The private spaceflight company Space Exploration Technologies Corporation – better known as SpaceX – achieved several important milestones in 2020.
Founded in 2002 by South African – born billionaire tech billionaire Elon Musk, the company has come a long way since they were able to fly their Falcon 1 rocket into orbit in 2008.
They have completed more than 100 successful publications to date – 24 of them in 2020 – with missions that included the delivery of private and government-owned satellites into orbit, which as well as transporting goods to the International Space Station.
He defeated industry giants such as Boeing and the well-funded Blue Origin in securing private contracts for crew and cargo flights.
The company ultimately aims to help make humanity multi-planet and has set itself the ambitious goal of landing a spacecraft on Mars by 2024.
Here are some of the most notable achievements of 2020.
Team missions
At the end of May 2020, SpaceX launched its first mission to space – the first of its kind for any private space company.
Astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken boarded the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule on top of a Falcon 9 rocket on May 30, 2020 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
They were then launched into orbit and traveled to the International Space Station, where they made a stop the next day.
After spending about two months at the station, Hurley and Behnken returned safely to land with their capsule raining down in the Gulf of Mexico on August 3rd.
The astronauts expressed satisfaction about the vehicle’s performance, and said they were very comfortable saying it is ready for the next crew once the engineering and analysis required for certification is complete.
Certainly, on November 15, SpaceX launched the first unmanned unmanned aircraft – Crew-1 – with four astronauts on board this flight.
These four are members of the team – currently docked by the ISS, where they will be stationed alongside three astronauts of the Soyuz MS-17 mission for operational duties.
Starlink beta goes live
Another ambitious goal of Musk’s sights is to connect the entire globe, and especially to rural areas far removed from broadband infrastructure.
To achieve this, SpaceX has launched their Starlink program – which wants to carry a satellite internet connection through a constellation of thousands of small low-orbit (LEO) satellites launched in organizations over a number of years.
These satellites operate at an altitude of approximately 550km and communicate between client antennas, each other, and ground base stations to transmit data and provide online access.
As of November 25, SpaceX had already launched 955 Starlink satellites into orbit. This equates to around 50 satellites per month since the company launched their first batch in May 2019.
SpaceX recently opened the program to the public via beta for select users in Canada and the northern regions of the United States.
The package is priced at $ 99 per month, not including the $ 499 face fee for the equipment provided by users connecting to the network.
Starlink told users to expect speeds between 50Mbps and 150Mbps, with latency between 20-40ms at this time.
Some early users on appeal download speeds greater than 160Mbps, with one recording over 200Mbps and a latency of 18ms.
These speeds are expected to improve as SpaceX adds more satellites to the console.
More than 100 successful flights
The Falcon 9 rocket launched on October 24 marked the 100th successful SpaceX event.
One of the key areas of focus on the path to this destination is the use of fully and quickly reusable rockets.
Space travel is expensive for many reasons – one of which is that the launch system is often considered a wearable part, especially given the inconvenience of retrieving rockets.
While NASA’s Space Shuttle program tried to provide an alternative with reusable boosters and a spaceship, these were expensive to redecorate.
While previous attempts have been made on spacecraft that can land and land directly, SpaceX has developed first-stage rocket launchers that were capable of crashing back to earth and to land directly on a drone boat or on land.
Although it has made several explosive efforts to achieve this goal, patience has paid off and it has now brought its shooters to the ground several times – with the record maintained by one that was launched and landed seven times.
Musk has claimed that SpaceX’s latest Falcon 9 rocket will be able to fly 10 times without major redesign, or even 100 times with occasional refills.
Star development is accelerating
Following the success of the Crew Dragon mission, Musk emailed SpaceX staff urging them to accelerate progress on the development of his next big spaceship – the Starship.
This spacecraft is being developed as a reusable vehicle that will be used to travel on future missions to the Moon and Mars.
SpaceX has already released several proteins that have undergone static fire tests and hopped at lower altitudes at its Boca Chica test facility in Texas.
The SN8 prototype was recently launched on a 12.5km flight test into the atmosphere, before crashing down in a controlled descent to a landing spot.
All three of their Raptor engines collided after reaching their peak, and the vehicle crashed back to Earth in a controlled descent in horizontal direction.
Minutes before it crashed, SpaceX chose to perform a “bell flop” move by controlling one of the three engines.
This caused the spacecraft to move back into an upright position for landing.
While it exploded on impact with the ground, the test was successfully announced, as the team had gathered all the data needed to proceed with development.
Fortunately, SpaceX already has SN9 – the next prototype – standing up for further testing.
What to expect in 2021
Another exciting year at SpaceX is planned with several shows and experiments that are part of the Starlink program and its Starship developments.
The timetable for the year includes the following:
- First unmanned flight of the Starship spacecraft.
- Second (Crew-2) and third (Crew-3) non-test crew missions to the ISS.
- Paid airfare for space tourism companies Axiom and Space Adventures.
On the lighter side, the company also plans to race radio-controlled cars on the Moon.
The cars – created with the help of some schoolchildren and renowned McLaren designer – will be carried aboard the Falcon 9 rocket in October 2021.
They will be deployed on the lunar surface using the first privately built lunar builder from Houston-based Intuitive Equipment.