The private spacecraft and rocket launching company that is striving to lower the cost of a rocket launch is SpaceX. We all know that space launching always takes much money and dedication. It is not always true that all the launching and mission will be successful. So, your company must be big enough to bear the loss of mission fail. It has been the tradition that all the space launching was always done at the cost of government funds. It was for the very first time that someone decided to take the biggest step in the space field. This how the SpaceX company was founded. It aims to lower the cost of apace launching like rockets and also make it possible to reuse the returning space crafts. Spacecraft companies or space launching stations always discard the returning space crafts or destroy them in the space before they return to land. They also buy some heap spacecraft and rocket then polish them to use. So, what they do: they make it possible to get rockets at affordable prices.
What is SpaceX?
Space exploration technologies corporation is a private rocket manufacturer company. It is the American aerospace manufacturer and cheap space transportation that was mainly found in America. Its headquarter is located at Hawthorne, California. It was founded by Elon Musk in 2002 about 17 years ago. It mainly works to reduce the cost of space transportation and make the colonization of mars possible. It has a wide range of space crafts but the most popular of them are Falcon Rockets and Dragon Spacecraft family. It provides different services more specifically orbital rocket launch. Currently, almost seven thousand employees are providing services to this company. This company eas initiated by a small group of employees and with time, the number of the employee are increased. According to an estimate, there were only 160 employees in November 2005. Till now, this company has made over a hundred launches with the manifest of about $ 12 billion in contract revenue. SpaceX made its first attempt to launch a liquid propellant rocket named Falcon 1 in 2008 and the first orbital launch and recover of spacecraft named Dragon in 2010.
The history of SpaceX
SpaceX is one of the most revolutionary initiatives of Elon Musk. This project was started back in the year 2002. The main objective of this project was to create a public interest in exploring the space. Along with that, the SpaceX project wanted to fund NASA with some of its projects as well.
Some of the rumors say that Elon Musk wanted to launch massive missiles, which are about the size of skyscrapers around the world with the SpaceX program. However, these are just rumoring, and Elon Musk has never made any such public official announcement.
SpaceX is delivering cargo to the international space station
As of now, SpaceX is working with few initiatives. They were able to achieve their main objective, which was to create awareness about space exploration in the minds of the general public. Along with that, they got into many other initiatives, which helped the company to generate profits.
In the year 2009, NASA gave a project to SpaceX and asked them to keep on supplying cargo to the international space station. This was a massive $1.6 billion contract. Along with this, SpaceX became the very first private company to offer cargo delivery services to the international space station.
This contract was for a duration of 8 years. During the time period of 8 years, the SpaceX project was able to deliver around 20 metric tons of cargo supplies to the international space station. They include basic necessities such as water and food, along with scientific equipment. Along with the success depicted by SpaceX with the awarded mission, NASA went ahead and renewed the contract. In fact, NASA signed for 14 additional supply missions. These contracts are generating around $150 million for SpaceX per year.
SpaceX and Mars Explorations
One of the most prominent projects initiated by SpaceX was to go ahead and explore Mars. This project came into the mind of Elon Musk in the year 2017. Soon after getting the idea, Elon Musk went ahead and implemented it. The main objective of this project is to transform Mars into a planet where humans can live.
In order to make this project a success, SpaceX has started investing heavily in the propulsive landing technology. They are going to reuse things as much as possible to receive the best possible returns out of this project. In addition to that, they are experimenting hard to come up with carbon fiber space frames, which can give life to stronger and lighter vehicles. These vehicles could be sold at a lower price tag in the market as well.
Along with the Mars Exploration project, SpaceX started offering tickets to the people who are interested in witnessing Mars. You will have to spend $500,000 to purchase a ticket. The project is currently being carried out and the team at SpaceX are looking forward to implementing it in the year 2022.
One powerful rocket
Another interesting project that you can find in SpaceX is that they have come up with the concept of creating one powerful rocket, which can eliminate the need to use multiple different variations of rockets. This rocket is named as the Big F King Rocket. They say that it will be the most powerful rocket made on this planet as well. Along with the implementation of this rocket, it would be possible to live the weight that is equivalent to the weight of a blue whale and orbit around the planet. One of the best things about this rocket is that it is entirely made out of materials, which are reusable. Therefore, we don’t need to worry too much about the negative environmental impact that would take place along with the implementation of the project.
They also launched another similar project, where the team constructed a rocket named Falcon. This was said to be the most powerful rocket ever to be constructed on the planet. This is known as a heavy lifting vehicle that SpaceX has manufactured. The thrust created by this rocket was equivalent to 5.13 million pounds. However, it had the ability to carry a total weight of around 64,000 kilograms.
On the month of February 2018, SpaceX was able to launch this project successfully. The rocket took off from Cape Canaveral located in the state of Florida. This was one of the most prominent milestones that you can find in the history of SpaceX. Along with the project, SpaceX was able to become the first commercial space company to send a payload beyond the gravity of the earth. That was a successful project and its something that the SpaceX team and Elon Musk can be proud about.
The Merlin 1D
The Merlin 1D can also be considered as one of the most outstanding projects carried out by the SpaceX team. This can be considered as a true wizard that you can find in the World of Rockets. The Merlin 1D was the fourth booster engine to be developed in the Merlin family of engines. It was designed and developed in order to propel Falcon 9. In the year 2018, the Falcon project was launched. For this project, multiple Merlin engines were used. One Merlin Engine created a thrust of around 190,000 lbs.
Every single Merlin engine was designed to be self-cooled as well. This was another prominent feature that you could see. This created safe operating conditions for the rocket as well. Cooling took place from the supply of fuel to the rocket under high pressure. As a result, it was possible for them to introduce a high power rocket engine, which is not bulky when compared to the traditional rocket engines. The Falcon 9 was equipped with 9 such booster engines by the engineers at SpaceX.
SpaceX is continuing with these types of innovative projects and we can see them achieving many great heights in the future.
Missions of SpaceX
SpaceX aims to overcome the upcoming difficulties with space travel. It works by lowering the cost of space launching. It commercialized the process of rocket launching by making contracts and getting funds from different organizations. The common process of launching includes the destruction of used space crafts but SpaceX reuses the spacecraft by saving it during the take-off process. Well, its main goal is to launch a Mars Mission with the Human that will ultimately lead to the colonization of this Red Planet. They are working on it and trying different strategies to survive on Mars. Side by side, they are also sending space crafts to international space station doing propulsive landing of Falcons and launching of objects into orbits around the Sun. They are also handling many resupply missions towards the international space station by making a partnership with NASA. SpaceX is currently working on Human Rated Dragon that would be able to transport Astronauts to International Space Station and return them to Earth.
SpaceX and Falcon 9 rocket
In October 2018, SpaceX did a world-first landing of the rocket back on the Californian soil. Falcon 9 rocket also made a historical delivery of a Dragon Spacecraft into the correct orbit with the partnership of international space station in 2012. After the speculation of Falcon 9 rocket, they told the world about their Falcon 9 passengers and he was the Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa. This was the very first time when they sent a private passenger on a trip around the Moon. Till now, Falcon 9 has made numerous successful trips of space launching satellites in the correct orbits and safely returning of cargo for NASA. Now they are moving toward the safe transport of humans into space.
As far as the success of this mission is concerned, the rocket was sent at local time 2:21 am on October 7. In the first stage, the rocket returns safely to the airbase after covering the distance for 8 minutes and this was the very first ground booster landing on the land of California. It was the 62nd flight of Falcon 9 and to launch the successful launch of Argentina’s Satellite. This orbit will help us to track the crop yields, soil moisture level and track natural disasters.
Funding of SpaceX
There are various sources of funding for SpaceX. Recently back in January, Google and Fidelity have funded about $ 1 billion to SpaceX. They also grant them ownership of almost 10% of the company. SpaceX also gets some private contracts from some companies regarding spaceflight services. In September 2019, SpaceX signed a contract with HISPASAT and a Saudi Arabian Arabsat 6A communications satellites by using the Falcon rockets.