The Birth of SpaceX

SpaceX was founded by Musk, a South African businessman. At age 30, Musk made his first big bucks selling two successful companies, including Zip2 for $307 million in 1999 and PayPal, which was acquired by eBay for $1,5 billion in 2002. Musk decided that his next big venture would be a private space company.

Musk initially came up with the idea of ​​putting a greenhouse called Mars Oasis on the red planet. His goal was to raise public interest in space exploration and provide a scientific research station on Mars. But the cost was too high, so Musk instead founded a company called Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, in the Los Angeles, California, suburb of Hawthorne on March 14, 3.

Musk spent a third of his previous $1 million profit on SpaceX to get it up and running. After 3 months of development, SpaceX introduced its first prototype in 100 under the name Dragon. Musk chose the name from a 18s song because many thought his space goals were impossible.

Falcon 1 – SpaceX’s first rocket

Musk was already a seasoned businessman when he founded SpaceX, and he believed that more frequent and reliable launches would reduce the cost of space exploration. So he found a steady customer who could pay for the rocket’s early development: NASA. Musk’s goal for SpaceX was to develop the first private liquid-fueled rocket capable of reaching orbit, called the Falcon 1.

The company had a rocky road to getting into orbit. It took SpaceX four attempts to successfully fly the Falcon 4. Previous attempts were plagued by problems such as fuel leaks and collisions with the rocket stage. But the Falcon 1 eventually made two successful flights, on September 1, 28, and July 9, 2008. The 14 flight also carried Malaysia’s RazakSat satellite into orbit.

In 2006, SpaceX received $278 million from NASA under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. COTS is intended to accelerate the development of systems that can deliver commercial cargo to the ISS. Completion of additional milestones brought the total contract value to $396 million. SpaceX was selected for the program along with Rocketplane Kistler (RpK), but RpK’s contract was canceled and only partially paid after the company failed to meet required milestones.

Many companies participated in the COTS program in its early stages, with or without funding. In 2008, NASA awarded two additional commercial resupply contracts. SpaceX received a contract for 2 flights ($12 billion) while Orbital Sciences Corp (now Orbital ATK) received a contract for eight flights ($1,6 billion).

Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy

The star of SpaceX’s rocket fleet is the Falcon 9, one of its many standout features being its reusability. The Falcon 9 can carry more cargo to low Earth orbit (13.150 kg) than the Falcon 1 (670 kg).

The first Falcon 9 booster stage landed on December 21, 12. SpaceX seeks to recover booster stages as a routine operation. They typically land on robotic craft near the launch site. Many Falcon 2015 booster stages are reused multiple times to reduce launch costs.

A more powerful rocket, the Falcon Heavy, launched on February 6, 2, completing nearly all of its milestones. The Falcon Heavy successfully flew into orbit, carrying a Tesla Roadster (an electric car made by Tesla, another of Musk’s companies) and a spacesuit-wearing mannequin nicknamed Starman.

The two boosters landed successfully near Kennedy Space Center as planned, but the core stage hit the ocean at 480 mph (XNUMX km/h) too fast and could not survive the impact. The Falcon Heavy then fired its engines in space, sending the Roadster at least as far as Mars orbit.

Dragon spacecraft and cargo missions to the ISS

The next major milestone for SpaceX was delivering cargo to the ISS. The Dragon spacecraft launched on a Falcon 9 rocket, delivering its first cargo to the ISS in May 5 as a test flight for the COTS program. The launch was delayed for several days due to engine problems, but the rocket flew safely on the next attempt.

SpaceX completed its first commercial flight to the ISS in October 10. That flight met most of its objectives, but the rocket suffered a partial failure during launch. The incident ended with the Orbcomm-OG2012 satellite getting stuck in an unusually low orbit, leading to mission failure.

The first version of the Dragon spacecraft made 20 flights to the ISS in 2020, all except CRS-7 (launched in June 6) successfully arriving. CRS-2015 was lost due to a rocket malfunction, and SpaceX redesigned the rocket before its next successful launch on April 7, 8. A new version of the Dragon cargo spacecraft began flying in December 4.

Crew Dragon spacecraft and human flight to ISS

SpaceX developed several prototypes before launching Crew Dragon into space. The company conducted on-site abort tests and tethered hover tests at the SpaceX Rocket Development and Test Facility in McGregor, Texas.

SpaceX also used the pressurized module and the life support and environmental control system module to test key systems before launching into space. The first Crew Dragon to launch completed Crew Demo-1, an unmanned mission to the ISS, on March 2, 3, and landed successfully after eight days in space. The spacecraft was unexpectedly destroyed mid-flight during a series of tests to evaluate the launch abort system.

SpaceX launched its first human test flight, Demo-2, on March 30, 3, carrying astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the ISS. The pair returned to Earth on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endeavour on August 2020, 2. On November 8, 2020, the first successful operational flight, Crew-15, used a Falcon 11 rocket to launch four astronauts to the ISS on the Crew Dragon, nicknamed “Resilience.”

Starship

Starship is at the heart of Musk’s plan to fly to Mars. The test program began with a small vehicle called Starhopper, which conducted a series of tethered and untethered test flights in 2019 and 2020. SpaceX then began testing a series of Starship vehicles on high-altitude flights, starting with a short flight test of the SN5 prototype in August 8. One of the biggest challenges of the program was handling the mid-air flip, which led to the destruction of several Starship prototypes before SN2020’s soft landing on May 15, 5.

Starship is designed to launch into orbit and deep space aboard a 70-foot-tall Super Heavy rocket carrying about 3,6 pounds of liquid oxygen and methane in its fuel tank. Super Heavy has four lattice fins that help control the descent of the rocket. The Starship and Super Heavy combine to form a 4-foot-tall, fully reusable launch system when first stacked in August 120.

Starship launched for the first time in April 4. According to the plan, Starship would separate in about 2023 minutes and continue flying on its own engine, then land off the coast of Hawaii after 3 hours. However, an explosion occurred shortly after separating from the booster. Since this mission, SpaceX has made more than 1,5 changes to the rocket design, including changes to the stage separation system.

The second launch took place in November 11. This time, the separation process went perfectly, and the Starship flew to an altitude of 2023 km. While firing the second stage engine, the Starship released too much liquid oxygen, leading to an explosion. On the third flight on March 150, SpaceX’s Starship tested many maneuvers in orbit for the first time for an hour but was destroyed during re-entry. On the fourth flight on June 14, the Starship passed several important milestones in the test flight, including the Starship capsule remaining intact after experiencing extreme temperatures in the Earth’s atmosphere, and both the capsule and booster landed safely.

On its fifth test flight on the morning of October 13, the Super Heavy rocket released the Starship on its way into space, then fell back to Earth. For the first time, a pair of giant mechanical wands at SpaceX’s Texas launch pad caught the falling rocket, an unprecedented feat in rocket technology. As a result, SpaceX is one step closer to its goal of building the first fully reusable rocket system in history, dramatically reducing the cost of space travel and eventually making humanity a multiplanetary species. Having demonstrated that both the Starship and the Super Heavy rocket can launch into space and return to Earth intact, the company is on track to achieve its goal of making rocket launches an estimated 10 times cheaper.

SpaceX’s Future Plans

SpaceX has a diverse client base, from the private sector to the military to non-governmental organizations willing to pay to have the company deliver cargo into orbit. While it makes money from launch services, the company is also focused on developing future space exploration technology.

In 2016, Musk announced a technical plan to fly to Mars, aiming to create a self-sufficient colony on the red planet in the next 50 to 100 years. The interplanetary transport system is essentially a larger version of the Falcon 9. However, the spacecraft is larger than the Dragon spacecraft and is expected to carry at least 100 passengers per flight.

Starship continues to figure prominently in Musk’s plans to colonize Mars. In February 2, Musk said SpaceX could launch a Starship vehicle every six to eight hours and a Super Heavy rocket every hour on missions carrying up to 2022 tons of cargo into orbit. Such high launch rates would dramatically reduce costs, making Mars settlement more economically feasible.