Landing platform Mighty Eagle gets ready to land on the asteroid

Robotic landing platform NASA Lander Prototype, which is the working title Mighty Eagle, which literally means "mighty eagle", has entered a new, more active phase of the trial.

The first flight of a series of new tests lander was made in early August. Now, however, began a more intensive testing of the device directly at the Center Marshall Space Flight Center, which is located in Huntsville, Alabama.

Since the last of the tests that were conducted in 2011, the team that is working on the project Mighty Eagle, was able to make significant progress and impressive results. In particular, the unit now has an intelligent control system fit that based on the information coming from the external privateer machine, it can make quite a soft landing, even in adverse weather conditions. At the same time she is landing so "soft" that the landing platform Mighty Eagle may well be engaged in delivery to virtually any of airless bodies, even the most fragile equipment.

As a fuel, three-legged platform uses 90% hydrogen peroxide. Using the on-board computer, which even in the field of space technology is "advanced", performed as a flight and descent to the surface of a given body. The device has a maneuverable, and landing engines. With these engines Mighty Eagle can not only carry out a vertical takeoff / landing, but also more and maneuver in order. that would be the most suitable one for landing. The platform itself has dimensions of 1.2 x 2, 4 meters, and fully fueled weighs about 317 pounds.

NASA experts suggest to use copies of this space platform that would deliver research tools or robots on the surface of the large asteroids before they will be landing people. In addition, this particular space platform, NASA experts plan to use during the landing on the moon's surface with the purpose to its colonization.

During the upcoming trial, the landing platform Mighty Eagle will need to double-autonomously hover at a height of 10 meters and double-hung to make the maximum for her weight at a height of 30 meters. Thus, the apparatus will be instructed to move in different directions in order to find an optimal surface for landing.