A pivotal breakthrough
SpaceX believes a fully and rapidly reusable rocket is the pivotal breakthrough needed to substantially reduce the cost of space access. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket currently carries a list price of about $54 million. However, the cost of fuel for each flight is only around $200,000—about 0.4% of the total. The majority of the launch cost comes from building the rocket, which flies only once. Compare that to a commercial airliner. Each new plane costs about the same as Falcon 9, but can fly multiple times per day, and conduct tens of thousands of flights over its lifetime. Following the commercial model, a rapidly reusable space launch vehicle could reduce the cost of reaching Earth orbit by a hundredfold.
Grasshopper Reusability Test Program
(2012-2014)
SpaceX’s Grasshopper is a 10-story Vertical Takeoff Vertical Landing (VTVL) vehicle designed to test the technologies needed to return a rocket back to Earth intact. The largest rocket-powered VTVL ever flown, consists of a Falcon 9 first stage, a single Merlin 1D engine, four steel landing legs with hydraulic dampers, and a steel support structure.
While most rockets are designed to burn up on reentry, SpaceX rockets are designed not only to withstand reentry, but also to return to the launch pad for a vertical landing. The Grasshopper VTVL vehicle represents a critical step towards this goal.
Grasshopper's journey
Falcon 9 Landing Tests
SpaceX first announced in March 2013 that it would instrument and equip subsequent Falcon 9 first stages as controlled-descent test vehicles, able to propulsively decelerate towards a soft touchdown over the water surface. The company expected to begin these flight tests in 2013, with an attempt to return the vehicle to the launch site for a powered landing no earlier than mid-2014.
In the event, SpaceX did perform their first controlled-descent test flight in 2013 but continued the over-water testing well into 2015. Following analysis of telemetry data from the first controlled descent in September 2013, SpaceX announced that a large amount of new technology passed their real-life test objectives, and that coupled with the technology advancements made on the Grasshopper low-altitude landing demonstrator, they were now ready to test the full EDL process to recover the first stage. The rocket was "able to successfully transition from vacuum through hypersonic, through supersonic, through transonic, and light the engines all the way and control the stage all the way through [the atmosphere]".
This second EDL test took place during the third cargo resupply mission for NASA in April 2014. SpaceX attached landing legs to the first stage, decelerated the stage through atmospheric re-entry and attempted a simulated landing over water, following the separation of the second stage carrying the Dragon capsule to the ISS. The first stage was slowed down sufficiently to perform a soft touchdown over the Atlantic Ocean. SpaceX announced in February 2014 that they intended to continue over-water tests of the first stage until mastering precision control of the vehicle from hypersonic speed all the way through subsonic regimes.
Subsequent tests, starting with the CRS-5 mission in January 2015, attempted to land the first stage on an autonomous spaceport drone ship stationed off the Florida coastline or in the Pacific Ocean depending on launch site. The ships were used for six landing attempts, two of which succeeded in April and May 2016. Meanwhile, the first attempt to land on solid ground at Cape Canaveral occurred on December 21, 2015, and succeeded flawlessly.
Falcon 9's First Return to Earth
Falcon Heavy
Falcon Heavy is a partially reusable heavy-lift launch vehicle designed and manufactured by SpaceX. It is derived from the Falcon 9 vehicle and consists of a strengthened Falcon 9 first stage as the center core with two additional first stages as strap-on boosters. Falcon Heavy has the highest payload capacity of any currently operational launch vehicle, the second-highest capacity of any rocket ever to reach orbit, trailing the American Saturn V, and the third-highest capacity of any orbital-class rocket ever launched (behind the Saturn V and N1).
SpaceX conducted Falcon Heavy's maiden launch on February 6, 2018, at 3:45 p.m. EST (20:45 UTC). The rocket carried a Tesla Roadster belonging to SpaceX founder Elon Musk, as a dummy payload. The second Falcon Heavy launch occurred on April 11, 2019 and all three booster rockets successfully returned to earth.