Watch: SpaceX Grasshopper hovers 820 ft above Earth
SpaceX's Grasshopper soared and hovered at new heights on Monday. The experimental rocket climbed up to 820 feet above the ground, tripling its March record of 262.8 feet.
Grasshopper shot straight up and hovered in the air, creating a "ring of fire" below. SpaceX's CEO Elon Musk tweeted out that the rocket maintained its posture with wind working against it.
"Grasshopper rocket flies up 250m, holds against wind and lands. Vid taken from our hexacopter," Musk tweeted.
The rocket is a 10-story Vertical Takeoff Vertical Landing (VTVL) vehicle that SpaceX says is designed to test the technologies required for a return trip back to the Earth. The company's rockets are built to land standing up, while ships in the past were designed to burn up in the atmosphere during reentry.
Watch the dramatic video of Grasshopper taking off and landing below.
