SpaceX

This article is about the rocket and spacecraft manufacturer. For the British art gallery, see Spacex (art gallery).
"Space Exploration Technologies" redirects here. For the general topics, see Space exploration and Space technology.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp.
SpaceX
Company typePrivate
Industry
FoundedMarch 14, 2002 (22 years ago) (2002-03-14) in El Segundo, California, U.S.[1]
FounderElon Musk
HeadquartersSpaceX Starbase,
Brownsville, Texas
,
United States
Key people
Products
RevenueIncrease US$4.6 billion (2022)[4]
Negative increase US$−559 million (2022)[4]
Owner
  • Elon Musk (42% equity; 79% voting control)[5]
Number of employees
13,000+[6] (September 2023)
Subsidiaries
Websitespacex.com
This article is part of
a series about
Elon Musk
Personal
Companies
In popular culture
Second presidency of Trump
Related
Elon Musk's signature

Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an American space technology company headquartered at the SpaceX Starbase near Brownsville, Texas. Since its founding in 2001, the company has made numerous advancements in rocket propulsion, reusable launch vehicle, human spaceflight and satellite constellation technology. By the late 2010s, SpaceX had become the world's dominant space launch provider, its launch cadence rivaling that of the Chinese space program[8] and eclipsing all those of its private competitors.[9] SpaceX, NASA and the United States Armed Forces work closely together by means of governmental contracts.[10]

SpaceX was founded by Elon Musk in 2001 with a vision of decreasing the costs of space launches, paving the way to a sustainable colony on Mars. In 2008, when SpaceX was almost bankrupt, Falcon 1 successfully launched into orbit after three failed launch attempts. The company then pivoted towards the development of the larger Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon 1 capsule to satisfy NASA's COTS contracts for deliveries to the International Space Station. By 2012, SpaceX finished all COTS test flights and began delivering Commercial Resupply Services missions to the International Space Station. Also around that time, SpaceX started developing hardware to make the Falcon 9 first stage reusable. The company demonstrated the first successful first-stage landing in 2015 and re-launch of the first stage in 2017. Falcon Heavy, built from three Falcon 9 boosters, first flew in 2018 after a more than decade-long development process. As of October 2024, the company's Falcon 9 rockets have landed and flown again more than 330 times, reaching 1-2 launches a week.

These milestones delivered the company much-needed investment and SpaceX sought to diversify its sources of income. In 2019, the first operational satellite of the Starlink internet satellite constellation came online. In subsequent years, Starlink generated the bulk of SpaceX's income and paved the way for its Starshield military counterpart. In 2020, SpaceX began to operate its Dragon 2 capsules to deliver crewed missions for NASA and private entities. Around this time, SpaceX began building test prototypes for Starship, which is the largest launch vehicle in history and aims to fully realize the company's vision of a fully-reusable, cost-effective and adaptable launch vehicle. SpaceX is also developing its own space suit and astronaut via its Polaris program[11] as well as developing the human lander for lunar missions under NASA's Artemis program.[12] SpaceX is not publicly traded; a space industry newspaper estimated that SpaceX has a revenue of over US$10 billion in 2024.[13]

  1. ^ "Delaware Business Search (File # 3500808 – Space Exploration Technologies Corp)". Delaware Department of State: Division of Corporations. Archived from the original on 20 September 2016. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
  2. ^ "Who is Elon Musk, and what made him big? | Business| Economy and finance news from a German perspective". Deutsche Welle. 27 May 2020. Archived from the original on 28 May 2020. Retrieved 28 May 2020.
  3. ^ "Gwynne Shotwell: Executive Profile & Biography". Bloomberg L.P. Archived from the original on 16 July 2019. Retrieved 1 March 2017.
  4. ^ a b Maidenberg, Micah; Driebusch, Corrie; Jin, Berber (17 August 2023). "A Rare Look Into the Finances of Elon Musk's Secretive SpaceX". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 17 August 2023. Retrieved 17 August 2023.
  5. ^ Maidenberg, Micah; Higgins, Tim (5 September 2023). "Elon Musk Borrowed $1 Billion From SpaceX in Same Month of Twitter Acquisition". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 6 September 2023. Retrieved 6 September 2023.
  6. ^ "Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief" (PDF). United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Archived (PDF) from the original on 20 September 2023. Retrieved 20 September 2023 – via courtlistener.com.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference StarlinkServices was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Clark, Stephen (28 June 2024). "Rocket Report: China flies reusable rocket hopper; Falcon Heavy dazzles". Ars Technica. Retrieved 28 October 2024.
  9. ^ Berger, Eric (22 March 2021). "Europe is starting to freak out about the launch dominance of SpaceX". Ars Technica. Retrieved 28 October 2024.
  10. ^ Berger, Eric (1 March 2019). "The marriage of SpaceX and NASA hasn't been easy—but it's been fruitful". Ars Technica. Retrieved 28 October 2024.
  11. ^ Berger, Eric (15 September 2024). "So what are we to make of the highly ambitious, private Polaris spaceflight?". Ars Technica. Retrieved 28 October 2024.
  12. ^ Foust, Jeff (16 April 2021). "NASA selects SpaceX to develop crewed lunar lander". SpaceNews. Archived from the original on 23 May 2021. Retrieved 18 April 2021.
  13. ^ Kuhr, Jack; Islam, Mo; Islam, Jack Kuhr and Mo (31 January 2024). "Predicting SpaceX's 2024 Revenue". Payload. Retrieved 28 October 2024.