Video of Falcon 9 Reusable (F9R) taking its second test flight at our rocket development facility. F9R quadrupled its height from its previous test to rise to 1,000m.
Early flights of F9R will take off with legs fixed in the down position. However, we will soon be transitioning to liftoff with legs stowed against the side of the rocket and then extending them just before landing.
The F9R testing program is the next step towards reusability following completion of the Grasshopper program last year. Future testing, including that in New Mexico, will be conducted using the first stage of a F9R as shown here, which is essentially a Falcon 9 v1.1 first stage with legs. F9R test flights in New Mexico will allow us to test at higher altitudes than we are permitted for at our test site in Texas, to do more with unpowered guidance and to prove out landing cases that are more-flight like.
This was just six years ago. This week, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 booster for the 4th time, and landed it safely. This quarter, SpaceX will likely start flights of Starship, at first to 100 metres, then 1,000 then 20,000. And if they all work as planned, we'll see the first suborbital flights later this year, and the first commercial flights next year. Even if they don't work as planned, SpaceX will learn from their mistakes, and will rapidly improve Starship.
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