Elon Musk the founder of SpaceX, and CEO of Tesla Motors

• published: 21 Dec 2015
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Subscribe to see more. Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, PayPal and CEO of Tesla Motors. In 2006, Elon Musk co-founded SolarCity, a photovoltaics products and services company with his cousin Lyndon River. He was named Inc Magazine Entrepreneur of the Year award for 2007 for his work on Tesla and SpaceX. Falcon 9 : Launch & landing can be seen on the https://t.co/bDd3GxQXMC (https://t.co/bDd3GxQXMC) After liftoff, SpaceX will attempt to land the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket in an upright position on solid ground for the first time, a milestone it sees as key to making rockets as reusable as commercial airplanes one day. This is their first rocket launch since an explosion after liftoff destroyed its unmanned Dragon cargo ship bound for the International Space Station six months ago. The Falcon’s nine-engine main stage will attempt to touch down a few miles away from the launch site at a refurbished landing pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. While the landing is key to SpaceX’s plans, the primary goal of the mission is to deliver 11 satellites to low-Earth orbit for ORBCOMM, a global communications company. https://youtu.be/O5bTbVbe4e4 The Falcon 9 poised for launch Monday is 30% stronger than previous versions, SpaceX said. The return to flight is an important milestone for SpaceX, following the June 28 accident when the Falcon 9 exploded just over two minutes after launching from Cape Canaveral. The blast also destroyed its Dragon cargo ship loaded with supplies for the astronauts living in space, and came just eight months after a space station-bound rocket belonging to competitor Orbital blew up over a Virginia launch pad. Musk said the Falcon 9 blast was due to a faulty strut. The accident came after a series of successful launches for SpaceX, which was the first commercial outfit to send a cargo craft to space under a $1.6 billion contract with NASA. Interesting Facts : A. Elon Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa, in 1971. His father was an engineer and his mother a nutritionist from Canada. B. He earned an undergraduate degree in economics and stayed on another year to finish a second bachelor's degree in physics. In 1995, Elon Musk headed to Stanford University in California to pursue a PhD in energy physics. However, he only attended the school for two days before dropping out to start his first company, Zip2 Corporation, which provided online content publishing software for news organizations. C. Musk met his first wife, Justine Musk who is a Canadian author while they were both students at Queen's University. They married in 2000. D. In February 2001, X.com changed its legal name to PayPal. In October 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay for US$1.5 billion in stock. Before its sale, Musk, the company's largest shareholder, owned 11.7 percent of PayPal's shares. E. In 2002, Musk founded his third company, Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, or SpaceX, with the goal of building spacecraft for commercial space travel. SpaceX develops and manufactures space launch vehicles with a focus on advancing the state of rocket technology. F. His entry into the automobile industry came in the form of Tesla Motors. Despite popular belief, Musk was not a co-founder of the company. G. In 2012, SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft became the first commercial vehicle to successfully attach to the International Space Station and return cargo to Earth.