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SpaceX history
SpaceX company history timeline
SpaceX is an American aerospace company founded in 2002 by Elon Musk that helped usher in the era of commercial spaceflight.
In 2002 eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion.
In 2004 Thiel cofounded Palantir Technologies, a data analytics firm.
In 2005 Thiel established Founders Fund, a venture capital firm.
In 2005, SpaceX announced plans to pursue a human-rated commercial space program through the end of the decade, a program that would later become the Dragon spacecraft.
The company instead decided in 2005 to proceed with the development of the Falcon 9, a reusable heavier lift vehicle.
In March 2006 SpaceX made its first Falcon 1 launch, which began successfully but ended prematurely because of a fuel leak and fire.
In 2006, the company was selected by NASA to provide crew and cargo resupply demonstration contracts to the ISS under the COTS program.
In 2007 Thiel’s personal life attracted attention when Gawker’s tech blog featured an article that claimed he was homosexual.
A Falcon entered Earth orbit successfully in 2008 for the first time.
The financial situation started to turn around when the first successful launch was achieved soon afterward with the fourth attempt on 28 September 2008. Based on these factors and the further business operations they enabled, the Falcon 1 was soon retired following its second successful, and fifth total, launch in July 2009; this allowed SpaceX to focus company resources on the development of a larger orbital rocket, the Falcon 9.
As part of this contract, the Falcon 9 launched for the first time in June 2010 with the Dragon Spacecraft Qualification Unit, using a mockup of the Dragon spacecraft.
In May 2012, with the Dragon C2+ launch Dragon became the first commercial spacecraft to deliver cargo to the International Space Station.
In early 2012, approximately two-thirds of SpaceX stock was owned by Musk and his 70 million shares were then estimated to be worth US$875 million on private markets, valuing SpaceX at US$1.3 billion.
SpaceX's active reusability test program began in late 2012 with testing low-altitude, low-speed aspects of the landing technology.
The Falcon 9 prototypes performed vertical takeoffs and landings (VTOL). High-velocity, high-altitude tests of the booster atmospheric return technology began in late 2013.
SpaceX launched the first commercial mission for a private customer in 2013.
In September 2014, NASA awarded SpaceX the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contract to finalize the development of the Crew Transportation System.
In 2014, SpaceX won nine contracts out of the 20 that were openly competed worldwide.
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.
In 2015 a Falcon 9 first stage successfully returned to Earth near its launch site.
Beginning in 2016, SpaceX also began using drone ships for rocket stage landings.
Later that year, in March 2017, SpaceX launched a returned Falcon 9 for the SES-10 satellite.
In July 2017, the company raised US$350 million for a valuation of US$21 billion.
By March 2018, SpaceX had more than 100 launches on its manifest representing about US$12 billion in contract revenue.
That same year, a Dragon capsule was reused on a flight to the ISS. The Falcon Heavy rocket had its first test flight in 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.
The first crewed flight of a Dragon capsule to the ISS launched on May 30, 2020, with astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken.
On 19 August 2020, after a US$1.9 billion funding round, one of the largest single fundraising pushes by any privately held company, SpaceX's valuation increased to US$46 billion.
In July 2021, SpaceX unveiled another drone ship named A Shortfall of Gravitas, landing a booster from CRS-23 on it for the first time on 29 August 2021
By 2021, SpaceX had entered into agreements with Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure to provide on-ground computer and networking services for Starlink.
By 2021, SpaceX had raised a total of more than US$6 billion in equity financing.
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SpaceX competitors
| Company name | Founded date | Revenue | Employee size | Job openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Northrop Grumman | 1939 | $41.0B | 97,000 | 3,108 |
| Sierra Nevada | 1963 | $2.0B | 4,000 | 428 |
| United Launch Alliance | 2006 | $1.3B | 2,500 | 6 |
| Blue Origin | 2000 | $42.8M | 3,500 | 1,055 |
| Orbital Sciences Corporation | 1982 | $1.4B | 3,301 | - |
| United Space Alliance | 1995 | $2.0B | 2,500 | - |
SpaceX history FAQs
Zippia gives an in-depth look into the details of SpaceX, including salaries, political affiliations, employee data, and more, in order to inform job seekers about SpaceX. The employee data is based on information from people who have self-reported their past or current employments at SpaceX. The data on this page is also based on data sources collected from public and open data sources on the Internet and other locations, as well as proprietary data we licensed from other companies. Sources of data may include, but are not limited to, the BLS, company filings, estimates based on those filings, H1B filings, and other public and private datasets. While we have made attempts to ensure that the information displayed are correct, Zippia is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of this information. None of the information on this page has been provided or approved by SpaceX. The data presented on this page does not represent the view of SpaceX and its employees or that of Zippia.
SpaceX may also be known as or be related to SPACE EXPLORATION TECHNOLOGIES CORP, Space Exploration Technologies Corp, Space Exploration Technologies Corp., SpaceX, Spacex and Spacex.Py.