Joint plan to visit an asteroid

[PB666]

http://www.sci-news.com/space/science-aida-mission-asteroid-didymos-didymoon-03307.html

[fredinno]

You just got to love how NASA gets the simpler part of the mission.

[Kryten]

You just got to love how NASA gets the simpler part of the mission.

It's an accounting thing; NASA mission cost caps don't include the LV but do include instruments, so they get the high-energy vehicle with minimum instrumentation, whereas ESA cost caps don't include instruments (which are supplied separately by member states) so they get the heavily-instrumented orbiter.

[fredinno]

It's an accounting thing; NASA mission cost caps don't include the LV but do include instruments, so they get the high-energy vehicle with minimum instrumentation, whereas ESA cost caps don't include instruments (which are supplied separately by member states) so they get the heavily-instrumented orbiter.

That didn't matter anyways, as DART is launching on the smaller Minotaur V.

[sgt_flyer]

Well, ESA did get some useful infos on how to pull off this kind of mission from the rosetta mission. (Afterall, the lander will have some of the same jobs philae had - CONSERT like tandem instruments, etc.

And now that ESA knows roughly what didn't work on philae's landing systems (notably the harpoon nitrocellulose charges), they'll be able to refine their landers.