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SpaceX Headquarters during Iridium-4 launch operations, December 2017
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| Private | |
| Industry | Aerospace |
| Founded | May 6, 2002 |
| Founder | Elon Musk |
| Headquarters | |
Key people
| |
| Products | |
| Services | Orbital rocket launch |
| Owner | Elon Musk Trust (54% equity; 78% voting control) |
Number of employees
| 7,000 (November 2019) |
| Website | www |
Space Exploration Technologies Corp., doing business as SpaceX, is a private 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 the Falcon launch vehicle family and the Dragon spacecraft family.
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), and the first private company to launch an object into orbit around the sun (Falcon Heavy's payload of a Tesla Roadster in 2018). SpaceX has flown 18 resupply 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 Crew Dragon spacecraft on a NASA-required demonstration flight (Crew Dragon Demo-1) on March 2, 2019 and is set to launch its first crewed Crew Dragon later in 2019.
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 September 2016, CEO Elon Musk unveiled the Interplanetary Transport System, a privately funded initiative to develop spaceflight technology for use in crewed interplanetary spaceflight. In 2017, Musk unveiled an updated configuration of the system, named "Starship", which is planned to be fully reusable and will be the largest rocket ever on its debut, currently scheduled for the early 2020s.
History
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SpaceX employees with the Dragon capsule at SpaceX HQ in Hawthorne, California, February 2015
In 2001, Elon Musk conceptualized Mars Oasis, a project to land a miniature experimental greenhouse and grow plants on Mars. "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.
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Launch of Falcon 9 carrying ORBCOMM OG2-M1
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) and 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.
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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.
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Falcon 9 first stage on an ASDS barge after the first successful landing at sea, CRS-8 Mission.
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 ($1,100/kg) or less is very achievable."
Falcon Heavy Rocket on Launch Pad 39-A 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-speed Grasshopper vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) technology demonstrator rocket, 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 2017 International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia, Musk announced his plans to build large spaceships to reach Mars.
Using the BFR, Musk plans to land at least two uncrewed cargo ships to
Mars in 2022. The first missions will be used to seek out sources of
water and build a propellant plant. In 2024, Musk plans to fly four
additional ships to Mars including the first people. From there,
additional missions would work to establish a Mars colony. 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 spacelaunch industry. Most notable of
these being the continued landings and relaunches of the first stage of
Falcon 9. As of November 2019 SpaceX has used single first stage
booster, B1048, at most four 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 (Dragon capsule 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 a human-rated spacecraft to space (Crew Dragon Demo-1, on Falcon 9 flight 69 on March 2, 2019) and the first private company to autonomously dock a spacecraft to the International Space Station (same flight on March 3, 2019)
- The first use of a full flow staged combustion cycle engine (Raptor) in a free flying vehicle (Starhopper, multiple test in 2019).
- The first reuse of payload fairing. On November 11, 2019 on Starlink L1 Falcon 9 launch. Fairing was from the ArabSat-6A mission in April earlier that year.
Setbacks
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 Dragon capsule 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 28 June 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.
Ownership, funding and valuation
In August 2008, SpaceX accepted a $20 million investment from Founders Fund. In early 2012, approximately two-thirds of the company were owned by its founder and his 70 million shares were then estimated to be worth $875 million on private markets, which roughly valued SpaceX at $1.3 billion as of February 2012. After the COTS 2+ flight in May 2012, the company private equity valuation nearly doubled to $2.4 billion. In January 2015, SpaceX raised $1 billion in funding from Google and Fidelity,
in exchange for 8.333% of the company, establishing the company
valuation at approximately $12 billion. Google and Fidelity joined prior
investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Founders Fund, Valor Equity Partners
and Capricorn. In July 2017, the Company raised US$350m at a valuation of US$21 billion.
As of May 2012, SpaceX had operated on total funding of
approximately $1 billion in its first ten years of operation. Of this,
private equity provided about $200M, with Musk investing approximately
$100M and other investors having put in about $100M (Founders Fund, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, etc.).
The remainder has come from progress payments on long-term launch
contracts and development contracts. By March 2018, SpaceX had contracts
for 100 launch missions, and each of those contracts provide down
payments at contract signing, plus many are paying progress payments as
launch vehicle components are built in advance of mission launch, driven
in part by US accounting rules for recognizing long-term revenue.
Successful SpaceX launches by year
Congressional testimony by SpaceX in 2017 suggested that the NASA Space Act Agreement process of "setting only a high-level requirement
for cargo transport to the space station [while] leaving the details to
industry" had allowed SpaceX to design and develop the Falcon 9 rocket
on its own at substantially lower cost. "According to NASA's
own independently verified numbers, SpaceX’s development costs of both
the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 rockets were estimated at approximately US$390 million in total. "In 2011, NASA estimated that it would have cost the agency about US$4 billion
to develop a rocket like the Falcon 9 booster based upon NASA's
traditional contracting processes". The Falcon 9 launch system, with an
estimated improvement at least four to ten times over traditional
cost-plus contracting estimates, about $400 million vs. $4 billion in
savings through the usage of Space Act Agreements.
In April 2019, the Wall Street Journal reported that SpaceX was raising another $500 million in funding. In May Space News reported SpaceX "raised $1.022 billion" the day after SpaceX launched 60 satellites towards their 12,000 satellite plan named Starlink broadband constellation. As of May 31, 2019, the value of SpaceX has risen to $33.3 billion.
In June 2019 SpaceX started to raise $300 million of investment,
mostly from the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, which has $191.1 billion
in assets under management.
Hardware
Launch vehicles
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The landing of a Falcon 9 Block 5 first stage at Cape Canaveral in July 2019 – VTVL technologies are utilized in many of SpaceX's launch vehicles
Falcon 1 was a small rocket capable of placing several hundred kilograms into low Earth orbit. It functioned as an early test-bed for developing concepts and components for the larger Falcon 9.
Falcon 1 attempted five flights between 2006 and 2009. With Falcon I,
when Musk announced his plans for it before a subcommittee in the Senate
in 2004, he discussed that Falcon I would be the 'worlds only
semi-reusable orbital rocket' apart from the space shuttle.
On September 28, 2008, on its fourth attempt, the Falcon 1 successfully
reached orbit, becoming the first privately funded, liquid-fueled
rocket to do so.
Falcon 9 is an EELV-class medium-lift vehicle capable of delivering up to 22,800 kilograms (50,265 lb) to orbit, and is intended to compete with the Delta IV and the Atlas V rockets, as well as other launch providers around the world. It has nine Merlin engines in its first stage. The Falcon 9 v1.0 rocket successfully reached orbit on its first attempt on June 4, 2010. Its third flight, COTS Demo Flight 2, launched on May 22, 2012, and was the first commercial spacecraft to reach and dock with the International Space Station. The vehicle was upgraded to Falcon 9 v1.1 in 2013 and again in 2015 to the current Falcon 9 Full Thrust version. As of February 2018, Falcon 9 vehicles have flown 49 successful missions
with one failure, the CRS-7 mission. An additional vehicle was
destroyed during a routine test several days prior to a scheduled launch
in 2016.
In 2011, SpaceX began development of the Falcon Heavy, a heavy-lift rocket configured using a cluster of three Falcon 9 first stage cores with a total 27 Merlin 1D engines and propellant crossfeed. The Falcon Heavy successfully flew on its inaugural mission on February 6, 2018 with a payload consisting of Musk's personal Tesla Roadster into heliocentric orbit The first stage would be capable of lifting 63,800 kilograms (140,660 lb) to LEO with the 27 Merlin 1D engines producing 22,819 kN
of thrust at sea level, and 24,681 kN in space. At the time of its
first launch, SpaceX described their Falcon Heavy as "the world's most
powerful rocket in operation".
Rocket engines
The Merlin 1D engine, SpaceX's most prolific engine, undergoing testing at SpaceX's Rocket Development and Test Facility in McGregor, Texas
Since the founding of SpaceX in 2002, the company has developed three families of rocket engines — Merlin and the retired Kestrel for launch vehicle propulsion, and the Draco control thrusters. SpaceX is currently developing two further rocket engines: SuperDraco and Raptor. SpaceX is currently the world's most prolific producer of liquid fuel rocket engines. Merlin is a family of rocket engines developed by SpaceX for use on its Falcon rocket family. Merlin engines use LOX and RP-1
as propellants in a gas-generator power cycle. The Merlin engine was
originally designed for sea recovery and reuse. The injector at the
heart of Merlin is of the pintle type that was first used in the Apollo Program for the lunar module landing engine. Propellants are fed via a single shaft, dual impeller turbo-pump. Kestrel is a LOX/RP-1 pressure-fed
rocket engine, and was used as the Falcon 1 rocket's second stage main
engine. It is built around the same pintle architecture as SpaceX's
Merlin engine but does not have a turbo-pump, and is fed only by tank pressure. Its nozzle is ablatively cooled in the chamber and throat, is also radiatively cooled, and is fabricated from a high strength niobium alloy. Both names for the Merlin and Kestrel engines are derived from species of North American falcons: the kestrel and the merlin.
Draco are hypergolic liquid-propellant rocket engines that utilize monomethyl hydrazine fuel and nitrogen tetroxide oxidizer. Each Draco thruster generates 400 newtons (90 lbf) of thrust. They are used as reaction control system (RCS) thrusters on the Dragon spacecraft. SuperDraco engines are a much more powerful version of the Draco thrusters, which were initially meant to be used as landing and launch escape system engines on the version 2 Dragon spacecraft, Dragon 2.
The concept of using retro-rockets for landing was scrapped in 2017
when it was decided to perform a traditional parachute descent and splashdown at sea. Raptor is a new family of methane-fueled full flow staged combustion cycle engines to be used in its future Starship launch system. Development versions were test fired in late 2016. On April 3, 2019, SpaceX conducted a successful static fire test in Texas on its Starhopper vehicle, which ignited the engine while the vehicle remained tethered to the ground. On July 24, 2019 SpaceX conducted a successful test hop of 20 meters of its Starhopper test vehicle. On the 28th August 2019 SpaceX's Starhopper prototype conducted a successful test hop of 150-meters.
Spacecraft
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SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft, designed to shuttle crew to and from the International Space Station as part of the Commercial Crew Program
In 2005, SpaceX announced plans to pursue a human-rated commercial space program through the end of the decade.
The Dragon is a conventional blunt-cone ballistic capsule which is
capable of carrying cargo or up to seven astronauts into orbit and
beyond.
In 2006, NASA announced that the company was one of two selected to
provide crew and cargo resupply demonstration contracts to the ISS under
the COTS program. SpaceX demonstrated cargo resupply and eventually crew transportation services using the Dragon.
The first flight of a Dragon structural test article took place in June
2010, from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station during
the maiden flight of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle; the mock-up
Dragon lacked avionics, heat shield, and other key elements normally
required of a fully operational spacecraft but contained all the
necessary characteristics to validate the flight performance of the
launch vehicle. An operational Dragon spacecraft was launched in December 2010 aboard COTS Demo Flight 1, the Falcon 9's second flight, and safely returned to Earth after two orbits, completing all its mission objectives. In 2012, Dragon became the first commercial spacecraft to deliver cargo to the International Space Station, and has since been conducting regular resupply services to the ISS.
In April 2011, NASA issued a $75 million contract, as part of its second-round commercial crew development
(CCDev) program, for SpaceX to develop an integrated launch escape
system for Dragon in preparation for human-rating it as a crew transport
vehicle to the ISS. In August 2012, NASA awarded SpaceX a firm, fixed-price SAA
with the objective of producing a detailed design of the entire crew
transportation system. This contract includes numerous key technical and
certification milestones, an uncrewed flight test, a crewed flight
test, and six operational missions following system certification.
The fully autonomous Crew Dragon spacecraft is expected to be one of
the safest crewed spacecraft systems. Reusable in nature, the Crew
Dragon will offer savings to NASA.
SpaceX conducted a test of an empty Crew Dragon to ISS in early 2019,
and later in the year they plan to launch a crewed Dragon which will
send US astronauts to the ISS for the first time since the retirement of
the Space Shuttle. In February 2017 SpaceX announced that two would-be space tourists
had put down "significant deposits" for a mission which would see the
two tourists fly on board a Dragon capsule around the Moon and back
again.
In addition to SpaceX's privately funded plans for an eventual Mars mission, NASA Ames Research Center had developed a concept called Red Dragon: a low-cost Mars mission that would use Falcon Heavy as the launch vehicle and trans-Martian injection vehicle, and the Dragon capsule to enter the Martian atmosphere. The concept was originally envisioned for launch in 2018 as a NASA Discovery mission, then alternatively for 2022
The objectives of the mission would be return the samples from Mars to
Earth at a fraction of the cost of the NASA own return-sample mission
now projected at 6 billion dollars. In September 2017, Elon Musk
released first prototype images of their space suits to be used in
future missions. The suit is in testing phase and it is designed to cope
with 2 atm (200 kPa; 29 psi) pressure in vacuum. The Crew Dragon spacecraft was first sent to space on March 2, 2019.
Research and development
First test firing of a scale Raptor development engine in September 2016 in McGregor, Texas.
SpaceX is actively pursuing several different research and development programs. Most notable are those intended to develop a fully reusable launch vehicle called Starship and a global telecommunications network called StarLink.
Reusable launch system
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Autonomous spaceport drone ship in position prior to Falcon 9 Flight 17 carrying CRS-6.
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. Grasshopper and the Falcon 9 Reusable Development Vehicles (F9R Dev) were experimental technology-demonstrator reusable rockets that 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."
Starship
Artist's concept of the Starship's former design following stage separation, 2018
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 launch vehicle
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. 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
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 and the second in August 2017. And the third in December 2018.
Infrastructure
The company's headquarters, located in Hawthorne, California.
SpaceX is headquartered
in Hawthorne, California, which also serves as its primary
manufacturing plant. The company owns a test site in Texas and operates
three launch sites, with another under development. SpaceX also operates
regional offices in Redmond, Texas, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.
Headquarters, manufacturing and refurbishment facilities
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Falcon 9 v1.1 rocket cores under construction at the SpaceX Hawthorne facility, November 2014.
SpaceX Headquarters is located in the Los Angeles suburb of Hawthorne, California. The large three-story facility, originally built by Northrop Corporation to build Boeing 747 fuselages,
houses SpaceX's office space, mission control, and, as of 2018, all
vehicle manufacturing. In March 2018, SpaceX indicated that it would
manufacture its next-generation, 9 m (30 ft)-diameter launch vehicle,
the BFR at a new facility on the Los Angeles waterfront in the San Pedro
area. The company had leased an 18-acre site near Berth 240 in the Los
Angeles, however in January 2019 the lease was cancelled and the
construction of BFR moved to a new site in South Texas.
The area has one of the largest concentrations of aerospace
headquarters, facilities, and/or subsidiaries in the U.S., including Boeing/McDonnell Douglas main satellite building campuses, Aerospace Corp., Raytheon, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Air Force Space Command's Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles Air Force Base, Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman, and AECOM, etc., with a large pool of aerospace engineers and recent college engineering graduates.
SpaceX utilizes a high degree of vertical integration in the production of its rockets and rocket engines. SpaceX builds its rocket engines, rocket stages, spacecraft, principal avionics and all software
in-house in their Hawthorne facility, which is unusual for the
aerospace industry. Nevertheless, SpaceX still has over 3,000 suppliers
with some 1,100 of those delivering to SpaceX nearly weekly.
In June 2017, SpaceX announced they would construct a facility on 0.88 hectares (2.17 acres) in Port Canaveral Florida for refurbishment and storage of previously flown Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy booster cores.
Development and test facilities
SpaceX McGregor engine test bunker, September 2012
SpaceX operates their first Rocket Development and Test Facility in McGregor, Texas. All SpaceX rocket engines are tested on rocket test stands, and low-altitude VTVL flight testing of the Falcon 9 Grasshopper v1.0 and F9R Dev1
test vehicles in 2013–2014 were carried out at McGregor. 2019
low-altitude VTVL testing of the much larger 9-meter (30 ft)-diameter "Starhopper" is planned to occur at the SpaceX South Texas Launch Site near Brownsville, Texas, which is currently under construction.
On January 23, 2019, strong winds at the Texas test launch site blew
over the nose cone over the first test article rocket, causing delays
that will take weeks to repair according to SpaceX representatives.
In the event, SpaceX decided to forego building another nose cone for
the first test article, because at the low velocities planned for that
rocket, it was unnecessary.
The company purchased the McGregor facilities from Beal Aerospace, where it refitted the largest test stand for Falcon 9
engine testing. SpaceX has made a number of improvements to the
facility since purchase, and has also extended the acreage by purchasing
several pieces of adjacent farmland. In 2011, the company announced
plans to upgrade the facility for launch testing a VTVL rocket,[47] and then constructed a half-acre concrete launch facility in 2012 to support the Grasshopper test flight program. As of October 2012, the McGregor facility had seven test stands that are operated "18 hours a day, six days a week" and is building more test stands because production is ramping up and the company has a large manifest in the next several years.
In addition to routine testing, Dragon capsules (following
recovery after an orbital mission), are shipped to McGregor for
de-fueling, cleanup, and refurbishment for reuse in future missions.
Launch facilities
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SpaceX west coast launch facility at Vandenberg Air Force Base, during the launch of CASSIOPE, September 2013.
SpaceX currently operates three orbital launch sites, at Cape Canaveral, Vandenberg Air Force Base, and Kennedy Space Center,
and is under construction on a fourth in Brownsville, Texas. SpaceX has
indicated that they see a niche for each of the four orbital facilities
and that they have sufficient launch business to fill each pad.
The Vandenberg launch site enables highly inclined orbits (66–145°),
while Cape Canaveral enables orbits of medium inclination, up to 51.6°. Before it was retired, all Falcon 1 launches took place at the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site on Omelek Island.
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Space Launch Complex 40
(SLC-40) is used for Falcon 9 launches to low Earth and geostationary
orbits. SLC-40 is not capable of supporting Falcon Heavy launches. As
part of SpaceX's booster reusability program, the former Launch Complex
13 at Cape Canaveral, now renamed Landing Zone 1, has been designated for use for Falcon 9 first-stage booster landings.
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Falcon 9 Flight 20 landing on Landing Zone 1 in December 2015
Vandenberg
Vandenberg Air Force Base Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) is used for payloads to polar orbits. The Vandenberg site can launch both Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy,
but cannot launch to low inclination orbits. The neighboring SLC-4W has
been converted to Landing Zone 4, where SpaceX successfully landed one
Falcon 9 first-stage booster, in October 2018.
Kennedy Space Center
On April 14, 2014, SpaceX signed a 20-year lease for Launch Pad 39A. The pad was subsequently modified to support Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches. SpaceX has launched 13 Falcon 9 missions from Launch Pad 39A and more recently the Falcon Heavy Rocket, on April 11, 2019. SpaceX intends to launch the first crewed missions to the ISS from Launch Pad 39A in 2019.
Brownsville
In August 2014, SpaceX announced they would be building a commercial-only launch facility at Brownsville, Texas. The Federal Aviation Administration released a draft Environmental Impact Statement
for the proposed Texas facility in April 2013, and "found that 'no
impacts would occur' that would force the Federal Aviation
Administration to deny SpaceX a permit for rocket operations," and issued the permit in July 2014. SpaceX started construction on the new launch facility in 2014 with production ramping up in the latter half of 2015, with the first suborbital launches from the facility in 2019. Real estate packages at the location have been named by SpaceX with names based on the theme "Mars Crossing".
Satellite prototyping facility
In January 2015, SpaceX announced it would be entering the satellite
production business and global satellite internet business. The first
satellite facility is a 30,000 square foot (2800m2) office
building located in Redmond, Washington. As of January 2017, a second
facility in Redmond was acquired with 40,625 square feet (3800m2) and has become a research and development lab for the satellites. In July 2016, SpaceX acquired an additional 740 square meters (8,000 sq ft) creative space in Irvine, California (Orange County) to focus on satellite communications.
Launch contracts
SpaceX won demonstration and actual supply contracts from NASA for the International Space Station (ISS) with technology the company developed. SpaceX is also certified for US military launches of Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle-class (EELV) payloads. With approximately 30 missions on manifest for 2018 alone, SpaceX represents over $12B under contract.
NASA contracts
COTS
The COTS 2 Dragon is berthed to the ISS by Canadarm2.
In 2006, NASA announced that SpaceX had won a NASA Commercial Orbital
Transportation Services (COTS) Phase 1 contract to demonstrate cargo
delivery to the ISS, with a possible contract option for crew transport.
This contract, designed by NASA to provide "seed money" through Space
Act Agreements for developing new capabilities, NASA paid SpaceX $396
million to develop the cargo configuration of the Dragon spacecraft,
while SpaceX self-invested more than $500 million to develop the Falcon 9
launch vehicle. These Space Act Agreements
have been shown to have saved NASA millions of dollars in development
costs, making rocket development ~4-10 times cheaper than if produced by
NASA alone.
In December 2010, the launch of the COTS Demo Flight 1 mission, SpaceX became the first private company to successfully launch, orbit and recover a spacecraft.
Dragon was successfully deployed into orbit, circled the Earth twice,
and then made a controlled re-entry burn for a splashdown in the Pacific
Ocean. With Dragon's safe recovery, SpaceX became the first private
company to launch, orbit, and recover a spacecraft; prior to this
mission, only government agencies had been able to recover orbital
spacecraft.
COTS Demo Flight 2
launched in May 2012, in which Dragon successfully berthed with the
ISS, marking the first time that a private spacecraft had accomplished
this feat.
Commercial cargo
Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) are a series of contracts awarded
by NASA from 2008 to 2016 for delivery of cargo and supplies to the ISS
on commercially operated spacecraft. The first CRS contracts were signed
in 2008 and awarded $1.6 billion to SpaceX for 12 cargo transport
missions, covering deliveries to 2016. SpaceX CRS-1,
the first of the 12 planned resupply missions, launched in October
2012, achieved orbit, berthed and remained on station for 20 days,
before re-entering the atmosphere and splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.
CRS missions have flown approximately twice a year to the ISS since
then. In 2015, NASA extended the Phase 1 contracts by ordering an
additional three resupply flights from SpaceX. After further extensions late in 2015, SpaceX is currently scheduled to fly a total of 20 missions.
A second phase of contracts (known as CRS2) were solicited and proposed
in 2014. They were awarded in January 2016, for cargo transport flights
beginning in 2019 and expected to last through 2024.
Commercial crew
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Crew Dragon undergoing testing prior to flight
The Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program intends to develop
commercially operated spacecraft that are capable of delivering
astronauts to the ISS. SpaceX did not win a Space Act Agreement
in the first round (CCDev 1), but during the second round (CCDev 2),
NASA awarded SpaceX with a contract worth $75 million to further develop
their launch escape system, test a crew accommodations mock-up, and to further progress their Falcon/Dragon crew transportation design. The CCDev program later became Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap), and in August 2012, NASA announced that SpaceX had been awarded $440 million to continue development and testing of its Dragon 2 spacecraft.
In September 2014, NASA chose SpaceX and Boeing as the two
companies that will be funded to develop systems to transport U.S. crews
to and from the ISS. SpaceX won $2.6 billion to complete and certify
Dragon 2 by 2017. The contracts include at least one crewed flight test
with at least one NASA astronaut aboard. Once Crew Dragon achieves NASA
certification, the contract requires SpaceX to conduct at least two, and
as many as six, crewed missions to the space station. In early 2017, SpaceX was awarded four additional crewed missions to the ISS from NASA to shuttle astronauts back and forth.
In early 2019, SpaceX successfully conducted a test flight of Crew
Dragon, which it docked (instead of Dragon 1's method of berthing using
Canadarm 2) and then splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean.
US Defense contracts
In 2005, SpaceX announced that it had been awarded an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ), allowing the United States Air Force to purchase up to $100 million worth of launches from the company. In April 2008, NASA
announced that it had awarded an IDIQ Launch Services contract to
SpaceX for up to $1 billion, depending on the number of missions
awarded. The contract covers launch services ordered by June 2010, for
launches through December 2012. Musk stated in the same 2008 announcement that SpaceX has sold 14 contracts for flights on the various Falcon vehicles. In December 2012, SpaceX announced its first two launch contracts with the United States Department of Defense. The United States Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center awarded SpaceX two EELV-class missions: Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) and Space Test Program 2 (STP-2). DSCOVR was launched on a Falcon 9 launch vehicle in 2015, while STP-2 was launched on a Falcon Heavy on 25 June 2019.
In May 2015, the United States Air Force announced that the Falcon 9 v1.1 was certified for national security space launch, which allows SpaceX to contract launch services to the Air Force for any payloads classified under national security. This broke the monopoly held since 2006 by ULA over the US Air Force launches of classified payloads.
In April 2016, the U.S. Air Force awarded the first such national
security launch, an $82.7 million contract to SpaceX to launch the 2nd GPS III satellite in May 2018; this estimated cost was approximately 40% less than the estimated cost for similar previous missions. Prior to this, United Launch Alliance was the only provider certified to launch national security payloads. ULA did not submit a bid for the May 2018 launch.
In 2016 the US National Reconnaissance Office said it had purchased launches from SpaceX - the first (for NROL-76) took place on 1 May 2017.
In March 2017 SpaceX won (vs ULA) with a bid of $96.5 million for the 3rd GPS III launch (due Feb 2019).
In March 2018, SpaceX secured an additional $290 million contract
from the U.S. Air Force to launch three next-generation GPS satellites,
known as GPS III. The first of these launches is expected to take place
in March 2020.
In February 2019, SpaceX secured a $297 million contract from the
US. Air Force to launch three national security missions, including
AFSPC-44, NROL-87, and NROL-85, all slated to launch no earlier than FY 2021.
International contracts
Kazakhstan
SpaceX won a contract to launch two Kazakhstan's
satellites aboard the Falcon 9 launch rocket on a rideshare with other
satellites. The takeoff was scheduled for November 19, 2018. According
to the Kazakh Defence and Aerospace Ministry, the launch from SpaceX
would cost the country $1.3 million. The two small satellites are named KazSaySat and KazistiSat.
Launch market competition and pricing pressure
SpaceX's low launch prices, especially for communication satellites flying to geostationary (GTO) orbit, have resulted in market pressure on its competitors to lower their own prices. Prior to 2013, the openly competed comsat launch market had been dominated by Arianespace (flying Ariane 5) and International Launch Services (flying Proton). With a published price of US$56.5 million per launch to low Earth orbit,
"Falcon 9 rockets [were] already the cheapest in the industry. Reusable
Falcon 9s could drop the price by an order of magnitude, sparking more
space-based enterprise, which in turn would drop the cost of access to
space still further through economies of scale." SpaceX has publicly indicated that if they are successful with developing the reusable technology, launch prices in the US$5 to 7 million range for the reusable Falcon 9 are possible.
In 2014, SpaceX had won nine contracts out of 20 that were openly
competed worldwide in 2014 at commercial launch service providers. Space media reported that SpaceX had "already begun to take market share" from Arianespace. Arianespace has requested that European governments provide additional subsidies to face the competition from SpaceX. European satellite operators are pushing the ESA to reduce Ariane 5 and the future Ariane 6 rocket launch prices as a result of competition from SpaceX. According to one Arianespace
managing director in 2015, it was clear that "a very significant
challenge [was] coming from SpaceX ... Therefore things have to change
... and the whole European industry is being restructured, consolidated,
rationalised and streamlined." Jean Botti, Director of innovation for Airbus (which makes the Ariane 5) warned that "those who don't take Elon Musk seriously will have a lot to worry about." In 2014, no commercial launches were booked to fly on the Russian Proton rocket.
Also in 2014, SpaceX capabilities and pricing began to affect the
market for launch of US military payloads. For nearly a decade the
large US launch provider United Launch Alliance (ULA) had faced no competition for military launches. Without this competition, launch costs by the U.S. provider rose to over $400 million.
The ULA monopoly ended when SpaceX began to compete for national
security launches. At a side-by-side comparison, SpaceX's launch costs
for commercial missions are considerably lower at $62 million.
In 2015, anticipating a slump in domestic military and spy
launches, ULA stated that it would go out of business unless it won
commercial satellite launch orders. To that end, ULA announced a major restructuring of processes and workforce in order to decrease launch costs by half.
In 2017, SpaceX had 45% global market share for awarded
commercial launch contracts, the estimate for 2018 is about 65% as of
July 2018.
On January 11, 2019, SpaceX issued a statement announcing it would lay off 10% of its workforce, in order to help finance the Starship and Starlink projects.
