Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) is an American space transport services company headquartered in Hawthorne, California, USA. It was founded in 2002 by former PayPal entrepreneur and Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk with the goal of reducing space transportation costs to enable the colonization of Mars. It has developed the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 launch vehicles, both of which were designed from conception to eventually become reusable, and the Dragon spacecraft which is flown into orbit by the Falcon 9 launch vehicle to supply the International Space Station with cargo. A manned version of Dragon is in development. SpaceX's achievements include the first privately funded, liquid-fueled rocket (Falcon 1) to reach orbit on 28 September 2008;[4] the first privately funded company to successfully launch, orbit and recover a spacecraft (Dragon) on 9 December 2010; and the first private company to send a spacecraft (Dragon) to the International Space Station on 25 May 2012.[5] The launch of SES-8, on 3 December 2013, was the first SpaceX delivery into geosynchronous orbit. In order to control quality and costs, SpaceX designs, tests and fabricates the majority of its components in-house, including the Merlin, Kestrel, and Draco rocket engines used on the Falcon launch vehicles and the Dragon spacecraft. This has allowed SpaceX to offer one of the lowest launch prices in the industry and to significantly reduce conventional rocket development time.[citation needed]. In November 2013, the French company Arianespace which is the market leader in commercial launches, said that it would take a flexible approach to pricing for the "lighter satellites" it carries to geostationary orbits aboard its Ariane 5 because of competition from SpaceX.[6] In 2006, NASA awarded the company a Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) contract to design and demonstrate a launch system to resupply cargo to the International Space Station (ISS). SpaceX, as of January 2015 has flown five missions to the ISS under a cargo resupply contract.[7] NASA has also awarded SpaceX a contract to develop and demonstrate a human-rated Dragon as part of its Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program to transport crew to the ISS. SpaceX is planning its first crewed Dragon/Falcon 9 flight in 2016, when it expects to have a fully certified, human-rated launch escape system incorporated into the spacecraft. Besides NASA contracts, SpaceX has signed contracts with private sector companies, non-American government agencies and the American military for its launch services, filling a growing launch manifest. As of February 2015, it has already launched 15 Falcon 9 rockets with 14 successes and one partial failure, and has at least 30 planned future launches for clients. SpaceX was founded in June 2002 by PayPal and Tesla Motors co-founder Elon Musk, because he wanted to do more with his wealth than just retire or do philanthropy, and cheap reliable access to space was a market opportunity that could be exploited in the United States. His vision was to build a simple and relatively inexpensive reusable rocket that would go into space multiple times, similar to the turn around time capabilities that commercial airliners currently exhibit. By March 2006, Musk had invested US$100 million of his own money into the company.[9] On 4 August 2008, SpaceX accepted a further $20 million investment from the Founders Fund.[10] In early 2012, approximately two-thirds of the company was owned by its founder[11] and his 70 million shares were then estimated to be worth $875 million on private markets,[12] which roughly valued SpaceX at $1.3 billion as of February 2012.[13] After the COTS 2+ flight in May 2012, the company private equity valuation nearly doubled to $2.4 billion.[14][15] In 2012, an initial public offering (IPO) was perceived as possible by the end of 2013,[16] but then Musk stated in June 2013 that he planned to hold off any potential IPO until after the "Mars Colonial Transporter is flying regularly,"[17] and this was reiterated in 2015 indicating that it would be many years before SpaceX would become a publicly-traded company.[18] The company has grown rapidly since it was founded in 2002, growing from 160 employees in November 2005 to more than 500 by July 2008, to over 1,100 in 2010,[19][20] 1800 in early 2012,[21] and 3000 by early 2013.[22] By October 2013, the company had grown to 3,800 employees and contractors.[23] In January 2005, SpaceX bought a 10% stake in Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX

• published: 12 Mar 2015
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