After 148 launches lighting up the sky and 110 landmark booster landings, SpaceX celebrated a new, terrestrial milestone Monday — its 20th birthday.
To mark the occasion, SpaceX posted a video on Twitter highlighting its 20 years of success.
The space-faring company, started by entrepreneur and CEO Elon Musk in 2002 has its Earthly roots in El Segundo, California, where Musk named its first rocket “Falcon 1,” a reference to Star Wars’ most famous light freighter the “Millennium Falcon.” It was the first privately developed liquid fuel rocket to reach Earth orbit in 2008.
Two decades since its start, SpaceX has become a household name with a large resumé of achievements including winning a NASA contract last year to supply the government agency’s next moon lander using a version of its in-the-works Starship rocket for the Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the moon’s surface by 2025.
“We are honored to be a part of NASA’s Artemis Program to safely land the first woman and next man on the surface of the moon, as the first of many, many more people to follow,” SpaceX said.
Helping SpaceX earn that contract is its practice of reusable rocketry used to substantially reduce the cost of launches. The most expensive part of space travel is building the rocket, according to SpaceX. Today, the company has successfully reflown 87 first-stage boosters among its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. Reinforcing that reputation of dependability, SpaceX hit a big milestone 2012 after sending the cargo version of its Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station.
And the achievements didn’t stop.
—In 2015, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket delivered 11 communication satellites to orbit, and the first stage returned and landed at its landing zone. It was the first ever orbital class rocket landing.
—In 2016, the Falcon 9 rocket launched the Dragon spacecraft to the ISS, and had its 1st stage return and land on the “Of Course I Still Love You,” droneship.
—In 2017, the Falcon 9′s first stage returned to Earth for the second time.
—Falcon Heavy made its first launch to orbit in 2018, successfully landing two of its three boosters and launching its payload to space.
—In 2019, the Dragon spacecraft became the first American spacecraft to autonomously dock with the ISS.
—In 2020, SpaceX brought human spaceflight back to the United States when it brought American astronauts to the ISS. NASA later certified SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon for crew missions to and from the space station — making it the first commercial entity in history to achieve such a deal.
SpaceX’s achievements could grow even further this year with its planned 50 launches for 2022. The success of all 50 would beat the record 31 seen last year. So far, SpaceX has already launched 10 missions overall, including seven Starlink flights this year adding to a total of 41 successful missions. The next Starlink flight is scheduled for 9:36 p.m. Friday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 40.
Earlier in February, Space announced its support of the Ukraine people as they defy Russian invasion by supplying the country with Starlink internet services. The Starlink global internet project has more than 2,200 launched to date. The company currently has approval to place 4,408 Starlinks around the planet, but SpaceX is also seeking Federal Communications Commission approval to increase that amount to 30,000.
The 20-year-old company also has two crewed missions coming up soon.
On March 30 the Crew Dragon Endeavour will launch atop a Falcon 9 from KSC for Axiom Space with four civilians headed for a 10-day trip to the ISS. Two weeks later, SpaceX hopes to send another Crew Dragon to the ISS with NASA astronauts for a six-month rotational mission as part of Crew-4. Among the crew is Jessica Watkins, who is set to become the first Black woman astronaut assigned to an extended mission on the ISS.
