Satellites To Try Formation Flying on ISS

SoySauc writes "From a story on the New Scientist site: 'A soccer-ball-sized satellite will soon be floating aboard the International Space Station. Once joined by two others, it will help researchers test formation flying and autonomous rendezvous and docking maneuvers for future orbiting satellites.' NASA's DART mission was designed to do the same thing, but in 2005 shut itself down and bumped into the satellite it was only meant to approach."

Comments

Re:The Real Purpose...

[Anonymous Coward]

its about the telescopes: http://www.spacedaily.com/news/ngst-99e.html

Russians do it better

[Guillermito2]

Curiously, and despite a lot of success in many domains, NASA never fully mastered automated orbital rendez-vous, which is almost routine for USSR and then Russia space agencies, since almost 30 years (and is very important for keeping the International Space Station fridges and tanks full). Here for example we can read :

"The Soviet Union performed the first automated rendezvous in 1967 and since then, Russia has used fully automated systems to dock Soyuz and Progress spacecraft to its space stations."

Re:Why CO2 instead of O2?

[FooAtWFU]

Probably because carbon dioxide compresses very well (which is why you see it in soft drinks and compressed C02 cartridges in the terrestrial world). Also, oxygen is dangerously flammable.