SpaceX

Company information

• Date founded: 2002
• Industry: Design, manufacture, and launch of advanced rockets and spacecraft.
• Corporate headquarters: Brownsville, Texas
• Type: Privately funded

Space Exploration Technologies, also known as SpaceX, is a rocket and spacecraft manufacturer and space transport company. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk, an entrepreneur also known for his role in other successful companies, including PayPal and Tesla. SpaceX is a private company owned by its executives and employees.

SpaceX built a reputation as an innovation leader in the field of space transportation and technology. It developed several cutting-edge launch vehicles and spacecraft. It was the first private company to send spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) and to send a satellite into orbit, as well as the first private company to transport astronauts to the ISS. The company signed contracts with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to transport cargo and provide passenger services for its astronauts. In early 2016, SpaceX announced ambitious plans to send missions to Mars and suggested it would eventually be able to settle humans on that planet.

From its beginning, SpaceX aimed at developing a series of launch vehicles that significantly increased performance while reducing costs, based on a philosophy of economical and reliable products. SpaceX also worked with a streamlined internal management system that ensures faster and more efficient processes. The company changed the market paradigm for government and commercial space transportation and, many experts argue, the space industry itself.

History

SpaceX was funded by entrepreneur Elon Musk in 2002, with the idea of building simple, low-cost, reusable rockets. In 2001, Musk had conceived the idea of landing an experimental greenhouse on Mars, equipped with seeds and nutrient gel. However, he was faced with lack of public interest and an insufficient NASA budget. Moreover, the project required thorough innovations in space technology. Frustrated by the obstacles faced, Musk joined forces with entrepreneur Adeo Ressi, founder of The Founder Institute, and Vector CEO Jim Cantrell, in an attempt to purchase Russian Dnepr rockets to send his greenhouse into Mars. Faced with many roadblocks to purchasing the missiles, Musk enlisted seasoned space engineers and opened SpaceX with the double goal of making space flight affordable and transforming humans into a multiplanetary species. By 2006 Musk had invested $100 million of his own funds in the company.

In June 2010, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket successfully completed its first flight, transporting a Dragon spacecraft into orbit around the Earth. The Falcon 9 was a two-stage rocket created for the transportation of satellites and spacecraft into orbit. In 2011, SpaceX revealed plans for its new rocket, the Falcon Heavy. Its payload or carrying capacity—the revenue-producing part of an aircraft—was about double that of the space shuttle and the Delta IV Heavy, the closest heavy lifters at that point, at a fraction of the cost. The innovative technology of the Falcon Heavy provided it with the power of a three-stage rocket. In fact, the Falcon Heavy was billed as the world's most powerful rocket at the time.

In 2012, SpaceX docked the Dragon capsule on the ISS, the first time a private spacecraft joined with the ISS, loaded with one thousand pounds of cargo for the station's crew. By that time, it had also completed test flights for its reusable Grasshopper rocket, which was launched successfully in 2013.

In 2014, SpaceX filed a lawsuit with the US Court of Federal Claims against the United States Air Force; the goal was to force the US Air Force to make more national security launch missions available for competition. The air force deferred about half the launches to exclude them from competition, many of these for GPS satellites that SpaceX had offered to launch at a significantly lower cost. During that same year, the NASA confirmed an agreement with Boeing and SpaceX to launch astronauts to the ISS. The partnership ended years of NASA's dependence on Russian space transport, which was significantly costlier than SpaceX's service.

In January 2015, after entering mediation, the air force agreed to make more security launch missions available for competition, and SpaceX agreed to drop its lawsuit. SpaceX became the second company in history to be certified to launch national security missions into orbit. SpaceX was later awarded an $82.7 million contract to launch a GPS satellite in orbit, after the only other competitor declined to bid.

In 2015, SpaceX suffered the first and second of several failed landing attempts of a drone ship during a mission to the ISS. During the first attempt, according to SpaceX, the drone ran out of hydraulic fluid right before landing. In the second attempt, the drone fell over. During the third attempt, the Falcon 9 rocket exploded during launch. Nevertheless, in December of that year, SpaceX successfully landed its Falcon 9 rocket carrying eleven satellites for Earth orbit.

In 2016, another attempt to land a drone ship proved unsuccessful when the rocket fell over during landing. In September of that year, one of the company's satellite launching rockets exploded at Cape Canaveral. SpaceX also crash-landed a rocket on a drone ship, which ended in an explosion and heavy material losses. However, its fifth attempt to land a drone ship that same year finally proved successful. In early 2017 SpaceX achieved its first successful flight and landing of a reused rocket, an important element of the company's efforts to lower the costs of spaceflight. That year Musk also continued to outline his plans for the company's goal of sending astronauts to Mars.

SpaceX made headlines in early 2018 for its mysterious Zuma mission, in which it launched a satellite of unknown function for an unidentified government agency. Because of the classified nature of the payload, much speculation arose about whether the launch was in fact successful or not. Another notable launch in 2018 brought the ISS supplies that included an experimental device intended to help remove dangerous space debris from orbit around the Earth. SpaceX also continued its efforts to improve the reusability of its rockets, though it had trouble in attempts to recover fairings from spent rockets. In 2019, SpaceX launched the Crew Dragon, which became the first US spacecraft to autonomously dock to the ISS. The year 2019 also saw the launch of Starlink, a satellite constellation operated by SpaceX capable of providing internet service on Earth. Over the next five years, SpaceX would launch more than six thousand Starlink communications satellites, making it the operator of the largest such network in the world.

The early 2020s saw several important achievements for SpaceX. In March 2020, SpaceX launched its twentieth commercial resupply services mission, using the Dragon to launch the commercial Bartolomeo payload hosting platform to the ISS. In May 2020, SpaceX became the first private company to send astronauts to the ISS, sending two NASA astronauts to the space station via the Crew Dragon spaceship, and later completed two more flights to the ISS in November 2020 and April 2021. The April 2021 launch was the first spaceflight in history to reuse both its Dragon spacecraft and the Falcon 9 rocket. Previously, most rockets were designed to burn upon reentry and thus could only be used once.

In April 2021 NASA announced that it had chosen SpaceX to contribute to the Artemis program to send the next American astronauts to the moon. That same year, SpaceX bought Swarm Technologies for $524 million and reportedly won a classified $1.8 billion contract to produce a new network of surveillance satellites for the US government and military. It also benefited financially from the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, as business intended for Russian rockets was largely diverted to SpaceX instead. The US military also paid the company for Starlink service to Ukraine.

Meanwhile, the company continued to hit milestones related to transporting humans to space. In April 2022, SpaceX transported a crew of four private astronauts, including three paying passengers and a former astronaut serving as their guide, to the ISS, the first time an all-private crew had visited the space station. In August 2022, the company was awarded a new $1.4 billion contract by NASA to conduct five more astronaut missions.

The following April, SpaceX launched the first Starship, its largest craft to that point. The forty-story-tall, two-stage rocket had nearly three dozen engines in its Super Heavy booster. In line with Musk's vision to one day facilitate interplanetary travel to Mars, Starship was designed to hold up to one hundred passengers and, like the Falcon, intended to be reusable. However, the initial uncrewed mission and another launched in November 2023 both exploded within minutes; a third was lost on reentry after an hour-long test flight in early 2024. Nonetheless, SpaceX was able to collect valuable data and emphasized its iterative approach to testing. The Federal Aviation Administration investigated the technical failures involved in each mishap.

SpaceX continued its contributions to Artemis, as it worked on a modified version of Starship for moon landings. In February 2024 SpaceX also delivered an Intuitive Machines robotic lander named Odysseus to the moon as part of the Artemis program. The latter represented the first successful commercial lunar landing in history.

In addition to working with the US government, SpaceX at times conducted business with other governments, including those of India, Indonesia, and the European Union, as well as rival satellite-internet companies. SpaceX notched a record-setting ninety-six orbital rocket launches in 2023 alone and became widely regarded the dominant rocket-launch firm in the sector.

SpaceX's ascent was not without controversy, however. Musk himself became an increasingly polarizing figure in the 2020s as he stepped up his political involvement. His decision to move SpaceX's official corporate headquarters from California to Texas in 2024 was widely scrutinized. While the company's Texas launch facility provided jobs and tax revenues in a low-income area, some observers raised concerns about nearby residents being priced out of their homes or facing negative health effects from rocket launches. Environmental concerns over Starship debris led to a 2023 lawsuit against the FAA for its handling of the environmental impact assessment process. Locals also opposed a proposed land swap involving a nearby state park, citing SpaceX's history of restricting public access to a nearby beach during launches as well as fears of diminished access to sacred tribal lands.

Critics also raised allegations of lax safety culture and poor working conditions at SpaceX over the years. According to a Reuters investigation, between 2014 and late 2023, six hundred worker injuries and one death occurred at SpaceX facilities—most of which had not been reported to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). However, SpaceX had not been penalized for its lack of transparency and received only light fines for known safety violations.

Impact

SpaceX has been credited with playing a substantial role in changing the space industry in the twenty-first century. Elon Musk started SpaceX out of a desire to spark public interest and government investment in space exploration and colonization. He found much success in his goal of reducing space transportation costs by designing and creating technology in the simplest and most cost-efficient manner, thanks to his considerable personal investment and the adoption of an ambitious business model. In particular, SpaceX's willingness to test cutting-edge technology and learn from failure, as well as success, helped the company rise to the top of a new wave of private space transportation companies. In doing so, SpaceX helped open a chapter of space travel that relied far less on the large, expensive government projects that had initiated the first space race.

SpaceX moved beyond its inception as a rich founder's pet project to become an integral part of the early twenty-first-century aerospace industry. While SpaceX would continue to earn media attention for the exotic nature of its business as well as the high profile of its founder, it also established itself as a serious business venture capable of generating revenue. By the early 2020s it had become the leading commercial provider of space launches and had contracts worth billions of dollars.

Bibliography

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