Morpheus Free Flight Lander

[Kruleworld]

look familiar? i'm sure we've all done this stuff in KSP

the 5th free flight of the Bravo vehicle, flew to 467 feet (142m), altitude and then traversed 637 feet (194m) in 30 seconds before landing in the hazard field.

[K^2]

Any specific goals behind this test? It all seems very straight forward. Are they working on a vehicle, engines, or guidance systems?

[Force21]

Looks like stable guidance system for just traversing to a proper landing site. Real life rocket tests are a lot simpler than what we do

[K^2]

Well, sure. But the guidance code for this can be written by a good grad student. I understand that even such basic tests are necessary, but I don't quite understand the reason behind posting the video here in its own topic, I guess. I'm kind of expecting some sort of innovation behind the project, even if it's not being demonstrated yet. (Early grasshopper tests weren't all that impressive either.) That's why I'm asking.

[Dust]

Actually, I think many of us are more familiar with this one:

[Camacha]

What surprises me is that the fire rescue response time is about 9 minutes. That is in the realm of normal response times, making me wonder whether they had firemen standing by or not.

[dharak1]

Did they say "call 911' around 21 seconds in? That must mean they had no one on standby. Even so it didn't matter because they had to wait some time for the explosions to pass.

[spudman2]

Yep, at about 21 seconds I heard the comms operator say "Stan, call 911" or something similar. Strange.

[Kryten]

I'm kind of expecting some sort of innovation behind the project, even if it's not being demonstrated yet. (Early grasshopper tests weren't all that impressive either.) That's why I'm asking.

The program's intended to demonstrate ALHAT guidance, but after what happened to the Alpha vehicle they're making sure the rest of the systems work properly first. They've completed basic vehicle tests and now have the ALHAT system integrated, but it's not planned to be used to actually guide the vehicle with until the flight after the next.

Edited February 17, 2014 by Kryten