private organization

SpaceX

The company that landed an orbital rocket, then launched it again.

Founded in 2002 to make spaceflight cheaper, SpaceX became the first private company to send a spacecraft to orbit and bring it back — and the first to land an orbital-class booster.

ReusabilityHuman SpaceflightSatellite DeploymentHeavy LiftMars Ambition
Overview

SpaceX in brief

SpaceX was founded in 2002 with one stubborn goal: make rockets cheap enough to actually use more than once. The breakthrough came in December 2015, when a Falcon 9 first stage delivered its payload to orbit and then flew back to a landing pad intact — something no one had done before. Since then the company has carried astronauts for NASA, built Starlink into the largest satellite network ever flown, and begun test-flying Starship, a fully reusable vehicle aimed at the Moon and Mars. Open a Falcon 9 below and you can take it apart, stage by stage.

Headquarters: Hawthorne, California, United States

Track record
  • Landed the first orbital-class rocket booster, in December 2015.
  • Returned human spaceflight to American soil in 2020 with Crew Dragon.
  • Built Starlink, the largest satellite constellation ever flown.
  • Caught a returning Starship booster with the launch tower in 2024.
Focus areas

What they work on.

The main areas of work — each one ties into the vehicles, missions, and technology below.

01 Reusable rockets
02 Crew transport
03 Cargo missions
04 Orbital deployment
05 Heavy-lift systems
06 Future deep-space architecture
Vehicles / Models

The rockets and spacecraft.

The hardware itself — what each one does, what it flies, and why it earned its place.

Reusable orbital launch vehicle Operational

Falcon 9

High-cadence launch for satellites, cargo, and crewed missions.

A two-stage rocket about 70 meters tall, powered by nine Merlin engines. The first stage flies itself back to a landing pad or an ocean drone ship; many boosters have now flown more than twenty times.

Significance

In December 2015 a Falcon 9 booster became the first orbital-class stage to land upright after launch. Reuse drove the price of reaching orbit down and turned weekly launches into routine.

Missions

Starlink deployments, Commercial Crew missions, Cargo resupply missions

Technology

First-stage booster landing, Reusable rockets, Rapid launch cadence, Autonomous drone ship landings

Open Lab →
Heavy-lift launch vehicle Operational

Falcon Heavy

High-energy missions and larger payloads.

Three Falcon 9 cores bolted together — twenty-seven engines firing at liftoff — making it one of the most powerful rockets flying today.

Significance

Its 2018 debut sent a Tesla Roadster toward the orbit of Mars, and the two side boosters touched down side by side back at Cape Canaveral seconds apart. It has since launched NASA probes like Psyche and Europa Clipper.

Missions

Falcon Heavy and heavy-lift missions

Technology

First-stage booster landing, Reusable rockets

Cargo and crew spacecraft Operational

Dragon

Transport people and supplies to orbital destinations.

A capsule that carries cargo, and up to four astronauts, to the International Space Station and back — returning under parachutes for an ocean splashdown.

Significance

In 2012 Dragon became the first commercial spacecraft to reach the ISS. Its crewed version flew astronauts in 2020, the first orbital launch from US soil since the Shuttle retired in 2011.

Missions

Commercial Crew missions, Cargo resupply missions

Technology

Human-rated crew systems

Fully reusable heavy-lift system In development and flight testing

Starship

Future high-mass transport for Earth orbit, lunar logistics, and deep-space ambitions.

A stainless-steel vehicle standing over 120 meters tall, designed so both the booster and the upper stage return and refly. It is built to lift more than 100 tonnes to orbit.

Significance

If it works as planned, Starship would be the largest and cheapest-per-kilogram rocket ever built — and NASA has already chosen a version of it as the lander for Artemis astronauts.

Missions

Starship test flights

Technology

Reusable rockets, Rapid launch cadence

Missions / Programs

Where they go.

What the vehicles are actually for — launching satellites, flying crews, landing on the Moon, and reaching deep space.

Satellite deployment Active program

Starlink deployments

Low Earth orbit

Falcon 9 flights that release batches of small satellites — often twenty or more at a time — into low Earth orbit to provide internet from space.

Significance

Starlink is the largest satellite constellation ever built, with thousands of spacecraft in orbit. Its launch revenue helps pay for the rest of what SpaceX does.

Vehicle context

Falcon 9

Human spaceflight Operational

Commercial Crew missions

Low Earth orbit

Crew Dragon flights, launched on Falcon 9, that carry NASA and private astronauts to the International Space Station.

Significance

The Demo-2 flight in May 2020 was the first crewed orbital launch from US soil in nine years, ending NASA’s reliance on buying seats aboard Russian Soyuz capsules.

Vehicle context

Falcon 9, Dragon

Orbital logistics Operational

Cargo resupply missions

Low Earth orbit

Uncrewed Dragon flights that deliver food, hardware, and experiments to the ISS and bring results back down to Earth.

Significance

Dragon is the only resupply vehicle that survives reentry intact, so it is the main way scientific samples come home from the station rather than burning up.

Vehicle context

Falcon 9, Dragon

Heavy lift Operational program

Falcon Heavy and heavy-lift missions

Missions that need more push than a single Falcon 9 can give: large national-security satellites, deep-space probes, and high-energy orbits.

Significance

Falcon Heavy opened commercial heavy lift to planetary science, launching NASA’s Psyche asteroid mission in 2023 and the Europa Clipper probe in 2024.

Vehicle context

Falcon Heavy

Flight test campaign Development program

Starship test flights

A fast-moving series of full-scale launches from Starbase, Texas, each one reaching further: ascent, stage separation, reentry, and booster-catch attempts.

Significance

In October 2024 the launch tower’s arms caught the returning booster out of the air — a recovery method no one had tried before.

Vehicle context

Starship

Technologies

The engineering behind it.

The core technical ideas that tie the vehicles and missions together.

Technology 05 links

First-stage booster landing

After separating, the first stage flips around, relights its engines, steers down through the atmosphere on grid fins, and sets down on its legs.

Significance

Boosters that were once thrown away after a single flight now return and fly again; one Falcon 9 first stage has flown more than twenty missions.

Technology 06 links

Reusable rockets

Building engines, tanks, and structures tough enough to survive launch, recovery, and a quick check-over so the same hardware can fly more than once.

Significance

Reuse is the single biggest reason launch prices have fallen over the past decade, and the idea now drives the design of every new rocket SpaceX builds.

Technology 05 links

Rapid launch cadence

The factories, ground crews, and refurbishment work that let the same pads and fleet of boosters launch again every few days.

Significance

SpaceX now launches more often than the rest of the world combined — turning spaceflight from a rare event into something closer to scheduled freight.

Technology 04 links

Autonomous drone ship landings

Robotic barges stationed far out at sea so a booster can land downrange when the mission spends too much fuel to fly all the way back to the coast.

Significance

Sea landings made the heavier, higher-energy missions reusable too — not just the lightest flights that can return to the launch site.

Technology 04 links

Human-rated crew systems

Escape engines built into Dragon’s hull, plus life support, docking, and a heat shield rated for the heat of reentry.

Significance

Dragon can pull its crew clear of a failing rocket in under a second — a maneuver SpaceX proved in a real in-flight abort test in 2020.

Explore in AELVOX Lab

Build it yourself.

Falcon 9 is live in the lab — build it, launch it, land it. The other SpaceX systems are mapped out as labs still to come.

Live Lab Falcon 9

Falcon 9 Rocket Builder & Mission Lab

Build a Falcon 9, launch it, separate the stages, land the booster, and deploy a payload — watching how the rocket and the mission fit together.

Open Lab →
Coming Soon Starship

Starship System Lab

A planned lab on full reusability: heat shielding, the booster catch, and high-mass transport beyond Earth orbit.

Planned Lab
Coming Soon Dragon

Dragon Crew Systems Lab

A planned lab on docking, the launch-escape system, and how a capsule keeps its crew alive from pad to splashdown.

Planned Lab
Relationship Map

How a Falcon 9 flies, lands, and flies again

From the company to the rocket, the missions it flies, the technology that brings it home, and the lab where you can build one yourself.

Organization SpaceX
Vehicle Falcon 9

Reusable orbital-class launcher

Missions Starlink, Crew, Cargo

High-cadence launch roles

Technology Reusability + booster landing

Recovery as engineering infrastructure

Lab Falcon 9 Interactive Model
Continue

Open the Falcon 9 lab.

Falcon 9 is one piece of the bigger SpaceX story: reusable boosters, Starlink, crewed Dragon, and cargo runs to the station.

Open Falcon 9 Lab All Organizations