Lander Technology Development

NASA’s Morpheus Project has successfully developed and tested a prototype planetary lander capable of vertical takeoff and landing, that is designed to serve as a testbed for advanced spacecraft technologies. The lander vehicle, propelled by a LOX/ LCH4 engine and sized to carry a 500kg payload to the lunar surface, provides a platform for bringing technologies from the laboratory into an integrated flight system at relatively low cost. Designed, developed, manufactured and operated in-house by engineers at Johnson Space Center, the initial flight test campaign began on-site at JSC less than one year after project start. After three years of testing, including two major upgrade periods, and recovery from a test crash that caused the loss of a vehicle, flight testing evolved to executing autonomous flights simulating a 500m lunar approach trajectory, hazard avoidance maneuvers, and precision landing, incorporating the Autonomous Landing and Hazard Avoidance (ALHAT) sensor suite. These free-flights were conducted at a simulated planetary landscape built at Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing