news!

[Anonymous Coward]

"engineers assumed that the navigational data could never be that inaccurate."

This is the mechanical/electrical/control systems engineering equivalent of not sanitizing user input. It doesn't matter most of the time, and will work just fine. Unitil one day it doesn't work out, and you get a dramatic failure case.

[ecofeco]

I'd say mission accomplished

The thing with experiments of this nature: you learn something valuable one way or the other.

Trailblazing is like that. There's no previous map, see? No large body of knowledge. No easy look-up tables.

What's the old saying? "Space is hard."

It's VERY hard. And unforgiving. Cold and impersonal. And very, very dangerous.

[The Oncoming Scorn]

Crashing Satellites

V-GINY.

That is all.

[ComicalEngineer]

Need more practice...

After excessive amounts of time firstly programming (in BBC Basic, it was one of the exercises when I learned to program) and then playing a moon lander programme [Lunar Lander?] I bet I could have docked them.

Ditto a lot of time playing "Elite" and docuking my spaceship.