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#NASA began developing a #rocket #engine powered by liquid #methane or #LNG and liquid oxygen combined with a technology to allow a #lander to remotely detect safe landing zones without aid from the ground and target its landing to a safe location called #ALHAT.
This research helped Intuitive Machines’ land first #commercial #spacecraft on the #Moon.

Get a print or other item with this image at https://heronfox.pixels.com/featured/project-morpheus-lander-heron-and-fox.html

#ProjectMorpheus #IntuitiveMachines #IM1 #Odysseus

An indoor photograph of a rocket-powered lander. Two spherical tanks are in the center, covered by silvery foil. Metal struts connect the tanks and a platform on top of the tanks that is covered in electronics gear. The lander is inside a small hanger.

#NASA’s Project #Morpheus combined a #methane-fueled #rocket #testbed, as well as the autonomous navigation prototype #ALHAT. The man in blue on the right side of the frame is Chirold Epp, the Project Manager for the Autonomous Landing and Hazard Avoidance Technology. #ProjectMorpheus, #Chirold Epp, #Prototype, #Photography, #KennedySpaceCenter, #KCS.
Prints and other mercandise: https://heronfox.pixels.com/featured/project-morpheus-testbed-heron-and-fox.html

An indoor photograph of a vehicle with two spherical tanks clad in silver mylar and with electronics boxes on a shelf on top, and a rocket engine in the center. A white man in a blue shirt a jeans stands on its left side.

In order for #NASA to test #hardware and #software to allow an #interplanetary #spacecraft to select a landing site amid a field of hazards, it built a “#lunar #hazard field” was built at the end of the Shuttle Landing Facility, creating a #MoonScape in #Florida..
The Autonomous Landing and Hazard Avoidance Technology, ALHAT, was to use #LIDAR to scan the surface and identify safe landing zones and steer a landing spacecraft toward safety and away from danger.
It was placed on the #methane-burning Project #Morpheus vehicle meant to test methane propellants.
Unfortunate Morpheus exploded during testing before #ALHAT could get data, but the experiment was rebuilt. # AutonomousLandingAndHazardAvoidanceTechnology, #KennedySpaceCenter, #KSC, #ShuttleLandingFacility, #ProjectMorpheus, #Landscape, #LandscapePhotography, #Photography, #Photograph, #Photo
Buy a print: https://heronfox.pixels.com/featured/a-little-piece-of-the-moon-in-florida-heron-and-fox.html

A landscape photograph with a patch of gravel in the foreground, with “craters” built up with gravel, and small piles of larger rocks, giving way to the Florida native terrain not far off, with grass in the background and a pine forest on the horizon.
The sky is visible and light blue, with wispy white clouds.

Two groups of #NASA #engineers joined forces for #ProjectMorpheus. A vertical take off and landing #VTVL vehicle fueled by liquid #methane and liquid oxygen #LOX. Another team developed the #ALHAT technology, which would scan the #terrain as a the lander descended, and pick a safe landing site itself.
For testing, a simulated #lunar “hazard field” was made at the end of #KSC / Kennedy Space Centers’s #Shuttle Landing Facility.
#Morpheus was to tested in stages. At first, the vehicle would be tethered and make short vertical hops on the flat landing strip for the #SpaceShuttle. Then it would fly freely, and then freely further downrange but still onto the landing strip, then to a designated safe zone in the simulated #Moon terrain, while ALHAT scanned. Finally, there would be an all-up test and ALHAT would choose the landing site.
Morpheus exploded on its second free flight attempt.
A second vehicle was built and tested successfully.
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/a-little-piece-of-the-moon-in-florida-heron-and-fox.html

#ALHAT

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