Nasa's new Mars landing craft Morpheus bursts into flames on take-off

Nasa will have to go back to the drawing board after this. I think the title of the thread lifted off the Telegraph is a bit misleading. The lander could be used for our Moon and asteroids as well as any possible future landing on Mars.

The link includes a video of the accident. It just seemed to topple over on acceleration off the ground.

Nasa has enjoyed great success with its Curiosity landing craft in recent days but their plans to launch another space rover were brought down to earth with a fiery bump at the Kennedy Space Centre. During a so-called autonomous free-flight test, Nasa said the vehicle lifted off the ground successfully but "then experienced a hardware component failure, which prevented it from maintaining stable flight." No one was injured in the accident, which followed nearly a year of testing on Morpheus.

Nasa TV footage showed the space capsule engulfed almost totally in flames after the crash, with little left to salvage. The US space agency said engineers were looking into test data to determine the exact cause of Thursday's accident, but further details were not immediately available.

www.telegraph.co.uk...

More information on the lander can be found at this previous thread- www.abovetopsecret.com...

Perhaps the different type of fuel being tested had something to do with it?

The landing machine is powered by liquid oxygen and methane, which NASA says is a safer alternative to traditional spacecraft propellants

I don't know... me thinks budget cuts, heavier work load on those left working at NASA, constantly trying to reinvent the wheel with fewer and fewer dollars, the stress of wondering wether you'll have a job next year... maybe even a few disgruntled team members with a point to prove... throw in some cutting edge technology on a new launch vehicle with a new fuel...what do you get?

Burn, baby, burn... Disco Inferno... burn baby burn.

Already a thread. Link

reply to post by AlreadyGone


I don't think crashing and burning a prototype vehicle on purpose is likely to help their job chances, do you?

We have just got to keep trying, inventing, creating new ways to explore. Who knows what is out there, good or bad? It's human nature to want to know.

Wow. I think its safe to say someone just got fired .

Look at all that money being burned up there lol "Thats commin outta yer paycheck Johnson !"

I thought this was a lunar lander and not a mars lander.

reply to post by hp1229


Right now it is an Earth lander......On fire!!

So doesn't really seem to matter which one at the moment.....No?

reply to post by hp1229

It's not either one really. It's a test bed for new propulsion and autonomous control systems. At some point the technology may be used for planetary landings of small payloads but there are no such missions planned as yet.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by Chrisfishenstein
reply to post by hp1229

 

Right now it is an Earth lander......On fire!!
So doesn't really seem to matter which one at the moment.....No?

Well it might not be but I'm sure from an engineering persepctive, testing prototypes meant to land few hundred million miles away vs less than a million miles away are much diferent.

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by hp1229

 

It's not either one really. It's a test bed for new propulsion and autonomous control systems. At some point the technology may be used for planetary landings of small payloads but there are no such missions planned as yet.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

edit on 8/10/2012 by Phage because: (no reason given)

Oh ok. So basically its a propulsion and autonomous control tests. I'm sure they'll come back with a better platform from the lessons learned. Sh*t happens.