Sunday, April 17, 2005

DART vs Soyuz

DART vs Soyuz

NASA's DART - Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology, a $110 million vehicle intended to dock with a defunct military satellite, got within 90 meters (300 feet) of the target craft... and then ran out of fuel for its maneuvering thrusters. This was, unbelievably, NASA's first ever attempt at automated docking.

In nearly simultaneous news, the Soyuz TMA-6 vehicle completed an automated docking at the International Space Station's Pirs airlock module.

Hey NASA, wouldn't it be less expensive to just buy a Soyuz and reverse-engineer it? Those babies run about $20 million, and they have been doing automated docking for decades. Just a thought.

No comments: