Without astronauts to pilot them, NASA no longer needs manned landing modules like the one Buzz Aldrin flew during the Apollo mission. Instead, NASA is building a new generation of robotic spacecraft capable of setting down on alien worlds without human intervention.
The Mighty Eagle—nicknamed after the level-annihilating Angry Birds character—is a robotic tripod that stands a squat 4-feet tall by 8-feet wide, and weighs 700 pounds when fully laden with its supply of 180-proof hydrogen peroxide. It has been developed by researchers from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center working with the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL). The Mighty Eagle prototype relies on a sophisticated on-board computer to control the vehicle’s thrusters while navigation algorithms process real-time image data to find a suitable parking spot.
via Gizmodo
September 11, 2012
