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NASA Morpheus Lander Test Ends In Explosion
First time accepted submitter DishpanMan writes "For every success story from NASA like Curiosity, there is a failure story, like today's Morpheus project test flight at Kennedy Space Center. The project is trying to build a low cost Moon and Asteroid lander using clean fuels on a shoestring budget. While tethered flight test were successful, today's actual flight test ended in a crash and a ball of fire followed by a spectacular explosion. Initial feedback points to hardware failure, but the investigation is still ongoing."
Waaaw, nice video of the crash! And immediately the action in the first 10 seconds of it. Well done!
Too bad for the money and work that went into it. But then again, this is what tests are for, this result helps progress forward as well.
Sometimes I hit the parking lot.
But then, they can name the next lander "Neo" and see if they get better results...
A "Failure" means loss of the mission. This is an unsuccessful test and is part of the process to ensure the hardware will work with a high degree of confidence so that the mission won't "fail" in its actual landing on the moon.
Something to learn from and move forwards on.
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
"This is the Captain. There's a little problem with our entry sequence; we may experience slight turbulence and then explode."
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
"5...4...3...2...0" BOOM!
"For every success story from NASA like Curiosity, there is a failure story"
Yes, and if you never try you'll never fail. Bravo for you.
Those of us who explore and push the boundaries do have failures, learn (if we live) and try again. Failure is the norm. Success is the wonderful exception.
I didn't know something so small could be *that* on fire.
It looks as though the thrust was really unbalanced; it just sort of wobbled in the air before keeling over. I shouldn't have laughed... but I did.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
There is another ( well actually there is a third one as well ) less publicized lander project at NASA, check out the flight videos at http://nasa.gov/roboticlander
Coincidentally, it just did a successful untethered test flight today, see http://twitter.com/nasamightyeagle
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That was kinda silly actually, and yes... a bad omen.
I swear they give me mod points to shut me up.
Congratulations everyone!
We have discovered a folding chair that will hold up while watching failed test flights.
Order a hundred and we can sell tickets for the next launch.
Next test: Goggles for the enjoying the view at the 2:00 and 6:20 mark.
"Kittens give Morbo gas!"
An unsuccessful test isn't "failure", it's "data".
sic transit gloria mundi
King Arthur: One, two, five!
Sir Galahad: Three sir!
King Arthur: THREE!
Why would anyone want to approach a burning spacecraft? Let the fuel burn out, then extinguish the flames of what's left for disposal.
I'm still waiting for the "failure" part.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
As always, the only honest answer is "Pick two."
Fire-fighters show up at 8:30 after crash. Is 8 minutes good for response time? It does seem awfully slow, especially considering that they had to have been on standby just in case of something like this happening.
Then another 7 minutes to put it out. Very stubborn fire.
Bob, I'm going to go ahead and ask you to move our helium tanks a little further away. And don't forget that laptop on the chair. That would be terrific, OK?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Well if they'd shown up immediately, then after 2:00 the second team would have been scraping firefighter parts off the scenery. And so, after 6:21, would the third team.
There's just no way to get a burning rocket fuel tank under control. Also no point; the craft is a loss anyway, and there's nothing else close enough to be in danger.
No.
First off, are you agreeing with the caption that this is a failure? It isn't it's testing to get data. So it blew up, no biggy it's data one more datum of information that says not all the kinks are worked out. Which brings us to
Point two. This isn't engineering, this is working with new designs that have not been completely tested, which by definition is science. You don't expect everything to go perfectly when you attempt something because you don't know what all the variables are and you are looking for information. If you weren't looking for information, then that would be engineering, and you wouldn't bother to test it to see if it would work. In which case, the boom would be on the moon not at a testing facility.
Furthermore, This is being built on a shoestring, ie low cost, budget, which means they aren't going to book supercomputer time, build a bunch of prototypes, build redundancy systems, etc. There is an understanding that there will be a greater chance of error in the system, but for the cost of a expensive 99% mission, they can send a lot more of these missions. Which means even if you have a few failures, you still have a better overall chance of success.
Using clean fuels is not sub-optimal, it's just a constraint on the system. Just like any other constraint, you deal with it and figure out what to do. Of course, removing a building with sledgehammers, explosives, cutting restraints, is harder than setting off a thermonuclear bomb, but I don't really consider the results suboptimal, just one of the constraints on the system that other buildings in the neighborhood should still be standing at the end of the project is just one of the constraints.
/* TODO: Spawn child process, interest child in technology, have child write a new sig */
Three words.
Mars Semi Direct. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WppRQQld10&feature=list_other&playnext=1&list=SP48ECECA63832ACC7
This is the first step to creating a return vehicle that can fuel itself from some stored Hydrogen and the CO2 in the Martian atmosphere.
Also, the ISS " produces – and dumps – enough methane waste gas each year to fill the Morpheus fuel tanks." http://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/exploration/morpheus/morpheus_test_stennis.html
So lets pretend that we've just completed writing this code, as opposed to having just completed sabotaging it -Altera
It's vs kerosene... Methane maintains the highest ratio of hydrogen to carbon, is a readily available hydrocarbon, and is safer and easier to store and transfer than LH2. If you're looking to do refueling in space, CH4 is easier to maintain for long periods of time than LH2, which has to be maintained at much lower temperatures.
Absolutely! We should be using much more beryllium in spacecraft manufacture, it is a much better material than aluminum. Never mind the fact that beryllium can be toxic to a sizable portion of the population. Persons involved in its mining and processing can be exposed to it.
It is my understanding that they want to get away from certain hypergolic fuels due to their very hazardous nature in fuel handling. The combustion products can range from pretty harmless to ammonia. I think the "green" side is on the fuel and its handling of it. The environment has people in it also, you know.
Most engineering involves compromise, why should NASA be exempt? If it isn't weight, it's money, if it isn't money, it's availability, etc. etc. That is why reactor vessels are stainless clad carbon steel and bridges require maintenance, instead of being constructed from corrosion resistant materials throughout. Somebody made the decision to compromise, often for good reason. Engineers are only trying to work within the constraints imposed by compromise.
No doubt the fire trucks were standing by a safe distance away, that 8 minute delay was so the operators could analyze the fire and ensure there weren't any follow-on explosions that could harm the firefights. The explosions at 1:58 and 6:27 are *exactly* why they won't start spraying on it immediately. Better to let the craft burn off its flammables safely on the pad and away from people than to send firefighters in to spray down an already burning bomb.
+1 Disagree
People will wonder why a moon lander has extra code in the control software allowing it to compensate for wind gusts.
WHOOSh...
And yet it took more than 8 minutes for the Fire truck to arrive at the rocket test site.
I wonder how long it would take if they didn't expect this sort of thing...
Rule one of firefighting: don't put anyone needlessly in harm's way. This was an unmanned test flight, with nobody in any imminent danger.
After the initial crash, the craft still had fuel and oxidant tanks on board that hadn't yet blown up. You don't move the fire crews in until the hazardous materials are accounted for. The crews were quite obviously sitting in their fire rig at a safe distance, waiting for the signal from the range safety officer to tell them that the rest of the fuel was gone. That explosion at the 6:20 mark was the signal they were waiting for. At 8:00 the camera zooms in as they examine the wreckage for any potential surprises. At about 8:17 you could hear the diesel motor of one of the trucks as it approached the pad. At 8:40 you can hear the report from "10-1" (I assume that was the range safety officer) at gate 7 that he had advised the fire crew that there were four pressurized tanks, they believed two were gone, but there were potentially still two tanks with pressure, and that the fire crews had proceeded downrange anyway.
The crews handled the situation exactly as they should have. They expected this sort of thing.
John
It wouldn't have taken quite so long if they had arrived from UP-WIND and knew how to AIM those foam-cannons they have strapped to their trucks. Seriously, it was like watching a 3 year old trying to hit the toilet bowl from the hallway!
Judging by the smoke flow, there was a pretty stiff breeze, and the lander crashed in the direction of the wind. Presumably the lander is not designed for these conditions, since there is no wind on the Moon or an asteroid. Could it be that they simply chose a bad day or location for the test?
Did you say "insightful" or "inciteful"?
Might it not have simply been caused by the wind? Judging by the smoke flow, there was a pretty stiff breeze, and the lander crashed in the direction it was blowing. I assume the thing is designed for the airless environment in which it is intended to operate, not under these conditions. Maybe they just chose a bad day for the test.
Did you say "insightful" or "inciteful"?
Why would they need to lift that much beer on the moon??
Drop a keg or two and it might fly.
This is how we get things done by learning.
If you call 911 from within Kennedy it is probably their own emergency control you are calling. Many facilities are set up like that. Then the internal 911 makes the decision about whether to handle it themselves or call the county emergency services.
Rocket fuel generally sits very close to it's oxidizer on the craft, no point in trying to put it out early. There were probably fifty people on the island where that happened, all of whom were wearing safety goggles and behind a barrier of some sort at a safe distance. It's not like dousing the fire ten minutes earlier would have somehow avoided the forest fires in Colorado.
moox. for a new generation.
Unless and until you take and pass at least a semester of control systems you don't speak the language. It's about 3.5 years into an EE program.
It's easy to say something should be a solved problem without knowing any details. Just from recollection control systems involved solving unsolvable equations by using engineering tricks on the math that would make a math majors head explode.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Looking through a few other Youtube videos of Morpheus tests, I found this video entitled " This is why we test". It looks very similar, except the tether kept it from flipping completely over and crashing.
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
But that's one yummy helping of spectacular engineering fail. And this coming from a guy who saw his rocket execute an un-prescribed loop-da-loop right out of the launcher, so I know the bitter taste of test failure on tape first hand. Not the same amount of money was involved in my case, though. Looks like this control system was determined to diverge as soon the legs stopped making contact. Tether saved us from a few failures in my day, but based on the history looks like they had done enough tethered testing and were ready to go free. Feel sorry for the team who had to get data the hard way. Hope you had telemetry, because there's nothing left to diagnose or debug.
"Now, I doubt any of you would prefer a rolled up newspaper as a weapon against a dictator or a criminal intruder."
2500 psi tanks as long as a semi trailer punctured by flying debris can ruin your whole day.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Helium is a nobel gas, it doesn't combine with anything. Thus, it won't burn.
You meant to say Helium is a noble gas.
If Alfred Nobel went to Taco Bell for lunch, then that may have caused "Nobel" gas.
Components Fail. Methods Fail. Programs Fail. Even Test Objectives Fail.
But the product of rocket testing is data. Only when you loose the data is the test a failure.
You might not like the answer or the cost of the test, or the inability to run more tests on the hardware, but if you have the data, you accomplished your mission.
Back in the day, I was the lead instrumentation engineer on one of NASA's test stands. Loosing the test article, and sometimes a portion of the test stand was just part of a day's work. But have a key instrument fail (and its back up) or have a recorder not work... well lets just say I don't remember those particular days fondly.
But one of my best memories was the day I was the first to hit the "pickle switch" as a rocket motor began to consume itself. I may have saved the facility. (Except several other people hit their's a fraction of a second later.) The owner of the rocket, on the other hand, wished for a few more seconds of data, rather than a more intact motor.