Project Morpheus Free Flight 12

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Morpheus Completes Free Flight Test

A free-flight test of the Morpheus prototype lander was conducted April 30 at the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center using its recently installed autonomous landing and hazard avoidance technology (ALHAT) sensors.

Credit: NASA's Kennedy Space Center

Source: NASA/Kennedy - Multimedia

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Project Morpheus Free Flight 12

The multi-center, integrated Morpheus/ALHAT team successfully completed Free Flight 12 (FF12) at the KSC SLF on Wednesday, April 30, 2014, Bravo's 10th and ALHAT's 3rd free flight. The autonomous Bravo vehicle flew essentially the same pre-programmed trajectory as in FF11 (800+ ft height, 1300+ ft downrange), with one significant exception; Bravo closed the loop on hazard detection and flew to the ALHAT Hazard Detection System (HDS) identified safe site. The ALHAT HDS identified its primary safe landing site 1.4m (4.5ft) east of the pad center and the vehicle then targeted that location for landing.

FF12 was the 3rd free flight with ALHAT running in open-loop mode, using its sensors to calculate navigation solutions in real time during flight, though not yet actually navigating the vehicle. Bravo GNC flew the pre-planned trajectory, with the exception of targeting the HDS identified landing site.

Follow Morpheus on Twitter @MorpheusLander and on Facebook at Facebook.com/MorpheusLanded

Credit: NASA/Project Morpheus

Source: NASA/JSC - Morpheus Lander