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In 2006, the company was selected by NASA to provide crew and cargo resupply demonstration contracts to the ISS under the COTS program.
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The first two Falcon 1 launches were purchased by the United States Department of Defense under a program that evaluates new US launch vehicles suitable for use by DARPA. The first three launches of the rocket, between 2006 and 2008, all resulted in failures, which almost ended the company. Financing for Tesla Motors h...
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The financial situation started to turn around with the first successful launch achieved on the fourth attempt on 28 September 2008. Musk split his remaining $30 million between SpaceX and Tesla, and NASA awarded the first Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract to SpaceX in December, thus financially saving the co...
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SpaceX originally intended to follow its light Falcon 1 launch vehicle with an intermediate capacity vehicle, the Falcon 5. The company instead decided in 2005 to proceed with the development of the Falcon 9, a reusable heavier lift vehicle. Development of the Falcon 9 was accelerated by NASA, which committed to purcha...
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The overall contract award was US$278 million to provide development funding for the Dragon spacecraft, Falcon 9, and demonstration launches of Falcon 9 with Dragon.
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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.
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The first operational Dragon spacecraft was launched in December 2010 aboard COTS Demo Flight 1, the Falcon 9's second flight, and safely returned to Earth after two orbits, completing all its mission objectives. By December 2010, the SpaceX production line was manufacturing one Falcon 9 and Dragon every three months.
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In April 2011, as part of its second-round Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program, NASA issued a US$75 million contract for SpaceX to develop an integrated launch escape system for Dragon in preparation for human-rating it as a crew transport vehicle to the ISS. NASA awarded SpaceX a fixed-price Space Act Agreemen...
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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. In May 2012, with the Dragon C2+ launch Dragon became the first commercial spacecraft to deliver cargo to the Internati...
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After the flight, the company private equity valuation nearly doubled to US$2.4 billion or US$20/share. By that time, SpaceX had operated on total funding of approximately $1 billion over its first decade of operation. Of this, private equity provided approximately $200 million, with Musk investing approximately $100 m...
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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.
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SpaceX launched the first commercial mission for a private customer in 2013. In 2014, SpaceX won nine contracts out of the 20 that were openly competed worldwide.
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That year Arianespace requested that European governments provide additional subsidies to face the competition from SpaceX.
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Beginning in 2014, SpaceX capabilities and pricing also began to affect the market for launch of U.S. military payloads, which for nearly a decade had been dominated by the large U.S. launch provider United Launch Alliance (ULA).
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The monopoly had allowed launch costs by the U.S. provider to rise to over US$400 million over the years.
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In September 2014, NASA awarded SpaceX the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contract to finalize the development of the Crew Transportation System. The contract included several technical and certification milestones, an uncrewed flight test, a crewed flight test, and six operational missions after ce...
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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.
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The same month SpaceX announced the development of a new satellite constellation, called Starlink, to provide global broadband internet service with 4,000 satellites.
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The Falcon 9 had its first major failure in late June 2015, when the seventh ISS resupply mission, CRS-7 exploded two minutes into the flight. The problem was traced to a failed 2-foot-long steel strut that held a helium pressure vessel, which broke free due to the force of acceleration. This caused a breach and allowe...
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SpaceX first achieved a successful landing and recovery of a first stage in December 2015 with Falcon 9 Flight 20.
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In April 2016, the company achieved the first successful landing on the autonomous spaceport drone ship (ASDS) "Of Course I Still Love You" in the Atlantic Ocean.
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By October 2016, following the successful landings, SpaceX indicated they were offering their customers a 10% price discount if they choose to fly their payload on a reused Falcon 9 first stage.
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A second major rocket failure happened in early September 2016, when a Falcon 9 exploded during a propellant fill operation for a standard pre-launch static fire test.
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The payload, the AMOS-6 communications satellite valued at US$200 million, was destroyed. The explosion was caused by the liquid oxygen that is used as propellant turning so cold that it solidified and ignited with carbon composite helium vessels. Though not considered an unsuccessful flight, the rocket explosion sent ...
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Later that year, in March 2017, SpaceX launched a returned Falcon 9 for the SES-10 satellite. This was the first time a re-launch of a payload-carrying orbital rocket went back to space. The first stage was recovered again, also making it the first landing of a reused orbital class rocket.
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By March 2018, SpaceX had more than 100 launches on its manifest representing about US$12 billion in contract revenue. The contracts included both commercial and government (NASA/DOD) customers. This made SpaceX the leading global commercial launch provider measured by manifested launches.
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In 2017, SpaceX formed a subsidiary, The Boring Company, and began work to construct a short test tunnel on and adjacent to the SpaceX headquarters and manufacturing facility, utilizing a small number of SpaceX employees, which was completed in May 2018, and opened to the public in December 2018. During 2018, The Borin...
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In January 2019 SpaceX announced it would lay off 10% of its workforce in order to help finance the Starship and Starlink projects.
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Construction of initial prototypes and tests for Starship started in early 2019 in Florida and Texas. All Starship construction and testing moved to the new SpaceX South Texas launch site later that year.
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In May 2019 SpaceX also launched the first large batch of 60 Starlink satellites, beginning the deployment of what would become the world's largest commercial satellite constellation the following year.
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By May 2019, the valuation of SpaceX had risen to US$33.3 billion and reached US$36 billion by March 2020.
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A major milestone was achieved in May 2020, when SpaceX successfully launched two NASA astronauts (Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken) into orbit on a Crew Dragon spacecraft during Crew Dragon Demo-2, making SpaceX the first private company to send astronauts to the International Space Station and marking the first crewed orb...
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The mission launched from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
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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.
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In February 2021, SpaceX raised an additional billion in an equity round from 99 investors at a per share value of approximately $420, raising the company valuation to approximately billion. By 2021, SpaceX had raised a total of more than billion in equity financing. Most of the capital raised since 2019 has been used ...
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By 2021, SpaceX had entered into agreements with Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure to provide on-ground computer and networking services for Starlink. A new round of financing in 2022 values ​​SpaceX at US$127 billion.
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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 Within the first 130 days of 2022, SpaceX had 18 rocket launches and two astronaut splashdowns. The majority of 2022 SpaceX launches have focused on Starlink, a consum...
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In August 2022, Reuters reported that the European Space Agency (ESA) began initial discussions with SpaceX that could lead to the company's launchers being used temporarily, given that Russia blocked access to Soyuz rockets amid the Ukraine conflict.
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In December 2022, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted approval to launch up to 7,500 of SpaceX's next-generation satellites in its Starlink internet network.
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SpaceX has developed three launch vehicles. The small-lift Falcon 1 was the first launch vehicle developed and was retired in 2009. The medium-lift Falcon 9 and the heavy-lift Falcon Heavy are both operational.
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The Falcon 1 was a small rocket capable of placing several hundred kilograms into low Earth orbit. It launched five times between 2006 and 2009, of which 2 were successful. The Falcon 1 was the first privately funded, liquid-fueled rocket to reach orbit.
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Falcon 9 is a medium-lift launch vehicle capable of delivering up to 22,800 kilograms (50,265 lb) to orbit, competing with the Delta IV and the Atlas V rockets, as well as other launch providers around the world. It has nine Merlin engines in its first stage. The Falcon 9 v1.0 rocket successfully reached orbit on its f...
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The Falcon Heavy is a heavy-lift launch vehicle capable of delivering up to 63,800 kg (140,700 lb) to Low Earth orbit (LEO) or 26,700 kg (58,900 lb) to geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO). It uses three slightly modified Falcon 9 first stage cores with a total of 27 Merlin 1D engines.
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The Falcon Heavy successfully flew its inaugural mission on 6 February 2018, launching Musk's personal Tesla Roadster into heliocentric orbit
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Both the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy are certified to conduct launches for the National Security Space Launch (NSSL). As of , the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy have been launched times, resulting in full mission successes, one partial success, and one in-flight failure. In addition, a Falcon 9 experienced a pre-flight failur...
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Since the founding of SpaceX in 2002, the company has developed several rocket engines – Merlin, Kestrel, and Raptor – for use in launch vehicles, Draco for the reaction control system of the Dragon series of spacecraft, and SuperDraco for abort capability in Crew Dragon.
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Merlin is a family of rocket engines that uses liquid oxygen (LOX) and RP-1 propellants. Merlin was first used to power the Falcon 1's first stage and is now used on both stages of the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy vehicles.
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Draco and SuperDraco are hypergolic liquid-propellant rocket engines. Draco engines are used on the reaction control system of the Dragon and Dragon 2 spacecraft. The SuperDraco engine is more powerful, and eight SuperDraco engines provide launch escape capability for crewed Dragon 2 spacecraft during an abort scenario...
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Raptor is a new family of liquid oxygen and liquid methane-fueled full-flow staged combustion cycle engines to power the first and second stages of the in-development Starship launch system. Development versions were test-fired in late 2016, and the engine flew for the first time in 2019, powering the "Starhopper" vehi...
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SpaceX has developed the Dragon spacecraft to transport cargo and crew to the International Space Station. The first version of Dragon, used only for cargo, was first launched in 2010. The currently operational second generation Dragon spacecraft, known as Dragon 2, conducted its first flight, without crew, to the ISS ...
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The cargo variant of Dragon 2 flew for the first time in December 2020, for a resupply to the Space Station as part of the CRS contract with NASA.
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In March 2020 SpaceX revealed the Dragon XL, designed as a resupply spacecraft for NASA's planned Lunar Gateway space station under a Gateway Logistics Services (GLS) contract. Dragon XL is planned to launch on the Falcon Heavy, and is able to transport over to the Gateway. Dragon XL will be docked at the Gateway for s...
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SpaceX routinely returns the first stage of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets after orbital launches. The rocket flights and land to a predetermined landing site using only its own propulsion systems.
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When propellent margins do not permit a return to launch site (RTLS), rockets return to floating landing platform in the ocean, called autonomous spaceport drone ships (ASDS).
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SpaceX also plans to introduce floating launch platforms. These are modified oil rigs to use in the 2020s to provide a sea launch option for their second-generation launch vehicle: the heavy-lift Starship system, consisting of the Super Heavy booster and Starship second stage. SpaceX has purchased two deepwater oil rig...
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It comprises a reusable first stage, called Super Heavy, and the reusable Starship second stage and space vehicle. The system is intended to supersede the company's existing launch vehicle hardware by the early 2020s.
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SpaceX initially envisioned a 12-meter-diameter ITS concept in 2016 solely aimed at Mars transit and other interplanetary uses. In 2017 it articulated a smaller 9-meter-diameter vehicle to replace all of its launch service provider capabilities—Earth-orbit; lunar-orbit; interplanetary missions; and potentially, even in...
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In 2018, the Starship system was redesigned to use stainless steel instead of carbon fiber construction, to improve performance while drastically decreasing cost. Private passenger Yusaku Maezawa has contracted to fly around the Moon in a Starship vehicle in 2023. The company's long-term vision is the development of te...
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SpaceX started manufacturing the first prototypes of Starship in 2019 at the company's facility in Boca Chica, Texas, later renamed Starbase. It is developing Starship using iterative design principles, aiming to build and test several prototypes at a fast pace. The first successful suborbital flight and landing of a f...
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Starlink is an internet satellite constellation under development by SpaceX. It will use 4,425 cross-linked communications satellites in 1,100 km orbits. Owned and operated by SpaceX, its goal is to increase profitability and cash flow to allow SpaceX to build its Mars colony.
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Development began in 2015, and initial prototype test-flight satellites were launched on the SpaceX Paz satellite mission in 2017.
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In May 2019 SpaceX launched the first batch of 60 satellites aboard a Falcon 9. By May 2021, it had launched 1737 Starlink satellites. Initial test operation of the constellation began in late 2020.
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In March 2017 SpaceX filed plans with the FCC to field a constellation of 7,518 additional V-band satellites in non-geosynchronous orbits to provide communications services.
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In February 2019 it formed a sibling company, SpaceX Services, Inc., to license the manufacture and deployment of up to 1,000,000 fixed satellite Earth stations that will communicate with its Starlink system. On 15 May 2021, SpaceX and Google collaborated to provide data and cloud services for Starlink Enterprise custo...
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The planned large number of Starlink satellites has been criticized by astronomers due to concerns over light pollution, with the brightness of Starlink satellites in both optical and radio wavelengths interfering with scientific observations. In response, SpaceX has implemented several upgrades to Starlink satellites ...
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In October 2022 on Eutelsat Hotbird 13F mission, they launched and returned back a hosted promotional payload by FIFA, that was a box powered by starlink containing two Adidas Al Rihla balls on the first stage B1069.3 for opening it's Starlink office in Doha, Qatar. These two match balls were to be used in 2022 FIFA Wo...
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In December 2022, SpaceX announced Starshield, a program to incorporate military or government entity payloads onboard a Starshield satellite bus (based on Starlink Block v1.5 and v2.0 technology).
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In June 2015 SpaceX announced that they would sponsor a Hyperloop competition, and would build a long subscale test track near SpaceX's headquarters for the competitive events. The company has held the annual competition since 2017.
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In collaboration with doctors and academic researchers, SpaceX invited all employees to participate in the creation of a COVID-19 antibody-testing program in 2020. As such 4300 employees volunteered to provide blood-samples resulting in a peer-reviewed scientific paper crediting eight SpaceX employees as coauthors and ...
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In July 2018, Musk arranged for his employees to build a mini-submarine to assist the rescue of children stuck in a flooded cavern in Thailand. Richard Stanton, leader of the international rescue diving team, urged Musk to facilitate the construction of the vehicle as a back-up, in case flooding worsened. Engineers at ...
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SpaceX is headquartered in Hawthorne, California, which also serves as its primary manufacturing plant. The company operates a research and major operation in Redmond, Washington, owns a test site in Texas and operates three launch sites, with another under development. SpaceX also operates regional offices in Texas, V...
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SpaceX Headquarters is located in the Los Angeles suburb of Hawthorne, California. The large three-story facility, originally built by Northrop Corporation to build Boeing 747 fuselages, houses SpaceX's office space, mission control, and Falcon 9 manufacturing facilities.
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The area has one of the largest concentrations of space sector headquarters, facilities, and/or subsidiaries in the U.S., including Boeing/McDonnell Douglas main satellite building campuses, Aerospace Corp., Raytheon, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, United States Space Force's Space Systems Command at Los Angeles Air...
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SpaceX utilizes a high degree of vertical integration in the production of its rockets and rocket engines. SpaceX builds its rocket engines, rocket stages, spacecraft, principal avionics and all software in-house in their Hawthorne facility, which is unusual for the space industry.
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In January 2015 SpaceX announced it would be entering the satellite production business and global satellite internet business. The first satellite facility is a office building located in Redmond, Washington. As of January 2017, a second facility in Redmond was acquired with and has become a research and development l...
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SpaceX operates its Rocket Development and Test Facility in McGregor, Texas. All SpaceX rocket engines are tested on rocket test stands, and low-altitude VTVL flight testing of the Falcon 9 Grasshopper in 2012–2013 were carried out at McGregor.
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Testing of the much larger Starship prototypes is conducted in the SpaceX South Texas launch site near Brownsville, Texas.
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The company purchased the McGregor facilities from Beal Aerospace, where it refitted the largest test stand for Falcon 9 engine testing. SpaceX has made a number of improvements to the facility since its purchase and has also extended the acreage by purchasing several pieces of adjacent farmland. , the McGregor facilit...
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SpaceX currently operates three orbital launch sites, at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Vandenberg Space Force Base, and Kennedy Space Center, with another under construction near Brownsville, Texas. SpaceX has indicated that they see a niche for each of the four orbital facilities and that they have sufficient la...
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In April 2007 the USAF approved the use of Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) by SpaceX. The site has been used from 2010 for Falcon 9 launches, mainly to low Earth and geostationary orbits. SLC-40 is not capable of supporting Falcon Heavy launches. As part of SpaceX's booster reusability program, the form...
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Vandenberg Space Launch Complex 4 (SLC-4E) leased in 2011, is used for payloads to polar orbits. The Vandenberg site can launch both Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy vehicles, but cannot launch to low inclination orbits. The neighboring SLC-4W has been converted to Landing Zone 4 since 2015, where SpaceX has successfully land...
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On 14 April 2014, SpaceX signed a 20-year lease for Launch Complex 39A. The pad was subsequently modified to support Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches. SpaceX launched its first crewed mission to the ISS from Launch Pad 39A on 30 May 2020. Pad 39A has been prepared since 2019 to eventually accommodate Starship launche...
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SpaceX manufactures and flies Starship test vehicles from Starbase at Boca Chica, Texas, with future plans to conduct orbital Starship flights in 2021. SpaceX first publicly announced plans for a launch facility near Brownsville, Texas in August 2014. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued the permit in July ...
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SpaceX won demonstration and actual supply contracts from NASA for the International Space Station (ISS) with technology the company developed. SpaceX is also certified for U.S. military launches of Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle-class (EELV) payloads. With approximately 30 missions on the manifest for 2018 alone, S...
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In 2006, SpaceX won a NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) Phase 1 contract to demonstrate cargo delivery to the International Space Station (ISS), with a possible contract option for crew transport. Through this contract, designed by NASA to provide "seed money" through Space Act Agreements for devel...
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In December 2010 the launch of the SpaceX COTS Demo Flight 1 mission, SpaceX became the first private company to successfully launch, orbit and recover a spacecraft. Dragon successfully berthed with the ISS during SpaceX COTS Demo Flight 2 in May 2012, a first for a private spacecraft.
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Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) are a series of contracts awarded by NASA from 2008 to 2016 for delivery of cargo and supplies to the ISS on commercially operated spacecraft. The first CRS contracts were signed in 2008 and awarded US$1.6 billion to SpaceX for 12 cargo transport missions, covering deliveries to 2016....
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CRS missions have flown approximately twice a year to the ISS since then. In 2015, NASA extended the Phase 1 contracts by ordering an additional three resupply flights from SpaceX, and then extended the contract further for a total of twenty cargo missions to the ISS. The final Dragon 1 mission, SpaceX CRS-20, departed...
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SpaceX is responsible for the transportation of NASA astronauts to and from the ISS. The NASA contracts started as part of the Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program, aimed at developing commercially operated spacecraft capable of delivering astronauts to the ISS. The first contract was awarded to SpaceX in 2011, ...
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In September 2014, NASA chose SpaceX and Boeing as the two companies that would be funded to develop systems to transport U.S. crews to and from the ISS. SpaceX won US$2.6 billion to complete and certify Dragon 2 by 2017. The contracts called for at least one crewed flight test with at least one NASA astronaut aboard. ...
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SpaceX completed the first key flight test of its Crew Dragon spacecraft, a Pad Abort Test, in May 2015, and successfully conducted a full uncrewed test flight in early 2019. The capsule docked to the ISS and then splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean. In January 2020, SpaceX conducted an in-flight abort test, the last t...
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On 30 May 2020, the Crew Dragon Demo-2 mission was launched to the International Space Station with NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, the first time a crewed vehicle had launched from the U.S. since 2011, and the first commercial crewed launch to the ISS.
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The Crew-1 mission was successfully launched to the International Space Station on 16 November 2020, with NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker along with JAXA astronaut Soichi Noguchi, all members of the Expedition 64 crew. On 23 April 2021, Crew-2 was launched to the International Space St...
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SpaceX also offers paid crewed spaceflights for private individuals. The first of these missions, Inspiration4, launched in 2021 on behalf of Shift4 Payments CEO Jared Isaacman. The mission launched the Crew Dragon "Resilience" from the Florida Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A atop a Falcon 9 launch vehicle, p...
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In 2005, SpaceX announced that it had been awarded an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract, allowing the United States Air Force to purchase up to US$100 million worth of launches from the company. Three years later, NASA announced that it had awarded an IDIQ Launch Services contract to SpaceX for up...
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The Falcon 9 v1.1 was certified for National Security Space Launch (NSSL) in 2015, allowing SpaceX to contract launch services to the Air Force for any payloads classified under national security.
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This broke the monopoly held since 2006 by United Launch Alliance (ULA) over U.S. Air Force launches of classified payloads.
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In April 2016, the U.S. Air Force awarded the first such national security launch to SpaceX to launch the second GPS III satellite for US$82.7 million. This was approximately 40% less than the estimated cost for similar previous missions. SpaceX also launched the third GPS III launch on 20 June 2020. In March 2018, Spa...
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The U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) also purchased launches from SpaceX, with the first taking place on 1 May 2017. In February 2019, SpaceX secured a US$297 million contract from the U.S. Air Force to launch another three national security missions, all slated to launch no earlier than FY 2021. In August 202...
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SpaceX also designs and launches custom military satellites for the Space Development Agency as part of a new missile defense system in low Earth orbit. The constellation would give the United States capabilities to sense, target and potentially intercept nuclear missiles and hypersonic weapons launched from anywhere o...
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