NASA Schedules Robotic Spacecraft Launch

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."

Comments

I'm not sure why this is so significant

[theolein]

At the moment, as far as I know, both the European ESA, with their ATV and the Russians, with their Progress do this same thing, i.e. autonomously meeting and docking with ships in orbit (the ISS mainly). Apart from that, I can't imagine that the technology is all that spectacular that NASA wasn't able to do this in the past. Or is this a case of NASA wasting money in trying to reinvent the wheel, so to speak?

Is there some aspect to this that really is new?

Re:Finally

[wingsofchai]

The Soyuz space capsules have three seats, one for a tourist and two for the crew. So no. You're thinking of Progress, which is unmanned, but still controlled by humans from the ground.