Falcon 9 prototypes were experimental flight test reusable rockets that performed vertical takeoffs and landings.[1] The project was privately funded by SpaceX, with no funds provided by any government until later on.[2] Two prototypes were built, and both were launched from the ground.[3]
The earliest prototype was Grasshopper. It was announced in 2011[4] and began low-altitude, low-velocity hover/landing testing in 2012. Grasshopper was 106 ft (32 m) tall and made eight successful test flights in 2012 and 2013 before being retired. A second prototype of Falcon 9 was the larger and more capable Falcon 9 Reusable Development Vehicle (F9R Dev, also known as F9R Dev1) based on the Falcon 9 v1.1 launch vehicle. It was tested at higher altitudes and was capable of much higher velocity but was never tested at high velocity. The F9R Dev1 vehicle was built in 2013–2014 and made its first low-altitude flight test on 17 April 2014; it was lost during a three-engine test at the McGregor test site on 22 August 2014,[5] which ended the low-velocity test program. Further expansion of the flight test envelope for the reusable rocket was moved to descending Falcon 9 boosters that had been used on orbital flight trajectories on commercial orbital flights of the Falcon 9.
The Grasshopper and F9R Dev tests were fundamental to the development of the reusable Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, which require vertical landings of the near-empty Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy first-stage booster tanks and engine assemblies. The Grasshopper and the F9R Dev tests led into a series of high-altitude, high-speed controlled-descent tests of post-mission (spent) Falcon 9 booster stages that accompanied the commercial Falcon 9 missions since September 2013. The latter eventually resulted in the first successful booster landing on 21 December 2015.
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^Musk, Elon [@elonmusk] (August 23, 2014). "Three engine F9R Dev1 vehicle auto-terminated during test flight. No injuries or near injuries. Rockets are tricky …" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 28 March 2023. Retrieved 17 April 2023 – via Twitter.
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