Twelve years of spaceflight
Back in 2002, a very small group of people actually believed that SpaceX–an American private aerospace manufacturer and space transportation company–would become half as successful as it is today. A lot more probably lost bets over this.
Since the company’s inception in 2002, the main vision has been to drastically reduce the costs of space travel, thus making space more accessible while transforming homo sapiens into a multi-planetary species. According to the CEO Elon Musk, these goals are achievable and partly proven already as the costs of sending payload into space have seen a major decrease; the main factor being the reusable nature of the first stage on their current main vehicle, the Falcon 9. With plans of reaching Mars by 2022 in an uncrewed mission 1 and ultimately colonising Mars in the years to come, many have questioned Musk’s optimistic and arguably unrealistic time estimations.
In 2006, SpaceX started testing their first rocket, the Falcon 1. After failing three times, the vehicle was successfully launched into low earth orbit on March of the same year. In 2010, the Falcon 9 was born, the rocket that to this day serves the company’s multiple international customers. A few years later and many iterations of the rocket, the Falcon 9’s first stage makes history by landing vertically on land on December 2015 (20). Fast forward eight years and in 2018 the Falcon Heavy, the world’s current most powerful operational rocket by factor of 2, capable of lifting 64 metric tons of payload 2, had its first flight with great success (FH).
Here we showcase all 73 flights of SpaceX (2006 - 2018) including also the ones that failed while celebrating the company’s infectious ambition and optimism in reaching for the stars.
