Marion Elizabeth

1.

In late 2001, Elon Musk founded Space Exploration Technologies Corp. Enthralled with the tales woven by Adams, Asimov, and Tolkien, as a kid, the disappointment he experienced at discovering there were no active programs to go to space, ignited his goal to reach Mars. Reducing the costs associated with space travel was the first mission as the company evolved into SpaceX on March 14, 2002. Musk assembled rocket scientists, oftentimes through direct cold calls, to get SpaceX off the ground. 

 

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February 2002. Musk took three meetings with the Russians over the purchase of two ICBMs for $8 million. Even with several rounds of vodka, the Russians refused to take less than $8 million per orbital launch vehicle, so Musk calculated the costs of building the vehicles himself. It was cheaper to manufacture parts in-house, so he rented a warehouse in El Segundo, CA to get started. This would provide the space needed to manufacture parts that were otherwise very costly, or would take too long.

 

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In early 2003 Elon Musk purchased a defunct rocket testing facility in McGregor, TX. Musk purchased the facility, complete with a pre-existing test stand from Andrew Beal. In order to get the rocket to the Texas facility, the SpaceX team would rent a Hummer and take several days to travel 1,400 miles from LA. In late 2005, Musk refurbished an old missile testing site in the Republic of Marshall Islands. Located in the Kwajalein atoll in the Pacific, the island of Omelek offered two military hotels that were pretty rundown. Often the team slept on air mattresses outside, and poured their heart and soul into the first three Falcon 1 launches that ended up in failure. The team was given three shots, but when the third one failed, they opted to try one more time with a rocket that was on stand by. Not wanting to wait as long as it would take a barge to deliver the final rocket, they rented a military plane to transport it. Things were going fine until the rocket began crumpling upon descent. They had not taken into account the change in cabin pressure, so they directed the pilot to ascend to even out the pressure. One engineer crawled inside the rocket to release a pressure valve to alleviate any further crumpling of the stainless steel shell. Rather than re-building the exterior, engineers were told to pound out the crumples and keep going. Sort of befitting when you hear it is named for the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars. This last ditch effort by the team at SpaceX marked the fourth attempt to launch Falcon 1. On September 28, 2008 for the first time, Falcon 1 successfully reached orbit, and in July 2009, less than a year later, the Falcon 1 successfully delivered a commercial satellite to Earth’s orbit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4.

June 4, 2010. Cape Canaveral. Located on the east coast of sunny Florida, the inaugural test flight of the Falcon 9.  Falcon 9 stands 48 meters tall, and able to reach a maximum thrust of over ten times that of the Falcon 1. With 4,910 kilo Newtons of thrust from the first stage, and 445 kN of thrust from the 2nd stage, Falcon 9 has the ability to carry a payload of 10,450 kilograms.

 

By December (8, 2010) Falcon 9 and Dragon Capsule received NASA’s Commercial Orbital Services contract making SpaceX the first privately funded company to successfully launch, orbit and recover a spacecraft. Being awarded a $1.6 billion Commercial Resupply Services contract from NASA to make 12 supply trips to the International Space Station would generate the cash flow needed to continue development of Falcon 9, the Dragon capsule and Starship. 

 

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Having launched on May 22, 2012, Dragon C2 was approved to complete a combined mission of practicing maneuvers and communications with the International Space Station, as well as docking with the station, which was originally going to be part of the third demonstration. On May 25, in an uncrewed demonstration mission, Falcon 9 delivered the Cargo Dragon capsule to the ISS. This was the 3rd flight of the 2-stage Falcon 9 launch vehicle, which had been launched under an agreement with NASA in the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program. The program sought to develop and demonstrate sources for resupply. The Dragon C2 was the first American vehicle to visit the ISS since the shuttle program.  This makes SpaceX the first commercial spacecraft to successfully rendez-vous with and attach to the ISS. With this win, SpaceX would begin regular cargo flights on October 7, 2012.

 

The evolution of the reusable first stage begins in October 2013 with talks of developing a fully reusable rocket system, a concept that financially hadn’t made sense up to this point. The Mars Colonial Transporter was set to outdo the capabilities of the Falcon 9. Designed to carry a payload reaching 100 tons to Mars powered by methane fueled Raptor engines. SpaceX engine development head, Tom Mueller planned to use nine Raptor engines in a single MCT booster. This preliminary design would measure ten meters in diameter and accommodate at least 27 booster engines. 

 

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April 8, 2016 marked the first time a booster would land on an autonomous floating platform in the ocean. The 8th re-supply mission, CRS-8, included a Dragon capsule on a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 7,000 pounds of cargo to the ISS, and would prove to land perfectly on the drone ship, Of Course I Still Love You. (OCISLY). Having the ability to land on a drone ship is a cheaper and safer practice since the landing is in the middle of the ocean. The rockets are also seen to perform better, and overall are able to use more fuel for the initial thrust, since less is required to land upon return.

 

On Sept 27, 2016, Elon Musk announced to the International Astronautical Congress that SpaceX was developing a new rocket called the Interplanetary Transport System or ITS. This iteration of rockets would have two stages, a reusable booster, and a spacecraft. Boasting a 300 ton launch capacity to low earth orbit, the booster would be 12 meters in diameter and move past needing the helium pressurization tanks that have caused various design issues in the past. Design changes include a key landing approach that will eliminate the need for a concrete pad or floating landing platform. [images old tech] Using grid fins to guide the atmospheric re-entry of the booster back to the launch mount, the booster will be ready to refuel and relaunch immediately.

 

In 2017, more design changes lead to a new launch vehicle. Elon Musk announces the BFR at the International Astronautical Congress. The acronym stands for Big Falcon Rocket, or Big F-ing Rocket if you’re a fan of Doom.  Standing at 106 meters tall, and a diameter of 9 meters, the BFR is set to be manufactured from carbon composites. 

 

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Feb 6, 2018 The Falcon Heavy is set to launch from Kennedy Space Center’s launch complex 39A at 3:45pm local Florida time. This is the first test flight for the Falcon Heavy, having twice the power of any rocket in the world with 28 engines and three boosters, three separation events, and three landing attempts. The two-stage rocket can reach beyond Earth’s orbit to the Moon, or even Mars with over five million pounds of thrust. In this case a Tesla Roadster and a dummy named Starman are launched into orbit around the sun. At 2 and a half minutes into the launch, the side thrusters are turned off completely in an event called BECO–booster engine cutoff, and in synchronicity land on the launch pad both boosters land perfectly. Once main engine cutoff, or MECO, occurs we watch to see if the main first stage would land upright on the drone ship. Cameras on the floating platform do tend to lose signal at the intense antenna vibrations, and today’s viewing was inadvertently cut off because of this. As visual contact was made from an external camera not on the drone ship, history is made as the main booster lands upright on the drone ship.

 

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November 2022, USSF 44 launches from launch complex 39A to deliver a payload for the US Space Force. This marked the first time in three years that the Falcon Heavy had launched, and the mission was a success. The Falcon Heavy has a core booster along with two side boosters, made up of 9 Merlin 1D engines. With the success of the mission, SpaceX still had more to wow its onlookers. Two and a half minutes after take-off when the side boosters had expended the launch fuel, they detach and begin their descent using a maneuver called the boost back burn. After the rockets flip orientation, their descent puts them on target to return to the launch pad. As the rockets enter the atmosphere, they perform a landing burn to slow their velocity to earth. The cloudy morning added to what looked like a movie set, as both rockets emerged from the cloud cover and landed almost simultaneously right back on the pads. 

 

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October 13, 2024 marks another ground-breaking first for SpaceX. After announcing in 2016 plans to improve the landing approach and eliminate the need for either a concrete pad, or a floating platform, the Starship rocket booster is set to return to Earth and be caught by mechanical arms that would place it right back on the launch pad ready to refuel. Today marks the test flight to bring the Super Heavy Catch and Reuse to fruition. The 400 ft Starship blasted off from Texas and seven minutes later the 232 foot booster returned to the launch pad where mechanical arms would catch the rocket, holding it well above the launch pad. This technology reduces costs in the long run, and eliminates wasted time transporting the booster back to the launch pad. Founder Elon Musk commented that, “it’s science fiction, without the fiction part.” 

 

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May 2025. The newly incorporated, Starbase, TX, is the first city incorporated in quite a few decades,. Named as the place where SpaceX will produce the technology that paves the way for humanity to reach another planet for the first time in the 4.5 billion years of Earth. Beginning as a sandbar in 2019, the minimal facilities on Starbase bowed at the foot of the original MadMax rocket. [images drone footage of the rocket at sunrise]. This city includes two gigantic launchpads and a gigantic factory for a gigantic rocket. Being situated on a public highway, Musk has extended an invitation to anyone who would like to come and see the largest flying object on Earth to visit anytime. Starbase 2025 produces a ship every 2-3 weeks, as design upgrades are tested, with an average goal of a thousand ships being produced a year. Termed rapidly reusable reliable rockets, the cost per ton of transport to Mars is kept as low as possible.

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June 2014 - Musk files an International Telecommunication application under the name STEAM (as in full steam ahead). After the connection was confirmed in 2016 to license Starlink with the Federal Communications Commission, SpaceX trademarked Starlink in the US for their satellite broadband network.

 

60 engineers began research and development in Redmond, Washington. This location expanded into a second facility and by August 2018 both Redmond locations combined forces and moved to a three-building facility at Redmond Ridge Corporate Center. The additional space accommodated both R&D and manufacturing of the satellites.

 

Two test satellites were launched in February 2018, and by May 23, 2019, 60 satellites were launched from the Kennedy Space Center off the coast of Florida. By January 2021, a thousand satellites had been launched. 

 

With over 7 million subscribers by August 2025, September 2025 has now marked 300 launch missions since May 2019. And today - in December, there are over 10,000 Starlink satellites in orbit. Already reaching over 150 countries, territories and markets across the 7 continents, Starlink service can be accessed from the friendly skies aboard aircrafts, all the way down to mariners in the middle of the ocean.