<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"       Elon Musk&amp;#039;s hops are getting higher.  This weekend, SpaceX flew the reusable Grasshopper rocket to 744 meters, just shy of a half-mile in altitude, and then landed with a fiery blast of the engine that helped Grasshopper set down on the launchpad. This footage is especially cool as SpaceX used a remotely controlled hexacopter UAV to film the launch. From the small aircraft&amp;#039;s point of view, Grasshopper rises toward it, seems to hover still for a moment, and becomes a speck again as it descends and lands. When we last saw the Grasshopper reusable rocket prototype, it was flying to 325 meters in altitude (about 1000 feet), and then moving laterally but still landing itself on the pad from which it launched. This weekend&amp;#039;s test comes on the heels of SpaceX&amp;#039;s partial success in a real live launch last month, when a Falcon 9 rocket that blasted satellites into orbit re-fired some of its engines, as a truly reusable rocket would, prompting Musk to say he had &amp;quot;all the pieces&amp;quot; for real reusable rockets on hand. We&amp;#039;ll have to see how ambitious the company gets with its Grasshopper tests. In a recent interview with PopMech, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said she was actually disappointed the Grasshopper tests were going so smoothly\u2014to her, the lack of failures meant SpaceX wasn&amp;#039;t pushing the program hard enough. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/rockets/a11982/spacex-grasshopper-reaches-nearly-a-half-mile-lands-itself-16039525/>