SpaceX; Company Profile, History, founder, achievements, launches

Space Exploration Technologies Corp SpaceX is an American spacecraft manufacturer, space launch provider, and a satellite communications corporation, with it’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California. SpaceX was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk, with the goal to revolutionize space technolgy and reducing space transportation costs to enable the colonization of Mars. SpaceX manufactures the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles, several rocket engines, Cargo Dragon, crew spacecraft, and Starlink communications satellites.

SpaceX designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft.
SpaceX is the maker of Starship and a private space company known for its International Space Station missions.

The SpaceX Factory and headquarters

History of SpaceX

In 2006, before it had even flown a test flight, SpaceX received $278 million from NASA under the agency’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. The program was created to encourage the development of private industry firms to build systems that could transport cargo to the ISS. It eventually received a contract for 12 flights worth $1.6 billion.

SpaceX went through exploration technologies Corp years of trial and error before Falcon 1 made its first successful flight on Sept. 28, 2008. Falcon 1 was limited in load capacity at only 570 kg. Eventually, SpaceX produced the Falcon 9, which could lift Dragon and up to 13,150 kg of cargo.

Falcon 9 took its maiden flight on June 2010. After a few failures, it made its first cargo delivery to the space station in May 2012 under a test flight for the COTS program. Its first regular commercial flight to the space station took place in October 2012.

SpaceX produces another Falcon craft, Falcon Heavy. Essentially, the craft is three Falcon 9s tied side by side to lift an even heavier payload, up to 63,800 kg. It was first tested in 2018.

FOUNDER

SpaceX was founded by Elon Musk, a South African-born businessman and entrepreneur. At age 30, Musk made his initial fortune by selling his two successful companies: Zip2, which he sold for $307 million in 1999, and PayPal, which eBay purchased for $1.5 billion in 2002, The New York Times reported(opens in new tab). Musk decided his next major venture would be a privately funded space company.

Musk is also the CEO of electric car maker Tesla. And most recently, he entered a deal to purchase social networking site Twitter for $44 billion in April 2022. After 18 months of development, SpaceX unveiled a delivery vehicle in 2006 under the name Dragon. It was soon followed with Falcon, which was designed to lift humans and cargo into orbit.

Initially, Musk had the idea of sending a greenhouse, dubbed the Mars Oasis, to the Red Planet. His goal was to drum up public interest in exploration while also providing a science base on Mars. But the cost ended up being too high, and instead, Musk started a spaceflight company called Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, now based in the Los Angeles suburb of Hawthorne, California.

Musk was already an experienced businessman when he started SpaceX, and he strongly believed that more frequent and more reliable launches would bring down the cost of exploration. So, he sought out a stable customer that could fund the early development of a rocket: NASA. (Later, he wooed launch clients from various sectors to diversify his customer base.) As such, his goal for SpaceX was to develop the first privately built, liquid-fueled booster to make it into orbit, which he called the Falcon 1.

According to Barron’s, Musk owns about 50 percent of SpaceX. Forbes places his ownership more specifically in the 48 percent range. Despite his owning less than half of the company, Musk retains absolute control over SpaceX and its business operations.

Elon Musk with SpaceX Starship toy prototype

ACHIEVEMENTS

SpaceX major achievements include:

• The first privately funded, liquid-fueled rocket (Falcon 1) to reach orbit (28 September 2008)
• The first privately funded company to successfully launch (by Falcon 9), orbit and recover a spacecraft (Dragon) (9 December 2010)
• The first private company to send a spacecraft (Dragon) to the International Space Station (25 May 2012)
• The first private company to send a satellite into geosynchronous orbit (SES-8, 3 December 2013)
• The first private company to send a probe beyond Earth orbit (Deep Space Climate Observatory, 11 February 2015)
• The first landing of a first stage orbital capable rocket (Falcon 9, Flight 20) (22 December 2015 UTC)
• The first water landing of a first stage orbital capable rocket (Falcon 9) (8 April 2016)
• The development of the most powerful operational rocket as of 2020 (Falcon Heavy, first flight 6 February 2018)
• The first private company to send humans into orbit (Crew Dragon Demo-2, 30 May 2020)

But SpaceX truly earned its place among the aeronautical elite—and changed the economics of space flight—by making its reusable rocket system seemingly as reliable as the sunrise: Throughout the year, it landed eight rockets on ocean-based drone platforms and sent three refurbished ones right back into the skies.

Spacex Launch

Since June 2010, rockets from the Falcon 9 family have been launched 168 times, with 166 full mission successes, one partial failure and one total loss of the spacecraft. In addition, one rocket and its payload were destroyed on the launch pad during the fueling process before a static fire test was set to occur.
As of March 23, 2022, SpaceX has successfully launched 11 Falcon 9 carrier rockets this year, with two more launches already planned. In 2021, the American aerospace company founded by Elon Musk reported 31 liftoffs, 29 of which were reused rockets which beat its previous record of 26 launches in 2020.
The company has launched more than 2,400 Starlink spacecraft to date.10 of SpaceX’s 18 launches in 2022 have been dedicated Starlink missions.