145;Spacecraft crashed into rendezvous satellite146;

The 360-kg demonstration for autonomous rendezvous technology spacecraft was supposed to rendezvous with a defunct Pentagon satellite during a 24-hour period last year. Dart successfully located the target satellite orbiting 759 km above earth and moved within 90 metres of it. But problems arose when Dart tried to circle the satellite.

Investigators concluded that Dart spent too much fuel steering itself toward the satellite. The excessive firings of its engines were caused by inaccurate navigational data from its on-board computer.

Determining that it would not have enough reserve fuel to complete the mission, Dart began shutting down about 11 hours into the mission, but not before crashing into the satellite.Its main sensor mistakenly believed it was flying away from the satellite when it was actually moving toward it, investigators found.