A little spacecraft danced around a NASA satellite — and nailed every step

In low Earth orbit, a spacecraft called Vigoride-7 spent its mission sidling up to a NASA satellite, photographing it with off-the-shelf cameras, infrared sensors and LiDAR — the same kind of affordable components you'd find in a self-driving car — and proving a spacecraft can inspect and approach another one all by itself. Momentus, the company behind it, says the demonstration hit every objective under its $1.86 million SpaceWERX contract, and also tested a commercial communications terminal that kept the two craft chatting. Why it matters: autonomous rendezvous is the basic skill behind satellite servicing, in-orbit manufacturing — and one day, cleaning up space junk.