SpaceX - To Infinity and Beyond!

SpaceX Headquarters. California, USA. Source: Wikimedia Commons (Creative Commons license).

SpaceX, or Space Exploration Technologies, is a private space exploration company based in Hawthorne, California, USA. It provides launch services to government and private customers using rockets developed in-house, and internet services to people all over the world through its Starlink satellites placed in orbit. It employs over 9,500 employees.

Origin and Achievements

The company was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk, who serves as CEO. He is the largest shareholder and has vowed not to go public until the Starship, the space rocket that is key to the aspirations of the company and its founder, has started making regular flights.

SpaceX has recorded many achievements. For instance, being the first private space company to launch a liquid fuel rocket to orbit using its Falcon 1 in 2008. The first private company to put a spacecraft in orbit and recover it in 2010 using its Dragon. More importantly, SpaceX is the first private company to launch a reusable rocket to orbit, with its Falcon 9 in 2017. This is part of the grand plan of Elon Musk to make space exploration as commonplace as airplane travel. He believes reusable rockets will bring down the costs of going to space by a large magnitude and ultimately usher in colonization trips to faraway planets like Mars.

This is part of the grand plan of Elon Musk to make space exploration as commonplace as airplane travel.

The company’s fleet of Falcon 9 rockets has demonstrated reusability as they have handled more than a hundred missions combined.

Notable Clients

Customers of SpaceX include NASA, who regularly uses the company’s rockets to deliver both cargo and crew to the International Space Station and return them to the earth, the US military who relies on SpaceX to put its national security satellites in space and other private companies that need a payload delivered to orbit.

The relationship between the two government agencies and SpaceX is on-going as both entities are waiting on SpaceX to finish developing its now famous Starship. NASA has agreed to pay SpaceX 2.9 billion dollars for the development of the space rocket, which it will use as a human lander for its Project Artemis, that will see the company send astronauts to the moon in 2024. It may also eventually use the Starship to send astronauts to Mars. The US military, on its own part, is planning to use the Starship to deliver both heavy cargo and personnel rapidly to any part of the world.

The Flagship Starship Rocket

SpaceX is developing its flagship Starship to lift the heaviest payloads in history and to be reusable and land upright, making it easy to prepare for the next flight. It uses a methane-oxygen propellant combination in its Raptor engines.

Other Info

Notable competitors to SpaceX include Blue Origin, founded by Jeff Bezos, Virgin Galactic, founded by Richard Branson, Lockheed Martin, and Dynetics.
So far, investors in SpaceX include Google and Fidelity.