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Spacecraft Crashes Into Satellite

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the coming-or-going dept.

Juha-Matti Laurio writes "A robotic NASA spacecraft designed to rendezvous with an orbiting satellite instead crashed into its target. Unbeknownst to engineers at the time, DART's main sensor mistakenly believed it was flying away from the satellite when it was actually moving 5 feet per second toward it, investigators found."

2 of 343 comments (clear)

  1. ABC News is never the best choice by caryw · · Score: 4, Informative

    Offical NASA writeup available here: http://patriot.net/~cary/slashdot/dart_mishap.html

    Made from original PDF available here: http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/148072main_DART_mishap_ove rview.pdf

    (I hate PDF's for simple text things like this)

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    NoFluffNews.com - Currently in development but seeking journalists and editors

  2. Re:Oddly familiar by ObsessiveMathsFreak · · Score: 4, Informative

    I know what you mean - you'd have to teach him calculus before he'd understand.

    Not really. Just tell then it's the area under a curve, or the volume under a sheet. Even the most pretentious manager will be able to grasp that.

    --
    May the Maths Be with you!