Moon lander prototype blows up in NASA test

 An unmanned moon lander being worked on smashed and exploded amid a motor test Thursday evening at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, the space office reported.

There were no wounds in the fizzled test of the lander, named "Morpheus." The art had experienced a few past activities in which it was dangled from a crane, however Thursday was to have been its first free flight.


Rather, the model rose a short separation, moved over and hammered into the ground. The art burst into flames instantly and blasted around after 30 seconds.

"The vehicle itself is lost," Jon Olansen, the Morpheus venture chief, told news people. "Be that as it may we are working as of now on assembling more information and data to comprehend what happened in the test and how we can gain from it and advance."

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Olansen said administrators have recouped memory gadgets from the wreckage and will be pulling the information off of them for intimations to the reason for the mischance.

"From ahead of schedule evidences, it appears to be inside our direction route control framework, appears to indicate fittings," Olansen said.

In a composed explanation, NASA said disappointment is "some piece of the improvement process for any mind boggling spaceflight fittings," and architects will gain from whatever brought on Thursday's accident.

The Morpheus lander is intended to convey up to 1,100 pounds of freight for a future moon mission. Its motors are powered incompletely by methane, which the organization says is simpler to handle and store than different charges, for example, fluid hydrogen or hydrazine.

Olansen said the space office has used about $7 million on the undertaking in excess of more than two years, and the test lander lost Thursday was "in the $500,000 class." Another one is right now under development at the Johnson Space Center in Houston and may be finished in two to three months.

"We need to verify that what we learn today gets connected to that next vehicle," he said.
source : cnn