SpaceX

SpaceX

Space Exploration Technologies Corp., trading as SpaceX, is an American aerospace manufacturer and space transportation services company headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the goal of reducing space transportation costs to enable the colonization of Mars.SpaceX has developed several launch vehicles and the Dragon spacecraft.

SpaceX's achievements include the first privately funded liquid-propellant rocket to reach orbit (Falcon 1 in 2008),the first private company to successfully launch, orbit, and recover a spacecraft (Dragon in 2010), the first private company to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station (Dragon in 2012),the first propulsive landing for an orbital rocket (Falcon 9 in 2015), the first reuse of an orbital rocket (Falcon 9 in 2017), the first private company to launch an object into orbit around the Sun (Falcon Heavy's payload of a Tesla Roadster in 2018), and the first private company to send astronauts to the International Space Station (Dragon 2 in 2020).SpaceX has flown 20 esupply missions to the International Space Station (ISS) under a partnership with NASA.NASA also awarded SpaceX a further development contract in 2011 to develop and demonstrate a human-rated Dragon, which would be used to transport astronauts to the ISS and return them safely to Earth.SpaceX conducted the maiden launch of its Dragon 2 spacecraft on a NASA-required demonstration flight (Crew Dragon Demo-1) on March 2, 2019, and launched its first crewed Dragon 2 on May 30, 2020.

In December 2015, a Falcon 9 accomplished a propulsive vertical landing. This was the first such achievement by a rocket for orbital spaceflight.In April 2016, with the launch of CRS-8, SpaceX successfully vertically landed the first stage on an ocean drone ship landing platform.In May 2016, in another first, SpaceX again landed the first stage, but during a significantly more energetic geostationary transfer orbit mission.In March 2017, SpaceX became the first to successfully re-launch and land the first stage of an orbital rocket.In January 2020, with the third launch of the Starlink project, SpaceX became the largest commercial satellite constellation operator in the world.

In September 2016, Musk unveiled the Interplanetary Transport System, a privately funded launch system to develop spaceflight technology for use in crewed interplanetary spaceflight. In 2018, Musk unveiled an updated configuration of the system, Starship, which is intended to become the primary SpaceX orbital vehicle after the early 2020s, as SpaceX has announced it intends to eventually replace its existing Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon 2 fleet with Starship, even in the Earth-orbit satellite delivery market.Starship is planned to be fully reusable and will be the largest rocket ever on its debut, scheduled for the early 2020

History

In 2001, Elon Musk conceptualized Mars Oasis, a project to land a miniature experimental greenhouse and grow plants on Mars. He announced that "This would be the furthest that life's ever traveled"in an attempt to regain public interest in space exploration and increase the budget of NASA.Musk tried to buy cheap rockets from Russia but returned empty-handed after failing to find rockets for an affordable price.On the flight home, Musk realized that he could start a company that could build the affordable rockets he needed.According to early Tesla and SpaceX investor Steve Jurvetson,Musk calculated that the raw materials for building a rocket actually were only three percent of the sales price of a rocket at the time. By applying vertical integration,producing around 85% of launch hardware in-house,and the modular approach from software engineering, SpaceX could cut launch price by a factor of ten and still enjoy a 70% gross margin.

In early 2002, Musk was seeking staff for his new space company, soon to be named SpaceX. Musk approached rocket engineer Tom Mueller (later SpaceX's CTO of Propulsion). Mueller agreed to work for Musk, and thus SpaceX was born.SpaceX was first headquartered in a warehouse in El Segundo, California. The company grew rapidly, from 160 employees in November 2005 to 1,100 in 2010,3,800 employees and contractors by October 2013,nearly 5,000 by late 2015,and about 6,000 in April 2017.As of November 2017, the company had grown to nearly 7,000.In 2016, Musk gave a speech at the International Astronautical Congress, where he explained that the US government regulates rocket technology as an "advanced weapon technology", making it difficult to hire non-Americans.


Falcon 9 rocket's first stage on the landing pad after the second successful vertical landing of an orbital rocket stage, OG2 Mission.
As of March 2018, SpaceX had over 100 launches on its manifest representing about $12 billion in contract revenue.The contracts included both commercial and government (NASA/DOD) customers.In late 2013, space industry media quoted Musk's comments on SpaceX "forcing… increased competitiveness in the launch industry", its major competitors in the commercial comsat launch market being Arianespace, United Launch Alliance, and International Launch Services.At the same time, Musk also said that the increased competition would "be a good thing for the future of space". Currently, SpaceX is the leading global commercial launch provider measured by manifested launches.


Falcon 9 first stage on an ASDS barge after the first successful landing at sea, CRS-8 Mission.

On May 30, 2020, SpaceX successfully launched two NASA astronauts (Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken) into orbit on a Crew Dragon spacecraft during SpaceX Demo-2, making SpaceX the first private company to send astronauts to the International Space Station and marking the first crewed launch from American soil in 9 years.The mission launched from Launch Complex 39A of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.SpaceX Demo-2 successfully docked with the ISS on May 31, 2020.Due to the COVID-19 pandemic happening at the same time, proper quarantine procedures (many of which were already in use by NASA decades before the 2020 pandemic) were taken to prevent the astronauts from bringing COVID-19 aboard the ISS.

Goals

Musk has stated that one of his goals is to decrease the cost and improve the reliability of access to space, ultimately by a factor of ten.CEO Elon Musk said: "I believe $500 per pound ($1100/kg) or less is very achievable".Musk has also stated that he wishes to make space travel available for "almost anyone."

Falcon Heavy Rocket on Launch Pad 39A in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

A major goal of SpaceX has been to develop a rapidly reusable launch system. As of March 2013, the publicly announced aspects of this technology development effort include an active test campaign of the low-altitude, low-velocity Grasshopper flight test vehicle,and a high-altitude, high-speed Falcon 9 post-mission booster return test campaign. In 2015, SpaceX successfully landed the first orbital rocket stage on December 21.

In 2017, SpaceX formed a subsidiary, The Boring Company,and began work to construct a short test tunnel on and adjacent to the SpaceX headquarters and manufacturing facility, utilizing a small number of SpaceX employees,which was completed in May 2018,and opened to the public in December 2018.During 2018, The Boring Company was spun out into a separate corporate entity with 6% of the equity going to SpaceX, less than 10% to early employees, and the remainder of the equity to Elon Musk.

At the 2016 International Astronautical Congress, Musk announced his plans to build large spaceships to reach Mars.Using the Starship, Musk planned to send at least two unmanned cargo ships to Mars in 2022. The first missions would be used to seek out sources of water and build a propellant plant. Musk also planned to fly four additional ships to Mars in 2024 including the first people. From there, additional missions would work to establish a Mars colony.These goals are however facing delays.

Musk's advocacy for the long-term settlement of Mars, goes far beyond what SpaceX projects to build;a successful colonization would ultimately involve many more economic actors—whether individuals, companies, or governments—to facilitate the growth of the human presence on Mars over many decades.

Achievements

Major achievements of SpaceX are in the reuse of orbital-class launch vehicles and cost reduction in the space launch industry. Most notable of these being the continued landings and relaunches of the first stage of Falcon 9. As of March 2020, SpaceX has used a single first-stage booster, B1048, at most five times. SpaceX is defined as a private space company and thus its achievements can also be counted as firsts by a private company.

Landmark achievements of SpaceX in chronological order include:

The first privately funded liquid-fueled rocket to reach orbit (Falcon 1 flight 4 on September 28, 2008)

The first privately developed liquid-fueled rocket to put a commercial satellite in orbit (RazakSAT on Falcon 1 flight 5 on July 14, 2009)

The first private company to successfully launch, orbit, and recover a spacecraft (SpaceX Dragon on COTS Demo Flight 1 on December 9, 2010)

The first private company to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station (Dragon C2+ on May 25, 2012)

The first private company to send a satellite into geosynchronous orbit (SES-8 on Falcon 9 flight 7 on December 3, 2013)

The first landing of an orbital rocket's first stage on land (Falcon 9 flight 20 on December 22, 2015)

The first landing of an orbital rocket's first stage on an ocean platform (Falcon 9 flight 23 on April 8, 2016)

The first relaunch and landing of a used orbital rocket stage (B1021 on Falcon 9 flight 32 on March 30, 2017)

The first controlled flyback and recovery of a payload fairing (Falcon 9 flight 32 on March 30, 2017)

The first reflight of a commercial cargo spacecraft. (Dragon C106 on CRS-11 mission on June 3, 2017)

The first private company to send an object into heliocentric orbit (Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster on Falcon Heavy test flight on February 6, 2018)

The first private company to send a human-rated spacecraft to space (Crew Dragon Demo-1, on Falcon 9 flight 69 on March 2, 2019)

The first private company to autonomously dock a spacecraft to the International Space Station (Crew Dragon Demo-1, on Falcon 9 flight 69 on March 3, 2019)

The first use of a full flow staged combustion cycle engine (Raptor) in a free flying vehicle (Starhopper, multiple tests in 2019).

The first reuse of payload fairing (Starlink 1 Falcon 9 launch on November 11, 2019). Fairing was from the ArabSat-6A mission in April earlier that year.

The first private company to send humans into orbit (Crew Dragon Demo-2 on May 30, 2020).

The first private company to send humans to the International Space Station (Crew Dragon Demo-2 on May 31, 2020)

Accidents

In March 2013, a Dragon spacecraft in orbit developed issues with its thrusters that limited its control capabilities. SpaceX engineers were able to remotely clear the blockages within a short period, and the spacecraft was able to successfully complete its mission to and from the International Space Station.

In late June 2015, CRS-7 launched a Cargo Dragon atop a Falcon 9 to resupply the International Space Station. All telemetry readings were nominal until 2 minutes and 19 seconds into the flight when a loss of helium pressure was detected and a cloud of vapor appeared outside the second stage. A few seconds after this, the second stage exploded. The first stage continued to fly for a few seconds before disintegrating due to aerodynamic forces. The capsule was thrown off and survived the explosion, transmitting data until it was destroyed on impact.Later it was revealed that the capsule could have landed intact if it had software to deploy its parachutes in case of a launch mishap.The problem was discovered to be a failed 2-foot-long steel strut purchased from a supplier to hold a helium pressure vessel that broke free due to the force of acceleration.This caused a breach and allowed high-pressure helium to escape into the low-pressure propellant tank, causing the failure. The Dragon software issue was also fixed in addition to an analysis of the entire program in order to ensure proper abort mechanisms are in place for future rockets and their payload.

In early September 2016, a Falcon 9 exploded during a propellant fill operation for a standard pre-launch static fire test.The payload, the Spacecom Amos-6 communications satellite valued at $200 million, was destroyed.Musk described the event as the "most difficult and complex failure" in SpaceX's history; SpaceX reviewed nearly 3,000 channels of telemetry and video data covering a period of 35–55 milliseconds for the postmortem.Musk reported that the explosion was caused by the liquid oxygen that is used as propellant turning so cold that it solidified and ignited with carbon composite helium vessels.Though not considered an unsuccessful flight, the rocket explosion sent the company into a four-month launch hiatus while it worked out what went wrong. SpaceX returned to flight in January 2017.


On June 28, 2019, SpaceX announced that it had lost contact with three of the 60 satellites making up the Starlink megaconstellation. The dysfunctional satellites' orbits are expected to slowly decay until they disintegrate in the atmosphere.However, the rate of failure for satellites in megaconstellations consisting of thousands of satellites has raised concerns that these constellations could litter the Earth's lower orbit, with serious detrimental consequences for future space flights.

- Research And Development - 

Reusable launch system

SpaceX's reusable launcher program was publicly announced in 2011 and the design phase was completed in February 2012. The system returns the first stage of a Falcon 9 rocket to a predetermined landing site using only its own propulsion systems.

SpaceX's active test program began in late 2012 with testing low-altitude, low-speed aspects of the landing technology. The prototypes of Falcon 9 performed vertical takeoffs and landings.

High-velocity, high-altitude aspects of the booster atmospheric return technology began testing in late 2013 and have continued through 2018, with a 98% success rate to date. As a result of Elon Musk's goal of crafting more cost-effective launch vehicles, SpaceX conceived a method to reuse the first stage of their primary rocket, the Falcon 9,by attempting propulsive vertical landings on solid surfaces. Once the company determined that soft landings were feasible by touching down over the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, they began landing attempts on a solid platform. SpaceX leased and modified several barges to sit out at sea as a target for the returning first stage, converting them to autonomous spaceport drone ships (ASDS). SpaceX first achieved a successful landing and recovery of a first stage in December 2015,and in April 2016, the first stage booster first successfully landed on the ASDS Of Course I Still Love You.

SpaceX continues to carry out first stage landings on every orbital launch that fuel margins allow. By October 2016, following the successful landings, SpaceX indicated they were offering their customers a ten percent price discount if they choose to fly their payload on a reused Falcon 9 first stage.On March 30, 2017, SpaceX launched a "flight-proven" Falcon 9 for the SES-10 mission. This was the first time a re-launch of a payload-carrying orbital rocket went back to space.The first stage was recovered and landed on the ASDS Of Course I Still Love You in the Atlantic Ocean, also making it the first landing of a reused orbital class rocket. Elon Musk called the achievement an "incredible milestone in the history of space."


The autonomous spaceport drone ships are named after giant starships from the Culture series stories by science fiction author Iain M. Banks.

Starship

SpaceX is developing a super-heavy lift launch system, Starship. Starship is a fully reusable second stage and space vehicle intended to replace all of the company's existing launch vehicle hardware by the early 2020s; plus ground infrastructure for rapid launch and relaunch and zero-gravity propellant transfer technology in low Earth orbit (LEO).

SpaceX initially envisioned a 12-meter-diameter ITS concept in 2016 which was solely aimed at Mars transit and other interplanetary uses. In 2017, SpaceX articulated a smaller 9-meter-diameter BFR to replace all of SpaceX launch service provider capabilities—Earth-orbit, lunar-orbit, interplanetary missions, and potentially, even intercontinental passenger transport on Earth—but do so on a fully reusable set of vehicles with a markedly lower cost structure.A large portion of the components on Starship are made of 301 stainless steel. Private passenger Yusaku Maezawa has contracted to fly around the Moon in Starship in 2023.


Musk's long-term vision for the company is the development of technology and resources suitable for human colonization on Mars. He has expressed his interest in someday traveling to the planet, stating "I'd like to die on Mars, just not on impact."A rocket every two years or so could provide a base for the people arriving in 2025 after a launch in 2024.According to Steve Jurvetson, Musk believes that by 2035 at the latest, there will be thousands of rockets flying a million people to Mars, in order to enable a self-sustaining human colony.

Other projects

In January 2015, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced the development of a new satellite constellation, called Starlink, to provide global broadband internet service. In June 2015, the company asked the federal government for permission to begin testing for a project that aims to build a constellation of 4,425 satellites capable of beaming the Internet to the entire globe, including remote regions which currently do not have Internet access.The Internet service would use a constellation of 4,425 cross-linked communications satellites in 1,100 km orbits. Owned and operated by SpaceX, the goal of the business is to increase profitability and cashflow, to allow SpaceX to build its Mars colony.Development began in 2015, initial prototype test-flight satellites were launched on the SpaceX PAZ mission in 2017. Initial operation of the constellation could begin as early as 2020. As of March 2017, SpaceX filed with the US regulatory authorities plans to field a constellation of an additional 7,518 "V-band satellites in non-geosynchronous orbits to provide communications services" in an electromagnetic spectrum that had not previously been "heavily employed for commercial communications services". Called the "V-band low-Earth-orbit (VLEO) constellation", it would consist of "7,518 satellites to follow the [earlier] proposed 4,425 satellites that would function in Ka- and Ku-band".In February 2019, SpaceX formed a sibling company, SpaceX Services, Inc., to license the manufacture and deployment of up to 1,000,000 fixed satellite earth stations that will communicate with its Starlink system.In May 2019, SpaceX launched the first batch of 60 satellites aboard a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral, FL.


In June 2015, SpaceX announced that they would sponsor a Hyperloop competition, and would build a 1-mile-long (1.6 km) subscale test track near SpaceX's headquarters for the competitive events.The first competitive event was held at the track in January 2017, the second in August 2017 and the third in December 2018.