DART Mission Ends Prematurely

Summary - (Apr 18, 2005) NASA's DART mission, which launched on Friday to test automated docking techniques, was prematurely shut down on Saturday when the spacecraft ran out of fuel. DART launched perfectly on board a Pegasus XL rocket and reached within 90 meters of its target, an inactive satellite already in orbit. It was supposed to make several close approaches to the satellite, but it didn't even have enough propellant for one pass. Mission controllers aborted the mission and fired its deorbit rockets to put it into a decaying orbit where it will burn up. An investigation team has been assigned to figure out what went wrong.

Universe Today - DART Mission Ends Prematurely