A Brief History of Grasshopper, SpaceX’s Reusable Self-Landing Rocket
Just over a year ago, Space X began testing Grasshopper: A first stage booster rocket designed to land itself. Elon Musk’s private space firm calls it a Vertical Takeoff Vertical Landing (VTVL) vehicle, and they view it as an essential technology to reducing the cost of space travel.
Normally, rockets are launched, they deliver their payload into orbit—more often than not a satellite; sometimes humans—and they fall back down, never to be used again. At SpaceX, a single Falcon 9—their workhorse rocket which delivered their Dragon Capsule to the ISS—costs $53 million. With a VTVL system in place, the only major cost of a launch would be the fuel; only a cool $200,000 per mission.
This past month, SpaceX successfully completed its latest test mission: a record-high 2441 foot burn into the sky and a pinpoint landing back on the launch pad in McGregor, Texas.
Here’s a quick look back at Grasshopper’s progress over the past year.
A short test hop confirmed that the four steel legs, hydraulic dampers, and support structure could withstand stresses associated with landing.
The 10-story test vehicle rose to double its height in the air, hovered briefly, then placed itself back on the landing pad.
In addition to doubling the previous test record, Grasshopper hovered for approximately 34 seconds at max altitude, then landed back on the deck with unprecedented accuracy.
Just over a month later, Grasshopper triples it’s highest leap.
Grasshopper flies a bit higher on this test run, however a new sensor suite enables even more precision landings.
820 Feet with a 328 ft Lateral Movement: August 14, 2013
No new height records set this time, however Grasshopper performed a 328 foot lateral diversion—demonstrating the 10 story-tall vehicle is capable of handling aggressive turning maneuvers in search of the landing pad.
The latest test propelled Grasshopper to an all-time high.
