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An inventory of 14 major moments in Musk's SpaceX history: from the verge of bankruptcy to the starship explosion

2025-01-21 Update From: SLTechnology News&Howtos shulou NAV: SLTechnology News&Howtos > IT Information >

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Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Beijing, April 24 (Xinhua)-- the giant rocket Starship of the US Space Exploration Technology Company (SpaceX) exploded during a test flight last week. In fact, explosions and failures are nothing new in the history of SpaceX, and it almost went bankrupt.

Here are 14 important moments in the history of SpaceX:

Musk decided to create the year of SpaceX2001 because he was spit. After being humiliated, Musk decided to start building his own rocket. At the time, Musk was visiting Russia to negotiate an agreement to buy space rockets for future missions to Mars. He originally wanted to build a greenhouse called Mars Oasis on Mars. But Russian designers shrugged off the idea and spit on Musk's shoes.

Lori Garver, a former deputy director of ▲ Musk's NASA in 2004, wrote in a book on the commercialization of space: "this behavior completely offended Elon, who decided to start his own rocket company and compete with them on his way home. If Helen of Troy has a face that can launch a thousand ships, then this spit can launch a thousand spaceships. "

Finally, Musk founded SpaceX in 2002. It has become one of the most successful private companies.

The first rocket, Falcon 1, was released and Musk named the rocket Falcon in homage to the Millennium Falcon in Star Wars. Falcon 1 is a disposable two-stage orbital carrier rocket that cost about $100 million to build. A year later, the company launched its second spaceship, Dragon, named after the hit song "fantastic Dragon" by Peter, Paul and Mary. Musk says he uses the name because many people think the vision he has set for the company is impossible. At the time, SpaceX was one of the few companies that tried to build commercial space rockets.

▲ Falcon 1

Three failures nearly destroyed bankruptcy in 2006, when SpaceX's first launch failed due to fuel leaks and fires. A later inspection of the launch vehicle by SpaceX found that the fuel pipe nut had been corroded by nearby sea spray. As a result, SpaceX changed its design and replaced aluminum hardware with stainless steel. The next two launches achieved the first stage flight of the rocket, but encountered problems after the separation, resulting in the rocket being unable to enter the orbit.

The launch of ▲ Falcon 1 failed as a result of these three failures, SpaceX almost went bankrupt. At the same time, Musk is also facing the financing problem of Tesla. According to a book about SpaceX, "takeoff: Musk and the desperate early days of founding SpaceX," written by Eric Berger, Musk "wakes up from nightmares, screams, and body pain" because of stress.

For the fourth time, Falcon 1 was successfully launched from Omelek Island Island in the Marshall Islands on September 28, 2008. It was also the first successful orbital launch by a private investment company, representing a major shift in the space industry dominated by government programs.

There was no significant change in the rocket between the third and fourth launches, but because the previous failure was due to a matter of time, SpaceX did increase the time between the first stage combustion and the second stage separation. The SpaceX rocket is divided into two stages. The first stage is the booster, which pushes vigorously to a certain height and then separates. The second stage continued to push the rocket into orbit.

Musk was watching the launch. "I screwed up the first three launches. The first three launches failed," Musk said in an interview nine years later. "this is the last sum of money we have prepared for Falcon 1. The fourth launch was a success. Otherwise, this will be the end of SpaceX. But fate favored us that day."

After its first successful launch, SpaceX received more money from NASA and some private investors. The Falcon 1 rocket was decommissioned after its fifth launch in 2009.

Dragon spacecraft arrives at International Space Station

The Dragon spacecraft docked with the space station, the first commercial ship to transport cargo to the International Space Station and prompted NASA and SpaceX to sign several more contracts. Dragon 1 retired in 2020 after 23 cargo missions to the International Space Station. SpaceX began developing Dragon 2, a version capable of carrying astronauts and cargo, in 2014.

The second major setback

Falcon 9 disintegrated in 2015, Falcon 9 disintegrated shortly after launch, when it was delivering supplies to the International Space Station. The problem was on a steel bracket with a helium pressure vessel, which was separated from the rocket because of the thrust during lift-off. Falcon 9 suffered its second failure in 2016, when the rocket exploded during a static ignition test before launch.

Complete recycling for the first time

▲ first recycled a first-stage rocket in 2016, SpaceX successfully recovered the first stage of another Falcon 9 rocket that landed on an unmanned ship in the Atlantic Ocean. Musk said that recycling and reusing the first stage of the rocket could reduce the cost of SpaceX by about 30%. Within a year, SpaceX began offering a 10% discount on the use of recycled first-stage transport payloads. The company launched its first reusable Falcon 9 in 2017.

Sports car flew into the sky in 2018, SpaceX launched a Falcon heavy carrier rocket, sending Tesla's Roadster sports car into space. The red sports car is driven by a dummy named Starman. The electric car was sent into space as a test load. At the time, Musk said he wanted the dummy payload to be "the stupidest thing we can imagine."

The Musk sports car is still running on the track, making it the fastest sports car ever. There is even a website that tracks the car's journey into space. As of December 20 last year, the sports car was more than 200 million miles from Earth and was moving away from Earth at 6473 miles per hour, according to whereisroadster.com.

Manned launch back to the United States in 2020, SpaceX carried out its first manned mission in the United States, sending two astronauts to the International Space Station. On May 30, 2020, SpaceX used Falcon 9 to launch a new manned dragon spacecraft carrying two astronauts, Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken. The two men were the first humans to lift off on a SpaceX rocket.

This is also the first time that the United States has used a new type of spacecraft to put astronauts into orbit since the first launch of the space shuttle in 1981. The mission is the result of NASA's commercial manned space program, which aims to stimulate the development of private carrier rockets. NASA officially retired its space shuttle in 2011. Later that year, NASA approved SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Dragon manned space systems for manned missions to and from the International Space Station, meaning the United States will no longer rely entirely on Russian Soyuz rockets to transport American astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

Four explosions in the suborbital test of the starship SpaceX completed the suborbital test flight of the starship without an explosion for the first time in May 2021. On the previous four occasions, starship prototypes have exploded.

Musk's long-term goal is to build self-sufficient settlements on Mars. In order to send enough people and supplies to the red planet, SpaceX needs a powerful and fully reusable rocket. As a result, a combination of starships and super-heavy Falcon rockets came on stage.

The starship prototype explosion starship did not get off to a smooth start at the Bokachka R & D facility in Texas. There SpaceX sent the starship prototypes six miles (10 kilometers) into the air, hoping they could fly and land intact. The first four prototypes either exploded in mid-air, hit the landing platform, or exploded 10 minutes after landing. However, the fifth starship prototype landed intact, proving that SpaceX can reuse the second stage of the Mars launch system. Musk says this full reusability can reduce the cost of getting into space by "100 times or more."

The first all-civilian flight on September 15, 2021, billionaire Jared Jared Issacman and three other passengers chartered a private space trip by SpaceX and spent three days in space. SpaceX used Falcon 9 to send them into space in a manned dragon spacecraft called tenacity.

The space flight, the first manned mission to orbit without any professional astronauts, was part of a charity campaign to raise funds and public awareness for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, bringing in more than $243 million in donations.

Longest successful launch record

Falcon 9 in 2021, after Falcon 9 successfully completed its 101st launch, SpaceX broke the record for the longest orbital launch without mission failure or partial failure of a single rocket type. Moreover, it successfully launched Falcon 9 60 times in a year, the largest number of launches of a single rocket type in a year. SpaceX is also one of the most valuable private companies in the world, valued at more than $100 billion.

Satellite Internet the company has launched about 4000 satellites into low-Earth orbit and plans to create a network of 42000 satellites for the SpaceX satellite Internet. Since SpaceX began launching satellites in 2019, the company has had more than 1 million users. Earlier this year, the service was launched among several airlines and cruise companies.

The first orbital-class test explosion last Thursday, SpaceX launched a starship, carrying out its first test flight since the starship was combined with a super-heavy rocket. However, the rocket failed to separate about three minutes after liftoff, disintegrating and exploding in the air. John Insprucker, an SpaceX announcer and engineer, said on the company's live broadcast that the rocket "experienced what we call a rapid unplanned disintegration."

Musk congratulated the SpaceX team and said he had learned a lot from it. Earlier, he had said that the success rate of the launch was only 50%.

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