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Grasshopper is an experimental technology-demonstrator, suborbital reusable launch vehicle (RLV), a vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) rocket announced in 2011 for low-altitude testing that began in 2012.
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 tanks and engine assemblies.
Grasshopper is one element of the multi-element SpaceX reusable rocket launching system test program, a program that includes both low-altitude, low-speed testing of the Grasshopper vehicle at SpaceX' Texas test site, as well as high-altitude, high-speed controlled-descent tests of post-mission (spent) Falcon 9 booster stages on Falcon 9 commercial missions beginning in mid-2013.
