About SpaceX

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American aerospace manufacturer, space transportation services and communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. SpaceX was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the goal of reducing space transportation costs to enable the colonization of Mars. It was the first private company to successfully launch and return a spacecraft from Earth orbit and the first to launch a crewed spacecraft and dock it with the International Space Station (ISS). Headquarters are in Hawthorne, California. In January 2020 the Starlink constellation became the largest satellite constellation ever launched.

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History Of SpaceX

The company entered the arena with the Falcon 1 rocket in march 2006, a two-stage liquid-fueled craft designed to send small satellites into orbit. Falcon 1 began successfully but ended prematurely because of a fuel leak and fire. By this time, however, the company had already earned millions of dollars in launching orders, many of them from the U.S. government. In 2010 SpaceX first launched its Falcon 9, a bigger craft so named for its use of nine engines, and the following year it broke ground on a launch site for the Falcon Heavy, a craft the company hoped would be the first to break the $1,000-per-pound-to-orbit cost barrier and that might one day be used to transport astronauts into deep space. In December 2010 the company reached another milestone, becoming the first commercial company to release a spacecraft—the Dragon capsule—into orbit and successfully return it to Earth.

Rockets Of SpaceX

Here are some of the famous rockets in the world made by SpaceX

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“You want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be great - and that’s what being a spacefaring civilization is all about. It’s about believing in the future and thinking that the future will be better than the past. And I can’t think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars.”


-Elon Musk

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FALCON 1 Makes History

SEPTEMBER 2008
Falcon 1 becomes the first privately developed liquid-fuel rocket to reach Earth orbit. Falcon 1 achieved orbit on its fourth attempt in September 2008 with a mass simulator as a payload. The first two Falcon 1 launches were purchased by the United States Department of Defense under a program that evaluates new US launch vehicles suitable for use by DARPA

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First Land Landing Mission

DECEMBER 2015
On December 21, 2015, the Falcon 9 rocket delivered 11 communications satellites to orbit, and the first stage returned and landed at Landing Zone 1 — the first-ever orbital class rocket landing. The program's objective was to reliably execute controlled re-entry, descent and landing (EDL) of the Falcon 9 first stage into Earth's atmosphere after the stage completes the boost phase of an orbital spaceflight. The first tests aimed to touch down vertically in the ocean at zero velocity. Later tests attempted to land the rocket precisely on an autonomous spaceport drone ship (a barge commissioned by SpaceX to provide a stable landing surface at sea) , a concrete pad at Cape Canaveral.

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Droneship Landing

APRIL 2016
On April 8, 2016, the Falcon 9 rocket launched the Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station, and the first stage returned and landed on the “Of Course I Still Love You” drone ship.

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First Flight

MARCH 2017
On March 30, 2017, SpaceX achieved the world’s first re-flight of an orbital class rocket. Following the delivery of the payload, the Falcon 9 first stage returned to Earth for the second time.

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FALCON Heavy First Flight

FEBRUARY 2018
Falcon Heavy is the world’s most powerful operational rocket by a factor of two, capable of carrying large payloads to orbit and supporting missions as far as the Moon or Mars. On February 7, 2018, Falcon Heavy made its first launch to orbit, successfully landing 2 of its 3 boosters and launching its payload to space.

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SpaceX returns Human Spaceflight to the United States

MAY 2020
Launched atop Falcon 9 on May 30, 2020, Dragon's second demonstration mission to and from the International Space Station, with NASA astronauts on board the spacecraft, restored human spaceflight to the United States. Later that year, NASA certified SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon human spaceflight system for crew missions to and from the space station – becoming the first commercial system in history to achieve such designation.

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Inspiration4

SEPTEMBER 2021
Inspiration4 was a human spaceflight mission in 2021, operated by SpaceX. The mission launched the Crew Dragon Resilience on 16 September 2021 from the Florida Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A atop a Falcon 9 launch vehicle, placed the Dragon capsule into low Earth orbit, and ended successfully on 18 September 2021 at when the Resilience splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean.