SPACE X

INTRODUCTION

Space Exploration Technologies Corp., doing business as Space X, is an American aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by entrepreneur Elon Musk with the goal of reducing space transportation costs and enabling the colonization of Mars. Space X has since developed the Falcon launch vehicle family and the Dragon spacecraft family, which both currently deliver payloads into Earth orbit. The company was founded in 2002 to revolutionize space technology, with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets. Space X has gained worldwide attention for a series of historic milestones. It is the only private company ever to return a spacecraft from low-Earth orbit, which it first accomplished in December 2010.

SpaceX hangar and Launch Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center, December 2015

HISTORY

In 2001, Elon Musk conceptualized Mars Oasis, a project to land a miniature experimental greenhouse and grow plants on Mars, "so 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. In early 2002, Musk was seeking staff for his new space company, soon to be named Space X. Musk approached rocket engineer Tom Mueller (now Space X's CTO of Propulsion) and Mueller agreed to work for Musk, and thus Space X was born. Space X was first headquartered in a warehouse in El Segundo, California. In 2016 Musk gave a speech at the International Astronautical Congress, where he stated that Space X can only hire Americans due to employees working on "advanced weapon technology".

next page