SpaceX Grasshopper Climbs to 744 Meters

SpaceX released this video today of its Grasshopper reusable test article climbing to 744 meters, and then descending safely back to the pad at its McGregor, Texas development facility. Although the company will not be attempting to recover the Falcon 9 first stage on its next two flights, that of the SES-8 and Thaicom-6 satellites respectively, the first of which has slipped slightly to a “no earlier than” date of November 12, it plans to do so on the fourth flight of the new Falcon 9 V1.1, the NASA CRS-3 flight now scheduled for February.

Having indicated that SpaceX may possibly include flight weight retractable landing legs on that particular booster if scheduling allows, it seems reasonable to expect that before too long, we can expect to see a video similar to this one,  but  with the notable difference of the new landing system.