NASA’s new lander CRASHES AND BURNS--Curiosity’s potential sucessor, Morpheus, explodes ...

The Register ^ | 10th August 2012 00:43 GMT | By Simon Sharwood, APAC Editor

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Curiosity’s potential sucessor, Morpheus, explodes after hardware failure

Vid NASA’s prototype landing craft of the future, Morpheus, has crashed and burned in its latest launch test.

Morpheus is designed to become a general-purpose lander capable of setting down payloads wherever NASA wants them. The Moon, Mars and even asteroids are mentioned in its design brief.

The craft has undergone several tests when suspended on a tether beneath a crane while its engines get a workout. Those tests have gone well, but a new test of the lander flying all by itself went rather badly, as can be seen in the video below at about the 6:15 mark when it veers of scarily, hits the ground and then bursts into flame.

NASA says the cause of the crash was “a hardware component failure, which prevented it from maintaining stable flight.”

The agency also says this kind of fiery dénouement is to be expected from time to time, stating that:

Failures such as these were anticipated prior to the test and are part of the development process for any complex spaceflight hardware. What we learn from these tests will help us build the best possible system in the future.

NASA's prototype Morpheus lander, amid the kind of boulder-strewn terrain in which it is designed to land

Given that the best possible system, as of this week, is Curiosity, it’s hard to criticise that approach. If you still want to get narky with NASA, go play some Lunar Lander and see if you can do any better. ®

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Slow start on the video....finally got it going....crash is 6 minutes into the video.

Go to the website for the video.

click on the black screen and work on it....I had trouble initially getting it going.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

fyi

[montag813]

Maybe they should have named it “Neo” instead.

[Redleg Duke]

Growing up in the 50s, I got used to our rockets nearly always blowing up, but NASA kept on trying and we landed men on the moon and brought them home safely.

Today's Americans want instant gratification at little cost and they don't have the attention span to focus beyond any failed attempts.

Thanks to the socialist (RAT) takeover of the public schools, we are turning out drones. They have managed to suppress the entrepreneurial genes that our ancestors exploited to come to and succeed in the "New World".

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

After retirement ...tried teaching Math....very few were really into focusing on something that takes time.

[BigCinBigD]

Ad astra per aspera...

[Bikkuri]

Have you seen any of the failures from Russia or China (both are rare and hard to find) :p

At least we have the tests out in an area that wont normall put any populated areas in danger :^/

[buffaloguy]

That is what testing is for. Blowing stuff up so you can fix the design so that it doesn’t blow up.

Probably a good test in NASA’s eyes.

[COBOL2Java]

Exactly. Watch some of the early tests filmed by Wernher von Braun in the 50s. They tried again and again and again, learning more and more each time from every failure until they got it right.

Actually, some of the failures are kinda funny to watch. :0)

[LimitedPowers]

Nasa personnel don’t know how to count down from 10 to 0? The count went from 2 straight to 0 — no wonder the little ‘bot got confused! Fortunately, the stores of pressurized fuel looked to be SEVERAL YARDS away from the blast.

[dfwgator]

That’s why you build prototypes.

[holden]

Why couldn't they have kept the tether on it, and as it rose 10 feet or so, the crane could've kept it from contacting the ground? They could've just cut the engines and let it fall only the length of the tether. Damage, yes, but not catastrophe.

HF

[SuziQ]

Well, that’s what the testing phase is for; weed out the problems before you get to the point where they can’t be fixed.

[kitchen]

... go play some Lunar Lander ...

That game program came on my HP-67, c. 1976. Still got the card somewhere.

[Moonman62]

Another article said a prime objective of this lander is to use “green” fuels. No wonder it crashed.

[BenLurkin]

They named a lander after this guy?

[Lurker]

L

[LimitedPowers]

If a “prime objective” of a lander is to use fuel — of any sort — then somebody up the chain of command has some pretty twisted mission criteria.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Ernest. An ‘extra, extra’ ping to the APoD members. And the Perseid shower is coming up, people.

[rawcatslyentist]

Just reaching out to the mudslimes!

If only they could get it to decapitate.....