Asia-Pacific

New lunar lander test sparks grass fire at NASA

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-06-02 09:43

HOUSTON - A large grass fire was burning on a NASA property in Houston in the US State of Texas Wednesday, according to local media reports.

A number of fire crews were on the scene and the fire, burning near the intersection of NASA Parkway and Saturn Lane, on the Johnson Space Center property in Houston, appeared to be under control, ABC said.

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A large area of grass has been blackened by the blaze that broke out around 3 pm local time Wednesday, and several hay bales have burned as well. No structures have been affected, according to the reports.

No injures have been reported.  

KHOU, the CBS affiliate television station for the Houston area, quoted a NASA spokesperson as reporting that the fire was sparked while engineers were testing new spacecraft technology called the Morpheus lander.

The Morpheus is the first new lunar lander made by NASA in 40 years and can fly up to a mile upward and horizontally in the air. This kind of testing has sparked fires before, but crews had been able to put the fires out right away, the report said.

By 4 pm, fire crews had created a line to keep the fire from spreading, the report said.