Vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) is a form of takeoff and landing for rockets. Multiple VTVL craft have flown. A notable VTVL vehicle was the Apollo Lunar Module which delivered the first humans to the Moon. Building on the decades of development, SpaceX utilised the VTVL concept for its flagship Falcon 9 first stage, which has delivered over five hundred successful powered landings so far. VTVL technologies were first seriously developed for the Apollo program. By the '90s, development on large reliable restartable rocket engines made it possible to use the already matured technology for rocket stages. The first pioneer was the McDonnell Douglas DC-X demonstrator. After the success of the DC-X prototype, the concept was developed substantially with small rockets after 2000, in part due to incentive prize competitions like the Lunar Lander Challenge. Starting in the mid-2000s, VTVL was under intense development as a technology for reusable rockets large enough to transport people. From 2005 to 2007 Blue Origin did a series of successful tests, first with the jet powered Charon demonstrator, later using the Goddard demonstrator. Small VTVL rockets were also developed by Masten Space Systems, Armadillo Aerospace, and others. In 2013, after the failure of stage recovery with parachutes, SpaceX demonstrated vertical landing on a Falcon 9 prototype after climbing 744 meters in the air. Later, Blue Origin (New Shepard) and SpaceX (Falcon 9), both demonstrated recovery of launch vehicles after return to the launch site (RTLS) operations, with Blue Origin's New Shepard booster rocket making the first successful vertical landing on November 23, 2015, following a flight that reached outer space, and SpaceX's Falcon 9 flight 20 marking the first landing of a commercial orbital booster roughly a month later, on December 22, 2015. Many launches of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy have included successful VTVL operations of the two side boosters on each rocket. SpaceX is also developing a fully reusable rocket named Starship. Starship became the first launch vehicle to demonstrate the technology with both of its stages on its fourth test flight. VTVL rockets are not to be confused with aircraft that take off and land vertically and use air for support and propulsion, such as helicopters and jump jets which are VTOL aircraft.
History
1961 Bell Rocket Belt, personal VTVL rocket belt demonstrated. VTVL rocket concepts were studied by Philip Bono of Douglas Aircraft Co. in the 1960s. Apollo Lunar Module was a 1960s two-stage VTVL vehicle for landing and taking off from the Moon. Australia's Defence Science and Technology Group successfully launched the Hoveroc rocket on 2 May 1981 in a test at Port Wakefield, South Australia. It was capable of "a controlled flight path within a horizontal plane and terminating, if needed, in a controlled descent." The Soviet Union did some development work on a vertically landing crewed capsule called Zarya in the late 1980s. The McDonnell Douglas DC-X was a 1/3 scale uncrewed prototype SSTO VTVL launch vehicle that flew several test flights in the 1990s. Its first successful flight was in 1993. In June 1996, the vehicle set an altitude record of 3,140 metres (10,300 ft), before making a vertical landing. Rotary Rocket successfully tested a vertical landing system for their Roton design, based on a rocket tipped helicopter system in 1999, but were unable to raise funds to build a full vehicle. On June 13, 2005, Blue Origin VTVL Suborbital Reusable Launch Vehicle was announced. 2005: Blue Origin Charon, a jet engine propelled test vehicle, verified the autonomous guidance and control technologies later used in Blue Origins VTVL rockets. 2006, 2007: Blue Origin Goddard, a subscale demonstrator for the later New Shephard suborbital vehicle, made 3 successful flights before retirement. During 2006–2009, Armadillo Aerospace's Scorpius / Super Mod, Masten Space Systems' Xombie and Unreasonable Rocket's Blue Ball flying VTVL rockets competed in the Northrop Grumman / NASA Lunar Lander Challenge. Follow-on VTVL designs including Masten's Xaero and Armadillo's Stig were aimed at higher-speed flight to higher suborbital altitudes. SpaceX announced plans in 2010 to install deployable landing gear on the Dragon spacecraft and use the vehicle's thrusters to perform a land-based landing. It was cancelled in 2017. In 2010, three VTVL craft were proffered to NASA in response to NASA's suborbital reusable launch vehicle (sRLV) solicitation under NASA's Flight Operations Program: the Blue Origin New Shepard, the Masten Xaero, and the Armadillo Super Mod. Morpheus is a 2010s NASA project developing a vertical test bed that demonstrates new green propellant propulsion systems and autonomous landing and hazard detection technology. Mighty Eagle was an early 2010s Robotic Prototype Lander that was being developed by NASA as of August 2012.
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