At NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Project Morpheus prototype lander is prepared for its move from a support building to a launch platform at the north end of the Shuttle Landing Facility. Testing of the prototype lander was performed at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston in preparation for tethered and free flight testing at Kennedy. The landing facility will provide the lander with the kind of field necessary for realistic testing, complete with rocks, craters and hazards to avoid. Morpheus utilizes an autonomous landing and hazard avoidance technology, or ALHAT, payload that will allow it to navigate to clear landing sites amidst rocks, craters and other hazards during its descent. Project Morpheus is being managed under the Advanced Exploration Systems, or AES, Division in NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate. The efforts in AES pioneer new approaches for rapidly developing prototype systems, demonstrating key capabilities and validating operational concepts for future human missions beyond Earth orbit.
<bdi><a href="https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117448892" class="extiw" title="d:Q117448892"><span title="NASA photographer">Kim Shiflett</span></a>
</bdi>
<ul><li><a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="https://images.nasa.gov/details/KSC-2013-4189">https://images.nasa.gov/details/KSC-2013-4189</a></li>
<li><bdo lang="en" dir="ltr" title="archived on 8 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160308085432/http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/detail.cfm?mediaid=67176">http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/detail.cfm?mediaid=67176 on the Wayback Machine</a></bdo></li>
<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/images/large/2013-4189.jpg">http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/images/large/2013-4189.jpg</a><sup class="noprint Inline-Template"><span style="white-space: nowrap;">[<span style="font-style:italic;"><span title="" class="plainlinks"><a class="external text" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Link_rot">dead link</a></span></span>]</span></sup></li></ul>