Even NASA makes mistakes: Morpheus crash and burn [video]

The Morpheus spacecraft had a tough time on its first free flight test, when a hardware component failure caused it to crash, burn and explode (twice, at 1:56 and 6:21), but as NASA explained, this is all part of the testing process and at least no one was hurt.

Morpheus is designed to carry 1,100 lbs of cargo and be able to refuel in space using, for example, methane produced from Martian or moon ice, or even the waste methane dumped by ISS. Perhaps even more exciting is that NASA believes it will also have most of the systems necessary to land on an asteroid if the opportunity arises.

For now, though, we’ll just hope they can get it off the ground successfully.