SpaceX - History and Achievements

SpaceX is the innovative and ambitious private aerospace manufacturer founded in 2002 by Elon Musk. In 2017, the company boldly went where no aerospace startup has gone before, posting 18 successful launches—twice as many as in the previous year—on behalf of companies in five countries, as well as the Air Force, NASA, and the top-secret U.S. National Reconnaissance Office. SpaceX delivered 48 satellites into orbit and 22,700 pounds of supplies to the International Space Station, and now holds more than 60% of the global share of commercial launch contracts. But SpaceX truly earned its place among the aeronautical elite—and changed the economics of space flight­—by making its reusable rocket system seemingly as reliable as the sunrise: Throughout the year, it landed eight rockets on ocean-based drone platforms and sent three refurbished ones right back into the skies. The company’s 46-year-old founder and CEO, Elon Musk, even made progress on his plan to colonize Mars and save humanity from "some eventual extinction event."

In 2001, Elon Musk conceptualized Mars Oasis, a project to land a miniature experimental greenhouse and grow plants on Mars. He announced that "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.

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). 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,and was 8,000 in May 2020, where COO Gwynn Shotwell said she did not expect the company to grow much more to bring Starlink online. 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.

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.

 

On May 30, 2020, SpaceX successfully launched two NASA astronauts (Doglas Hurley and Robert Behnken) into orbit on a Crew Dragon spacecraft during SpaceX Demo 2 , making SpaceX the first private company to send astronauts to the International Space Station and marking the first crewed launch from American soil in 9 years. The mission launched from Launch Complex 39A of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. SpaceX Demo-2 successfully docked with the ISS on May 31, 2020.

Achievements

Major achievements of SpaceX are in the reuse of orbital-class launch vehicles and cost reduction in the space launch industry. Most notable of these being the continued landings and relaunches of the first stage of Falcon 9. As of March 2020, SpaceX has used a single first-stage booster, B1048, at most five 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 (SpaceX Dragon 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 (SES8 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 Falco 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 an object into heliocentric orbit (Elon Mask Tesla Roadster on Falcon Heavy Test Flight on February 6, 2018)
• The first private company to send a human-rated spacecraft to space (Crew Dragon Demo on Falcon 9 Flight 69 ,on March 2, 2019)
• The first private company to autonomously dock a spacecraft to the International Space Station (Crew Dragon Demo on Falcon 9 Flight 69 on March 3, 2019)
• The first use of a full flow staged combustion cycle engine (Raptor) in a free flying vehicle (Starhopper, multiple tests in 2019).
• The first reuse of payload fairing (Starlink 1 Falcon 9 launch on November 11, 2019). Fairing was from the ArabSat 6A mission in April earlier that year.
• The first private company to send humans into orbit (Crew Dragon Demo 2 on May 30, 2020).
• The first private company to send humans to the International Space Station  (Crew Dragon Demo 2 on May 31, 2020).

Ownership, funding and valuation

In August 2008, SpaceX accepted a US$20 million investment from Founders Fund.In early 2012, approximately two-thirds of the company stock was 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 CATS 2+ flight in May 2012, the company private equity valuation nearly doubled to US$2.4 billion. By May 2012—ten years after founding—SpaceX had operated on total funding of approximately US$1 billion over its first decade of operation. Of this, private equity provided approximately US$200 million with Musk investing approximately US$100 million and other investors having put in about US$100 million (Founders Fund, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, etc.). The remainder had come from progress payments on long-term launch contracts and development contracts, as working capital, not equity.

In January 2015, SpaceX raised US$1 billion in funding from Google and Fidelity, in exchange for 8.33% of the company, establishing the company valuation at approximately US$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$350 million at a valuation of US$21 billion.

Congressional testimony by SpaceX in 2017 suggested that the NASA Space Art 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 total development cost for both the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 rockets was estimated at approximately US$390 million. 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, about ten times more.

By March 2018, SpaceX had contracts for 100 launch missions, and each of those contracts provides 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.

SpaceX raised a total of US$1.33 billion of capital across three funding rounds in 2019. In April 2019, the Wall Street Journal reported the company was raising $500 million in funding. In May 2019, 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. By May 31, 2019, the valuation of SpaceX had risen to $33.3 billion. In June 2019, SpaceX began a raise of US$300 million, most of it from the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, which then had some US$191 billion in assets under management.

As of February 2020, SpaceX was raising an additional amount of about US$250 million through equity stock offerings. In May 2020, the company valuation reached US$36 billion.

-- Wikipedia