On March 16, NASA conducted another test of its Morpheus lunar lander. The Morpheus lander, built by Armadillo Aerospace, is sized to land a 1,100-pound payload on the Moon. Morpheus is a scaled up version of the Pixel quad rocket which Armadillo built to compete for the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. Project Morpheus is based at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6x3JlSQViE&w=700]

Tests like these show how far Armadillo Aerospace has come. Founded by Doom video-game creator John Carmac, Armadillo Aerospace was originally staffed entirely by volunteers. Although the company is now run by paid employees, its development shows how citizen-science efforts can contribute to the development of rocketry and space technology. (Armadillo Aerospace was still run by volunteers when it won the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge.)

The video below shows an overview of previous Morpheus tests.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyEyYOEO3uk&w=700]

Written by Astro1 on March 17th, 2012 , Armadillo Aerospace, Rocketry, Space Exploration (General) Tags:

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