Mighty Eagle ascends successfully at the NASA/Marshall Space Flight Centre

Mighty Eagle ascends successfully at the NASA/Marshall Space Flight Centre

The final flight in the series of NASA’s latest tests for a robotic lander prototype have completed successfully at the Red Stone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama.

Data collected from this series of tests will be very helpful in designing and developing a new generation of small, smart and versatile robotic landers that would be capable of carrying out NASA’s exploratory missions on the surface of the moon and other
bodies in the solar system. NASA is also looking to use these robots on the asteroids and Mercury in the future.

The Robotic Lander Development Project at the NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center has been going on since early October and the prototype went through various outdoor manoeuvring tests.

The lander’s flight profile was steadily improved by the team from 3 feet to 30 feet till finally 100 feet.

During the 100-foot flight test, the lander autonomously flew for 30 seconds. The Mighty Eagle ascended to 100 feet, hovered and then demonstrated the equivalent of an autonomous landing on the lunar surface. The final maneuver simulated the required descent
approach by horizontally translating 30 feet while descending and landing on target. The test demonstrated the lander’s ability to maneuver to avoid hazards before performing a safe, controlled landing.

"The successful completion of the Mighty Eagle lander prototype provides a high level of confidence in our flight system design which significantly reduces cost and schedule," said Julie Bassler, Robotic Lander Development project manager at NASA’s Marshall
Space Flight Center in Huntsville. "Our combined NASA and contractor team went from the drawing board to successfully flight testing an autonomous, closed-loop, lander prototype system in less than two years," she said. "Mighty Eagle has performed well, demonstrating
precision ascents, descents and horizontal translation flights to prove the lander can control itself and land safely."

The three-legged prototype is 4 feet tall and 8 feet in diameter. It weighs exactly 700 pounds and runs on 90% hydrogen peroxide.

All commands are received from an onboard computer that uses 16 thrusters. The next phase of these tests is going to commence in Spring as the weather would be much favourable for an outdoor flight test during that time.

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Posted by Taimoor Tariq on Nov 23 2011. Filed under Sci-Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry