SpaceX develops vertical take-off and landing reusable rocket

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Amazing video below

Grasshopper is an experimental technology-demonstrator, suborbital reusable launch vehicle (RLV), a vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) rocket, built to support development and test of a subset of the technologies required for the SpaceX reusable rocket launching system. Grasshopper was announced in 2011 and began low-altitude, low-velocity hover/landing testing in 2012. The initial Grasshopper test vehicle—the 32 metres (106 ft)-tall Grasshopper v1.0—made eight successful test flights in 2012 and 2013 before being retired. A second Grasshopper test vehicle—the larger and more capable Grasshoper v1.1—is currently being built and will be used for testing at higher altitudes and supersonic speeds.

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Grasshopper is being developed and tested by Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) in order to assist development of the reusable Falcon 9 and reusable Falcon Heavy rockets, which will require vertical landings of the near-empty Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy first-stage booster tanks and engine assemblies.

Grasshopper is one element of the multi-element, incremental SpaceX reusable rocket launching system test program, a program that includes Grasshopper testing both in low-altitude, low-velocity situations at the SpaceX Texas test site and high-altitude, mid-velocity testing of the larger second-generation Grasshopper test vehicle with all nine engines at Spaceport America in New Mexico, as well as high-altitude, high-speed controlled-descent tests of post-mission (spent) Falcon 9 booster stages on Falcon 9 missions beginning in September 2013.

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This is not computer graphics, this is real!

NBC News

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Oct. 12, 2013 at 5:35 PM ET

A hexacopter captures the Oct. 7 flight of SpaceX’s Grasshopper rocket.

SpaceX’s Grasshopper rocket prototype made another record-setting vertical takeoff and landing this week from the California-based company’s test pad near McGregor, Texas. But what’s really cool about Oct. 7’s half-mile (744-meter) ascent and controlled descent is the amazing view from a remote-controlled hexacopter that captured the video clip.

This is what a rocket launch and landing is supposed to look like.

The 10-story craft is testing the technologies that would be required to have the first stage of a rocket fly itself back to base after launch. The Grasshopper consists of a Falcon 9 first-stage tank, Merlin 1D rocket engine, landing legs and a steel support structure.

Last month’s launch of a Falcon 9 v1.1 rocket provided a real-world test of rocket reusability, and although the test wasn’t completely successful, it’s only a matter of time before SpaceX gets it right. Then everything changes.

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