SpaceX history: 13 of the biggest moments for Elon Musk's 20-year-old company

"This act so completely offended Elon that he decided on the flight home that he would start his own rocket company to compete with them," former NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver wrote in a book about the commercialization of space. "If Helen of Troy had a face that launched a thousand ships, this was the spit that launched a thousand spaceships."

At the time, Musk was visiting Russia in order to negotiate a deal to buy space rockets for a future mission to Mars. He initially had wanted to create a greenhouse on the red planet called the "Mars Oasis."

SpaceX cofounder Jim Cantrell also recalled the incident in a Channel 4 documentary that aired in May and in a biography on Musk by Ashlee Vance, "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future."

SpaceX was founded as Space Exploration Technologies Corporation less than a year later in 2001, and Musk has continued his rivalry with Russia for decades — eventually turning SpaceX into a competitor to Russia's Soyuz rocket.

Sources: Insider, "Escaping Gravity: My Quest to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age," "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future."

Musk named the rocket Falcon in a nod to the Millennium Falcon from "Star Wars." Falcon 1 was an expendable two-stage-to-orbit launch vehicle that cost about $100 million to build.

The company unveiled its second spaceship, the Dragon, a year later, naming it after the hit song "Puff the Magic Dragon" by Peter, Paul and Mary. Musk said he used the name because many considered his vision for the company impossible.

At the time, the company was one of very few to attempt to make a commercial space rocket.

By 2006, Musk — who had made millions when PayPal sold to eBay — had invested a third of his fortune into the space venture. The company also received $278 million from NASA under the agency's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services, as well as funding for its first two Falcon launches from the United States Department of Defense.

Sources: Wired, NASA, SpaceReview

In 2006, SpaceX's first launch attempt failed as a result of a fuel leak and resultant fire. A later review of the launch vehicle found that a fuel-line nut had corroded due to nearby ocean spray. SpaceX altered its design to replace aluminium hardware with stainless steel as a result.

The next two launches executed the first stage of flight, but encountered issues after separation that prevented the spacecraft from reaching orbit.

SpaceX almost went bankrupt as a result of the failed attempts.

At the same time, Musk was also facing issues with financing at Tesla and reportedly "waking from nightmares, screaming and in physical pain" due to the stress, according to Eric Berger's book about SpaceX, "Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX."

Sources: Space.com, SpaceX, "Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX"

The Falcon 1's first successful launch was on September 28, 2008 from Omelek Island in the Marshall Islands. It was also the first successful orbital launch from a privately funded company, representing a major shift in an industry that had been dominated by government programs.

No major changes were made to the rocket between the third and forth launch, but SpaceX did increase the time between first-stage burnout and second-stage separation as the previous failure had been attributed to a timing issue.

SpaceX's rocket launches are divided into two stages. The first stage is the booster, which makes a big push to a certain altitude and then falls away. The second stage continues on and pushes the spaceship into orbit.

"I messed up the first three launches. The first three launches failed," Musk said in an interview nine years later. "That was the last money that we had for Falcon 1. That fourth launch worked. Or it would have been — that would have been it for SpaceX. But fate liked us that day."

Following the company's first successful launch, SpaceX was able to secure more funding from NASA, as well as some private investors.

The Falcon 1 rocket was retired after its fifth launch in 2009.

Sources: Space.com, CNBC, "Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX"

It was the first commercial spacecraft to deliver cargo to ISS, and led to several more contracts between NASA and SpaceX.

Dragon 1 flew 23 cargo missions to ISS until it was retired in 2020. SpaceX began developing Dragon 2 — a version that would be able to carry astronauts, as well as cargo — in 2014.

Sources: SpaceX, CNET, EndGadget

The rocket was carrying supplies to ISS when it broke apart shortly after liftoff.

The problem was traced to a steel strut that contained a helium pressure vessel and broke apart from the spacecraft due to the force of the liftoff.

The Falcon 9 had a second failure in 2016 when the rocket exploded during the pre-launch static fire test.

Source: Los Angeles Times, NBC

In 2016, SpaceX successfully recovered the first stage of another Falcon 9 rocket on an autonomous spaceport drone ship located in the Atlantic Ocean.

Recovering and reusing the first stage of rockets allows SpaceX to reduce its costs by about 30%, Musk has said.

Within the year, Musk's space venture began offering to transport payloads using the reused first stage for a 10% discount. The company launched its first reused Falcon 9 in 2017.

Sources: CNBC, SpaceNews, The Washington Post

The red sports car was occupied by a mannequin in a spacesuit, dubbed "Starman."

The electric car was sent into space as a test load. At the time, Musk said he wanted the dummy payload to be the "silliest thing we can imagine."

The car is still in orbit — making it the fastest sports car to ever exist. There's even a website that tracks the car's space journey. As of December 20, the Roadster was over 200 million miles from earth, moving away from the planet at a speed of 6,473 miles per hour, according to whereisroadster.com.

Source: CNN, whereisroadster.com

SpaceX launched its new Crew Dragon spacecraft using its Falcon 9 rocket on May 30, 2020 with two astronauts onboard, Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken. The men were the first humans to ever take off on a SpaceX rocket.

It was also the first time the US had launched an astronaut into orbit on a new spacecraft since the inaugural space shuttle launch in 1981.

The mission was a result of NASA's Commercial Crew space program, which was designed to spur the development of private launch vehicles after the agency officially retired its Space Shuttle in 2011.

Later that year, NASA certified SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon human spaceflight system for crew missions to and from ISS – meaning the US would no longer have to rely solely on Russia's Soyuz rocket to transport US astronauts to and from the space station.

Source: Space.com, NASA

Musk's long-term ambitions are to populate Mars by building self-sustaining settlements there. To send enough people and materials all the way to the red planet, SpaceX needs a powerful and completely reusable rocket. Enter Starship-Super Heavy.

Starship is the cornerstone spacecraft of Musk's plans beyond Earth. NASA has picked it to land the first astronauts on the moon since 1972. And Musk has described a vision of one day building 1,000 Starships to fly regular shuttle trips to and from Mars.

With Starship, SpaceX aims to make the rocket's second stage reusable — something that it accomplished with Falcon 9's first stage. That would make the launch system fully reusable, which has never been done before.

Starship had a rocky start at its development facilities in Boca Chica, Texas, where SpaceX began launching prototypes 6 miles high to ensure they could fly and land themselves in one piece. The first four prototypes exploded, either in mid-air, by crashing into the landing pad, or 10 minutes after touchdown.

But the fifth Starship landed in one piece, proving that SpaceX could reuse the second-stage spacecraft of its Mars launch system. That full reusability could slash the cost of reaching space by "a factor of 100 or more," Musk has said.

Now SpaceX is working to launch Starship with its giant Super Heavy booster, pushing the spacecraft into orbit for the first time. It's unclear when that landmark orbital test flight will happen.

Source: Insider

On September 15, 2021, billionaire Jared Issacman chartered a private spaceflight with three other passengers and spent three days in space. The mission launched the Crew Dragon Resilience atop a Falcon 9.

The flight was part of a charitable effort to raise funds and awareness for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, and led to over $243 million in donations.

The spaceflight was the first crewed mission to reach orbit without any professional astronauts on board.

Source: Space.com

Last year, SpaceX broke a record for the longest streak of orbital launches without a mission failure or partial failure for a single rocket type after its Falcon 9 completed 101 launches without a snag.

In October, the space venture achieved the highest number of launches of a single rocket type in a year when it successfully launched the Falcon 9 48 times in about 10 months.

SpaceX is also one of the most valuable private companies in the world, with a valuation over $100 billion.

Sources: Guinness World Records, CNBC

The company has launched over 3,000 of its satellites into Earth's lower orbit with plans to create a network of 42,000 satellites for SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet.

Since SpaceX started launching Starlink satellites in 2019 the company has generated over 1 million users. The satellite internet service was launched across several airlines and cruise companies earlier this year, and it has also proven pivotal for Ukraine in its war against Russia.

SpaceX has spun some of its work into a subsidiary called The Boring Company, which has plans to build underground transportation systems in several US cities.

Sources: Los Angeles Times, Space.com