Elon Musk is unveiling SpaceX’s new “space taxi” for astronauts

Grasshopper was a reusable vertical-takeoff-and-landing rocket prototype tested by the company Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) in preparation for more ambitious launches. After progressively higher hops and pinpoint landings in two years, SpaceX wrapped up the program in 2013 to move resources into the Falcon 9R rocket that is now being put through its own set of flight tests. Grasshopper was the first stage of SpaceX’s Falcon 9, which the company still uses today for the Dragon spacecraft flights to the station. Test flights ran between 2012 and 2013 and were successful, according to SpaceX. First announced in September 2011, Grasshopper is one piece of SpaceX’s desire to make a fully reusable system that will fly cargo and people to and from space. Traditionally, rockets have been considered “throwaway” items, with few exceptions (such as the space shuttle’s external solid rocket boosters.)