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SpaceX attempted to land the first stage of the [[Falcon 1#Reusability|Falcon 1 by parachute]], but the stage did not survive atmosphere re-entry. They continued to experiment unsuccessfully with parachutes on the earliest [[Falcon 9]] flights after 2010. SpaceX subsequently switched to developing a [[Retropropulsion|powered descent]] [[VTVL|landing]] system.<ref name=nsf20170330>{{cite news |last=Graham |first=William |url=https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2017/03/spacex-historic-falcon-9-re-flight-ses-10/ |title=SpaceX conducts historic Falcon 9 re-flight with SES-10 – Lands booster again |work=[[NASASpaceFlight.com]] |date=2017-03-30 |access-date=2017-05-27 |quote='The earliest Falcon 9 launches carried parachutes which were to have been used to recover the first stage. However, this was abandoned due to the stage disintegrating during reentry, before the parachutes could be deployed. Instead, SpaceX began to investigate using the stage’s engines to make a powered descent and landing. Alongside this, an improved Falcon 9 vehicle, the Falcon 9 v1.1, was developed.' |archive-date=May 17, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170517125334/https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2017/03/spacex-historic-falcon-9-re-flight-ses-10/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
A description of the reusable launch system was outlined in September 2011. SpaceX said it would attempt to develop powered descent and recovery of both Falcon 9 stages{{mdash}}a fully vertical takeoff, vertical landing ([[VTVL]]) rocket. The company produced an animated video of the first stage returning tail-first for a powered descent and the second stage with a heat shield, reentering head first before rotating for a powered descent.<ref name="wp20110929">{{cite video |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkvLQdzZRFo |title=SpaceX Chief Details Reusable Rocket |date=September 29, 2011 |language=en-us |access-date=April 9, 2016 |via=Associated Press |work=Washington Post}}</ref><ref name="sdc20110930">{{cite news |url=http://www.space.com/13140-spacex-private-reusable-rocket-elon-musk.html |title=SpaceX Unveils Plan for World's First Fully Reusable Rocket |newspaper=Space.com |last=Wall |first=Mike |date=September 30, 2011 |access-date=October 11, 2011 |archive-date=October 10, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111010191516/http://www.space.com/13140-spacex-private-reusable-rocket-elon-musk.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="SpaceX Video from SpaceX. com">{{cite web |url=http://www.spacex.com/assets/video/spacex-rtls-green.mp4 |title=Falcon 9 Return to Launch Site |format=video |work=SpaceX.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111011221641/http://www.spacex.com/assets/video/spacex-rtls-green.mp4 |archive-date=October 11, 2011}}</ref><ref name="npc20110929">{{cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrVD3tcVWTY |title=National Press Club: The Future of Human Spaceflight |medium=video |work=NPC video repository |date=September 29, 2011 |people=Mark Hamrick, Elon Musk |publisher=National Press Club |quote=@18:15 "It is a very tough engineering problem—and it wasn't something that I thought, wasn't sure it could be solved for a while. But then, just relatively recently, in the last 12 months or so, I've come to the conclusion that it can be solved. And SpaceX is going to try to do it. Now, we could fail. I am not saying we are certain of success here, but we are going to try to do it. And we have a design that, on paper, doing the calculations, doing the simulations, it does work. Now we need to make sure that those simulations and reality agree, because generally when they don't, reality wins. So that's to be determined."}}</ref><!-- ←the original source was http://www.c-span.org/Events/National-Press-Club-The-Future-of-Human-Spaceflight/10737424486/ |title=National Press Club: The Future of Human Spaceflight |work=C-SPAN.org |date=September 29, 2011 --- but that link has gone dead. Found another copy on the NPC video repository on YouTube --> In September 2012, SpaceX began flight tests on a prototype reusable first stage with the suborbital [[
News of the Grasshopper test rocket had become public a few days earlier, when the [[Federal Aviation Administration|US Federal Aviation Administration]] released a [[National Environmental Policy Act|draft Environmental Impact Assessment]] for the SpaceX Test Site in Texas, and the space media had reported it.<ref name="faa20110922">{{cite web |url=http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ast/media/20110922%20spacex%20grasshopper%20draft%20ea.final.pdf |title=Draft Environmental Assessment for Issuing an Experimental Permit to SpaceX for Operation of the Grasshopper Vehicle at the McGregor Test Site, Texas |publisher=Federal Aviation Administration |date=September 22, 2011 |access-date=November 21, 2013 |archive-date=January 12, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130112212209/http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ast/media/20110922%20spacex%20grasshopper%20draft%20ea.final.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="satspot20110926" /> In May 2012, SpaceX obtained a set of atmospheric test data for the recovery of the Falcon 9 first stage based on 176 test runs in the [[NASA]] [[Marshall Space Flight Center]] [[wind tunnel]] test facility. The work was contracted out by SpaceX under a reimbursable [[Space Act Agreement]] with NASA.<ref name="sn20120528">{{cite news |url=http://www.spacenews.com/article/nasa-finishes-wind-tunnel-testing-falcon-9-1st-stage |title=NASA Finishes Wind-tunnel Testing of Falcon 9 1st Stage |work=Space News |date=May 28, 2012 |access-date=June 26, 2012 }}</ref>
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== Falcon 9 reusability development ==
In 2013 SpaceX was testing reusable technologies both for its [[Booster (rocketry)|first-stage booster]] launch vehicle designs (with three test vehicles: [[
SpaceX has publicly disclosed a multi-element, incremental test program for booster stages that includes four aspects:
* low-altitude (less than {{convert|760|m|ft|-2|disp=x|/|abbr=on}}<ref name="faa20110922" /><ref name=wt20130508>{{cite news |last=Abbott |first=Joseph |title=SpaceX's Grasshopper leaping to NM spaceport |url=http://www.wacotrib.com/news/business/spacex-s-grasshopper-leaping-to-nm-spaceport/article_de2126cd-d6ec-563b-b84b-532641e709e3.html |access-date=October 25, 2013 |newspaper=Waco Tribune |date=May 8, 2013 |archive-date=August 5, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200805174829/https://wacotrib.com/news/business/spacex-s-grasshopper-leaping-to-nm-spaceport/article_de2126cd-d6ec-563b-b84b-532641e709e3.html |url-status=live }}</ref>), low-velocity testing of its single-engine [[
* low-altitude (less than {{convert|3000|m|ft|-2|disp=x|/|abbr=on}}), low-velocity testing of a much larger, second-generation, three-engine test vehicle called [[F9R Dev1]]. The second generation vehicle includes extensible landing legs and will be tested at the Texas test site<ref name=tsr20140505>{{cite news |last=Foust |first=Jeff |title=Following up: reusability, B612, satellite servicing |url=http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2505/1 |access-date=May 6, 2014 |newspaper=The Space Review |date=May 5, 2014 |archive-date=May 6, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140506133336/http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2505/1 |url-status=live }}</ref>
* high-altitude, mid-velocity testing was planned but cancelled in favor of [[Falcon 9 first-stage landing tests|post-mission re-entry tests of first-stage boosters]]. It would have used F9R Dev2 at a SpaceX leased facility at [[Spaceport America]] in [[New Mexico]].
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The DragonFly test vehicle is powered by eight [[SuperDraco]] engines, arranged in a redundant pattern to support [[fault-tolerance]] in the propulsion system design.<ref name=wt20140522/> SuperDracos use a [[storable propellant]] mixture of [[monomethyl hydrazine]] (MMH) [[fuel]] and [[nitrogen tetroxide]] [[oxidizer]] (NTO), the same propellants used in the smaller [[Draco (rocket engine family)|Draco]] thrusters used for [[Spacecraft attitude control|attitude control]] and [[Reaction control system|maneuvering]] on the first-generation [[Dragon spacecraft]].<ref name=faa201311/> While SuperDraco engines are capable of {{convert|16400|lbf|N|order=flip}} of thrust, during use on the DragonFly flight test vehicle, each will be [[Rocket engine throttling|throttled]] to less than {{convert|15325|lbf|N|order=flip}} to maintain vehicle stability.<ref name=faa201311/>
A test flight program of thirty flights was proposed in 2013–2014, including two ''propulsive assist'' (parachutes plus thrusters) and two ''propulsive landing'' (no parachutes) on flights dropped from a helicopter at an altitude of approximately {{convert|10000|ft|m|sp=us}}. The other 26 test flights were projected to take off from a [[launch pad]]: eight to be ''propulsive assist hops'' (landing with parachutes plus thrusters) and 18 to be ''full propulsive hops'', similar to the [[
=== Falcon 9 booster post-mission flight tests ===
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{{Portal|Spaceflight}}
* [[New Shepard]], a sub-orbital VTVL system
* [[SpaceX Grasshopper|Grasshopper]]
==Notes==
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