When NASA's Mars Rover curiosity began its entry, descent and landing sequence two weeks ago, the success of the mission hinged on what was know as 7 minutes of terror a period of landing. As far now that mission is successful and today NASA announced another successful landing.
The Mighty Eagle Lander- equipped with next generation automated rendezvous and capture technology that contains a camera which allows the vehicle to locate its target and to then use image processing software to generate control commands to guide it to rendezvous with the target, all without any human assistance.
Its tests were completed this week at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, the vehicle flew to an altitude of 30 feet.
"This is huge. we met our primary objective of this test series-getting vehicle to seek and find its target autonomously with high precision," said Mike Hannan, a control engineer in Marshall's Engineering Directorate.
"We're not directing the vehicle from the control room or any where. Simply our software is driving the vehicle to think for itself now. From here, we'll test the robustness of the software to fly higher and descend faster, expecting the lander to continue to seek and find target."
Specification: The 4-foot, 700-pound Mighty Eagle lander is a low-cost test bed prototype that NASA says will help in advance the technologies needed to develop a new generation of small affordable, smart, versatile robotic ladders capable of achieving scientific and exploration goals throughout the solar system.
As the program has advanced over past tow years, the team has completed more than 25 flights, with this week's test NASA says the vehicle will now serve as a aerial test platform for the demonstration of new algorithms and additional flight sensors.
 |
| Mighty Eagle:NASA |
The Mighty Eagle Lander- equipped with next generation automated rendezvous and capture technology that contains a camera which allows the vehicle to locate its target and to then use image processing software to generate control commands to guide it to rendezvous with the target, all without any human assistance.
Its tests were completed this week at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, the vehicle flew to an altitude of 30 feet.
"This is huge. we met our primary objective of this test series-getting vehicle to seek and find its target autonomously with high precision," said Mike Hannan, a control engineer in Marshall's Engineering Directorate.
"We're not directing the vehicle from the control room or any where. Simply our software is driving the vehicle to think for itself now. From here, we'll test the robustness of the software to fly higher and descend faster, expecting the lander to continue to seek and find target."
Specification: The 4-foot, 700-pound Mighty Eagle lander is a low-cost test bed prototype that NASA says will help in advance the technologies needed to develop a new generation of small affordable, smart, versatile robotic ladders capable of achieving scientific and exploration goals throughout the solar system.
As the program has advanced over past tow years, the team has completed more than 25 flights, with this week's test NASA says the vehicle will now serve as a aerial test platform for the demonstration of new algorithms and additional flight sensors.
No comments:
Post a Comment