Grasshopper Takes Its First Hop / 9-21-12

Very few rocket launches end with any kind of soft landing, let alone main boosters. Soft-landing a small payload, or in the case of the shuttle, a winged reentry vehicle, is the exception. (And yes, the Shuttle also soft-ish watered its SRBs underr chutes.) Retrorocket-soft-landing intact boosters from production launches fully upright was science fiction until four years ago. link The test platform was first hopped in 2012, only 8 years ago. ▶ this video (I'm not a Musk fanboi,I thought the powered landing was nuts, he proved me wrong.)

I upvoted this thinking it was a new test, but sadly this is an older result from two months ago. To make amends for upvoting without reading the article, here is the history of Grasshopper's public flights Date Altitude Duration Youtube 2012-09-21 1.8 m 3 seconds ▶ this video 2012-11-01 5.4 m 8 seconds link 2012-12-17 40 m 29 seconds link 2013-03-07 80 m 34 seconds link 2013-04-17 250 m 61 seconds link 2013-06-14 325 m 68 seconds link

This follows from the first test flight in late-September ▶ this video . > "Testing of Grasshopper continues, with the next big milestone -- a hover at roughly 100 feet -- expected in the next several months." This is preparation for the vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) rocket SpaceX wants to build link And the reason why they're doing this: link > But a fully reusable rocket could change the equation dramatically. Musk illustrated the point by citing SpaceX's Falcon 9, which costs between $50 million to $60 million per launch in its current configuration. > "But the cost of the fuel and oxygen and so forth is only about $200,000," Musk said."So obviously, if we can reuse the rocket, say, a thousand times, then that would make the capital cost of the rocket for launch only about $50,000."

This follows from the first test flight in late-September ▶ this video . > "Testing of Grasshopper continues, with the next big milestone -- a hover at roughly 100 feet -- expected in the next several months." This is preparation for the vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) rocket SpaceX wants to build link And the reason why they're doing this: link > But a fully reusable rocket could change the equation dramatically. Musk illustrated the point by citing SpaceX's Falcon 9, which costs between $50 million to $60 million per launch in its current configuration. > "But the cost of the fuel and oxygen and so forth is only about $200,000," Musk said."So obviously, if we can reuse the rocket, say, a thousand times, then that would make the capital cost of the rocket for launch only about $50,000." (Resubmission of link . I rarely resubmit, but this really is HN material and warrants quality discussion)