Morpheus Robot Flies As High As The Great Pyramid Before Deking Sideways And Touching Down

If it weren’t for that blue sky and those trees in behind, we’d be convinced that this little robot is landing on Mars. The Morpheus Lander once again proved how hard-core amazing these free flights are, as the automated robot soared 467 feet (142 meters) high Feb. 10 before jaunting sideways and making a bang-on-target landing.

“Today we went as high as the top of Great Pyramid of Giza,” the NASA Morpheus Lander Twitter feed said, adding that the team was enjoying “celebratory brownies” to mark the milestone. You can watch the whole video below (and we dare you not to gape during that sideways maneuver.)

The goal of Morpheus is to figure out landing technologies for other planets at a low cost, and lately the project has hit a series of literal highs as the robot made successful free flight after free flight. An earlier prototype crashed and burned in 2012, but the team implemented redesigns and has not lost a craft since.

On Feb. 14, Morpheus also completed a series of ground “hot fire” tests to gather data on how the engines are performing. On that day, the project’s Twitter feed assured followers that another free flight test would come “very soon.”