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NASA Schedules Robotic Spacecraft Launch

Posted by timothy on from the can-squeeze-you-in-next-thursday dept.

Nathan writes "NASA has finally set the launch date for their first robotic spacecraft, intended to "rendezvous in orbit with other satellites without any human intervention", to the 15th of April. The spacecraft, called "DART" as an acronym for "Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous", cost $110 million dollars and weighs 800 pounds."

7 of 107 comments (clear)

  1. ENOUGH by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny
    with the April Fools jokes already!

    ....oh, wait.

  2. rendezvous without human intervention? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sounds like a rocket scientist's night out.

  3. Cute. by DarkHelmet · · Score: 1, Funny

    With the delays, I was beginning to think that they'd be shooting boxes of Duke Nukem Forever into space along with the robots once it was time for launch.

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    /^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
  4. Re:Why not rescue HST then? by whathappenedtomonday · · Score: 5, Funny
    I wonder how many infrared telescopes build for the secret service are already monitoring us...

    You'd be surprised. Oh and please stop picking your nose and sit up straight. Sincerely, Department of Homeland Surveillance.

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    I hope I didn't brain my damage.
  5. NASA had to change the name by azaris · · Score: 4, Funny

    The original name was Lightweight Automated Weaponless Navigation Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology, but for some reason they shortened it to DART.

  6. Mistakes by bostonsoxfan · · Score: 2, Funny

    Well lets just hope they don't confuse meters and feet. We know what happens when NASA does that.

  7. If... by JustOK · · Score: 4, Funny

    If it was completely autonomous, wouldn't it set its own launch date?

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    rewriting history since 2109