Holy shit, Giotto might be the ONLY deep space probe ESA ever launched on their own rocket, and that was in 1985. The absolute state.
>>14157872Too expensive for that, you mean. Falcon 9 has shown that if your rocket has excess power you just funnel it into mass ratio and get a faster transfer. DART doesn't need to fire its ion thrusters at all because the F9 second stage sent it on its intercept trajectory.
>>14157877No, Inspiration4's apogee actually beat the Hubble servicing mission record by a few kilometers.
