After a series of delays, NASA has scheduled April 15 as the launch date for the first robotic spacecraft designed to rendezvous in orbit with other satellites without any human intervention, officials said.
If all goes as planned, the DART spacecraft – short for Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology – will soar into space off the California coast, catch up with an orbiting Pentagon satellite and manoeuvre around it, making close approaches and moving away.
“We’re prepared for launch,” launch director Omar Baez said yesterday during a televised news conference from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Centre in Huntsville, Alabama. “The next two weeks are crucial. There’s a lot of work that’s got to be done, but we’re getting there.”