SpaceX, or Space Exploration Technologies Corp., founded in 2002, is an American space technology company and a dominant launch provider. It designs, manufactures, and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft, including the Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, Dragon spacecraft, and Starship. SpaceX partners with organizations like NASA and the United States Armed Forces and is known for its advancements in reusable launch vehicles, human spaceflight, and satellite constellation technology like Starlink. Key words: launch provider, reusable rockets, space exploration, Starlink, Falcon, Dragon, Starship, NASA.
All verified mentions of this organization in source documents.
SpaceX launched all 75 satellites for Iridium’s $3,000,000,000 Iridium Next second-generation constellation using Falcon 9 rockets.
SpaceX lofted the latest batch of 10 Iridium Next satellites in early 2019 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
SpaceX won a $69,950,000 CSP award to demonstrate LEO constellation communications using optical links.
NASA, working with Axiom Space and SpaceX, postponed the Crew Dragon Endeavour departure on 2022-04-19 because of weather.
ICEYE US launched its first-ever satellite earlier 2022-04 on a mission that included SpaceX and Exolaunch as launch providers.
IM-1 was originally scheduled to launch in 2021 before SpaceX moved the mission into the first quarter of 2022, and subsequent delays pushed the Falcon 9 launch later in 2022.
D-Orbit’s orbital transfer vehicle carrying Kleos’ four Patrol Mission satellites was launched into a 500 km sun-synchronous orbit from Cape Canaveral, Florida aboard the SpaceX Transporter-4 mission on 2022-04-01.
SpaceX planned to start launching 11 Boeing-built O3b mPower satellites in 2021, then in the first quarter of 2022, before a delay pushed the first batch into the second quarter of 2022.
SpaceX received a contract from the U.S. Air Force in February 2019 to launch NROL-85 and NROL-87.
SpaceX previously launched National Reconnaissance Office satellites under commercial contracts.
SpaceX builds Starship vehicles in Boca Chica, Texas and tests rocket engines in McGregor, Texas.
NASA’s Launch Services Program developed a government insight plan and evaluated SpaceX’s vehicle refurbishment processes as part of enabling use of previously flown boosters on contracted missions.
One of the four Astranis satellites contracted for SpaceX launches in 2023 is for Peru’s telecommunications service Andesat.
Crewed NASA missions began using previously flown SpaceX boosters starting with Crew-2 in April 2021.
Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA associate administrator for science, prefers previously used SpaceX boosters over totally new ones for most science applications following the 2022-04-08 Ax-1 mission to the ISS.
Astranis signed a contract with SpaceX on 2022-04-05 to launch four small GEO satellites in 2023.
NASA selected SpaceX to launch SWOT in November 2016.
Two of the four satellites that SpaceX launched on 2022-01-13 are equipped with the S-band terminal for Kepler Communications’ upcoming Aether system.
NASA modified its Launch Services 2 contract with SpaceX on 2022-04-06 to change the upcoming launch of the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite from a new Falcon 9 booster to a previously flown Falcon 9 booster.
Two of the four Astranis satellites contracted for SpaceX launches in 2023 are for inflight connectivity provider Anuvu.