We had a little extra delta V so....

[Rutabaga22]

Have there been any IRL missions that have had a little extra delta V so the mission did more than it was supposed to?

 

[NFUN]

New Horizons

[cubinator]

OSIRIS-REx

[insert_name]

2 hours ago, Rutabaga22 said:

Have there been any IRL missions that have had a little extra delta V so the mission did more than it was supposed to?

 

two of the Themis spacecraft ended up orbiting the moon instead of the earth

[Piscator]

If I remember correctly, it was considered to send Dawn on a fly-by mission to a third object in the asteroid belt, but in the end they decided to do some additional cool stuff around Ceres instead.

Also rovers regularly seem to find themselves with enough delta-Wheel left for an extended mission.

[DDE]

9 hours ago, Rutabaga22 said:

Have there been any IRL missions that have had a little extra delta V so the mission did more than it was supposed to?

 

Not precisely that, but Vostok-1's third stage cut out significantly later than it was meant to, resukting in an apogee 100 km above the target.

[kerbiloid]

Luna-1.

Successfully performed the evasive action _{(thanks to the launch engineer who entered "44°" instead of "42°", because was in hurry during the spaceport New Year corporative)}, and instead became the first artificial satellite of the Sun, due to the excessive speed.

It's still orbiting somewhere there, instead of the planned crash, so what can you call "a success story" if not this one.

[SunlitZelkova]

12 hours ago, Rutabaga22 said:

Have there been any IRL missions that have had a little extra delta V so the mission did more than it was supposed to?

 

Not only are there “unintentional” examples like those mentioned above, but sometimes this is built into the mission.

People know Hayabusa2 as an asteroid sample return mission and Chang’e 5 as a lunar sample return, but both were intended to operate after completing that task. Chang’e 5 has been hanging around Langrange points while Hayabusa2 will fly by another asteroid.

[DDE]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Cometary_Explorer

I'm still struggling to find the name of that one engineer who took his probe to a comet without authorization...

[cubinator]

6 hours ago, DDE said:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Cometary_Explorer

I'm still struggling to find the name of that one engineer who took his probe to a comet without authorization...

Oh that sounds like a fun story....

[Nuke]

On 7/1/2022 at 3:17 PM, Piscator said:

If I remember correctly, it was considered to send Dawn on a fly-by mission to a third object in the asteroid belt, but in the end they decided to do some additional cool stuff around Ceres instead.

Also rovers regularly seem to find themselves with enough delta-Wheel left for an extended mission.

even the mars helicopter found second wind without an "essential to flight" sensor.