SpaceX is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launch services provider, defense contractor, and satellite communications company.
Trade name: SpaceX
Company type : Private
Industry : Space Telecommunications
Founded March 14, 2002; 21 years ago in El Segundo, California, US
Founder : Elon Musk
Headquarters Hawthorne, California, United States
Key people : Elon Musk (CEO, Chair & CTO)
Gwynne Shotwell (President & COO)
Products
Launch vehicles
Dragon capsules
Starlink
Revenue Increase US$4.6 billion (2022)
Net income : Negative increase −US$559 million (2022)
Owner Elon Musk (42% equity; 79% voting control)
Number of employees : 13,000+ (September 2023)
Subsidiaries Swarm Technologies
Website : spacex.com
About SpaceX
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (commonly referred to as SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launch services provider, defense contractor, and satellite communications company headquartered in Hawthorne, California. The company was founded by Elon Musk in 2002 with the goal of reducing space transportation costs and eventually developing a sustainable colony on Mars. The company currently operates the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, as well as the Dragon and Starship spacecraft.
The company provides Internet services through Starlink satellites. Starlink satellites became the largest constellation in history in January 2020, and in November 2023 will include more than 5,000 small satellites in orbit.
Meanwhile, the company is developing Starship, a human-grade, fully reusable super-heavy-lift launch system for interplanetary and orbital spaceflight. When it first flew in April 2023, it became the largest and most powerful rocket ever to fly. The rocket reached space on its second flight in November 2023.
SpaceX was the first private company to develop a liquid-fueled rocket that reached orbit. Launch a spacecraft, orbit it, and retrieve it. Send a spacecraft to the International Space Station. and send astronauts to the International Space Station. It was also the first organization to achieve vertical propulsion landing of an orbital rocket booster and the first to reuse such a booster. The company's Falcon 9 rocket has landed and flown more than 200 times. As of December 2023, SpaceX is worth approximately $180 billion.
History of SpaceX
Main article:
Related items: List of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy
Launches 2001-2004: Establishment of
In early 2001, Elon Musk met Robert Zubrin and joined his Mars Society. He donated $100,000 and joined the Mars Society. [11]:30–31 He gave this talk at the 4th Congress, where he announced Mars His Oasis, a project to build greenhouses and grow crops on Mars. Musk initially tried to obtain a Dnieper intercontinental ballistic missile for the project through Jim Cantrell's Russian connections.
When the Masks returned to Moscow, Russia with Michael Griffin, they found the Russians becoming increasingly unresponsive. On the flight home, Musk announced that he might instead start a company to build the affordable rockets needed. Musk believes that by applying vertical integration, using cheaper off-the-shelf off-the-shelf components when possible, and taking a modular approach to modern software development, SpaceX can significantly reduce launch prices. That. Griffin later played a role in the creation of the COTS program, where he was appointed NASA administrator.
In early 2002, Elon Musk began recruiting for his company, which was soon named SpaceX. Musk contacted five people for the first positions at the young company. These included Michael Griffin, who had been offered the position of chief engineer, Jim Cantrell and John Garvey (Cantrell and Garvey later founded Vector Launch), and rocket engineers Tom Mueller and Chris Thompson. That.
SpaceX was originally headquartered in a warehouse in El Segundo, California. His early SpaceX employees, including Tom Mueller (CTO), Gwynne Shotwell (COO), and Chris Thompson (VP of Operations), came from his neighboring companies TRW and Boeing. In November 2005, the company hired 160 people. Musk personally interviewed and approved all of SpaceX's initial employees.[23] Musk said one of his goals at SpaceX is to reduce costs and ultimately make access to space 10 times more reliable.
2005–2009: Falcon 1 and the first orbital launch
Main article: Falcon 1
SpaceX developed its first orbital launch vehicle, the Falcon 1, with internal funding. Falcon 1 was his disposable, small-displacement, two-stage launch vehicle. The total development cost of Falcon 1 was about $90 million to $100 million. The Falcon Rocket series is named after the fictional spaceship Millennium Falcon from Star Wars.
In 2004, SpaceX filed a complaint with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) against NASA over its exclusive source contract with Kistler Aerospace. Before GAO could respond, NASA withdrew the contract and established the COTS program. In 2005, SpaceX announced plans to have a human-rated commercial space program by the end of the decade and later build the Dragon spacecraft. In 2006, the company was selected by NASA and awarded him $396 million under the COTS program to provide a demonstration contract for crew and cargo resupply to the ISS.
His first two Falcon 1 launches were purchased by the US Department of Defense as part of the DARPA Falcon project to evaluate new US rockets suitable for Prompt Global Strike hypersonic missile launches. The rocket's first three launches from 2006 to 2008 all failed, bringing the company to a near standstill. Tesla Motors' financing also failed, and as a result, Tesla, SolarCity, and Musk himself were on the verge of bankruptcy at the same time. Musk reportedly woke up "from nightmares and screaming and physical pain" due to stress.
After the first successful launch on the fourth attempt on September 28, 2008, the economic situation began to change. Musk split the remaining $30 million between SpaceX and Tesla, and NASA awarded SpaceX its first commercial resupply services (CRS) contract worth $1.6 billion in December, saving the company financially. That. Due to these factors and the continuity of business operations it enabled, Falcon 1 was retired shortly after its second and fifth successful launch in July 2009. This allowed SpaceX to focus its resources on developing its larger orbital rocket, the Falcon 9 . Gwynne Shotwell was also promoted to president at this time for his work in successfully negotiating the CRS contract.
2010-2012: Falcon 9 , Dragon, NASA Contract
Duration: 1 minute 53 seconds. 1:53 Video of the first Falcon 9 launch
SpaceX originally planned a medium-weight rocket to follow the Falcon 1 light rocket. Falcon 5. Instead, in 2005, the company decided to continue developing the Falcon 9, a reusable heavy-duty vehicle. Development of the Falcon 9 was accelerated by NASA, which has committed to purchasing it for multiple commercial flights if certain capabilities are demonstrated.
It began with seed funding from the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program in 2006. The contract, valued at $278 million, provided development funding for the Falcon 9 Dragon spacecraft and the Falcon 9 demonstration launch by Dragon. Under this contract, Falcon 9 was first launched in June 2010 by the Dragon Spacecraft Qualification Unit using the Dragon spacecraft model.
The first operational Dragon spacecraft launched in December 2010 aboard Falcon 9's second flight, COTS Demonstration Flight 1, completed two orbits, safely returned to Earth, and completed all mission objectives. achieved. By December 2010, SpaceX's production lines were producing a Falcon 9 and a Dragon every three months.
In April 2011, NASA awarded Dragon an integrated launch and escape system under the Second Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program to develop a Dragon integrated launch and escape system suitable as a crew transport vehicle to the ISS. Signed a $75 million contract to SpaceX. NASA entered into a Fixed Price Space Act Agreement (SAA) with SpaceX in August 2012 to develop detailed designs for the crew transportation system.
As of early 2012, about two-thirds of SpaceX stock was owned by Mr. Musk, with 70 million shares valued at $875 million on the private market at the time. The value was $1.3 billion. In May 2012, Dragon became the first commercial spacecraft to deliver cargo to the International Space Station with the launch of Dragon C2+. After his escape, the company's private equity valuation nearly doubled to $2.4 billion, or $20 a share. At this point, SpaceX had raised a total of approximately $1 billion in funding during its first decade of existence. Private equity provided about $200 million of that, with Musk contributing about $100 million and other investors contributing about $100 million.
SpaceX's aggressive reusability testing program began testing the landing technology at low altitudes and low speeds in late 2012. The Falcon 9 prototype performed vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL). High-speed, high-altitude testing of the booster's atmospheric recirculation technology began in late 2013.
2013-2015: Commercial Launches and Rapid Growth
SpaceX launched its first commercial mission for a commercial customer in 2013. In 2014, SpaceX won 9 out of 20 publicly competitive contracts worldwide. Earlier this year, Arianespace asked European governments to provide additional subsidies to help it fight competition from SpaceX. Since 2014, SpaceX's capabilities and pricing have also influenced the US military payload launch market, which has been dominated for nearly a decade by the United Launch Alliance (ULA), the major US rocket provider.
This monopoly drove startup costs for US providers to more than $400 million over the years. In September 2014, NASA's Commercial Spaceflight Director Kevin Crigler awarded his SpaceX the Commercial Crew Transport Capability (CCtCap) contract to complete the development of the crew transportation system. The contract included several technical and certification milestones, unmanned flight tests, manned flight tests, and his six operational missions after certification.
In January 2015, SpaceX raised $1 billion in funding from Google and Fidelity in exchange for an 8.33% stake in the company, valuing the company at approximately $12 billion. That same month, SpaceX announced the development of a new satellite constellation called Starlink, which will provide global broadband internet service with 4,000 satellites.
Falcon 9 suffered its first major failure in late June 2015, when the seventh ISS resupply mission CRS-7 exploded two minutes into flight. The cause of the problem was determined to be that the two-foot-long steel column supporting the helium pressure vessel had become dislodged and broken under the force of acceleration. This caused a rupture, and high-pressure helium leaked into the low-pressure fuel tank, causing the failure.
