Space X is one of the largest private aerospace company which was founded by Elon Musk who is one of the richest men in the world in recent time. He founded space exploration technologies corporation (SpaceX) on 6 May 2002. Whose headquarter is situated in Hawthorne, California.
SpaceX CEO and Company
Elon Musk is CEO and CTO of SpaceX. As a start of this SpaceX, he invited Tom Mueller who is a rocket engineer, and also gave him a chance to become a business partner. There are around 8000 employees work in SpaceX. They have completed a total of 108 launches, around 71 landings, and 50 reflown rockets. Which is a big achievement of SpaceX. Its total net worth is $46 billion.
Goals of SpaceX
Now a simple question arises in our mind that why it was founded?
There are several goals of SpaceX or Elon Musk that are as below:-
To decrease the cost of rockets, space equipment by the factor of 10
To Improve the reliability of access of space
One of the important aims is to develop the rapidly reusable launch system
They are working on the next generation fully reusable launch vehicles that will carry humans to Mars.
Achievements of SpaceX
SpaceX has successfully launched and deployed the booster launcher, the 6th batch of60 Starlink. The Booster launcher contains a total of 143 satellites, which breaks the world record of ISRO’s 104 satellites. It is the great achievements for SpaceX
SpaceX has also built a large spaceship so that man can be reached to Mars. Recently they have launched 2 uncrewed cargo ships to Mars in 2020.
SpaceX has got lots of achievements in the aerospace field. As a private aerospace company, it is so difficult to reach this stage but SpaceX made it possible.
Date
Achievement
Flight
28 September 2008
First, privately funded liquid-fueled rocket to reach orbit.
Falcon 1 flight 4
14 July 2009
First, privately developed liquid-fueled rocket to put a commercial satellite in orbit.
RazakSAT on Falcon 1 flight 5
9 December 2010
First private company to successfully launch, orbit, and recover a spacecraft.
SpaceX Dragon on SpaceX COTS Demo Flight 1
25 May 2012
First private company to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS).
Dragon C2+
22 December 2015
First landing of an orbital rocket’s first stage on land.
Falcon 9 flight 20
8 April 2016
First landing of an orbital rocket’s first stage on an ocean platform.
Falcon 9 flight 23
30 March 2017
First relaunch and landing of a used orbital first stage.
B1021 on Falcon 9 flight 32
30 March 2017
First controlled flyback and recovery of a payload fairing.
Falcon 9 flight 32
3 June 2017
First re-flight of a commercial cargo spacecraft.
Dragon C106 on SpaceX CRS-11 mission.
6 February 2018
The first private spacecraft launched into a heliocentric orbit.
Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster on Falcon Heavy test flight
2 March 2019
First private company to send a human-rated spacecraft to space.
Crew Dragon Demo-1, on Falcon 9 flight 69
3 March 2019
First private company to autonomously dock a spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS).
Crew Dragon Demo-1, on Falcon 9 flight 69
25 July 2019
The first use of a full-flow staged combustion cycle engine (Raptor) in a free-flying vehicle. The benefit is a much longer life than conventional engines; it is expected to able to be re-used 1000 times.
Starhopper
11 November 2019
First reuse of payload fairing. The fairing was from the Arabsat-6A mission in April 2019.
Starlink 1Falcon 9 launch
30 May 2020
First private company to send humans into orbit.
Crew Dragon Demo-2
31 May 2020
First private company to send humans to the International Space Station (ISS).