50 Fun Facts About SpaceX

In which year was SpaceX founded?

Early staff were hired from TRW and Boeing into a warehouse in El Segundo, California.

The Falcon rocket family is named after a spacecraft from which film franchise?

The Millennium Falcon lent its name; the Merlin and Kestrel engines are birds of prey.

How many Falcon 1 launches failed before the rocket first reached orbit?

Tesla financing had also failed, leaving Musk and both companies near bankruptcy at the same time.

From which Pacific atoll were all Falcon 1 launches conducted?

The pad was on Omelek Island at the Reagan Test Site in the Marshall Islands.

Falcon 1's only commercial payload, on its final flight in 2009, came from which country?

RazakSAT rode the fifth and last Falcon 1 in July 2009 before the rocket was retired.

Which NASA contract, worth $1.6 billion in December 2008, is credited with saving SpaceX?

It bought 12 cargo flights to the ISS; Gwynne Shotwell was made president for negotiating it.

What did Musk's 2001 'Oasis' space project propose to do?

He tried to buy a Russian Dnepr rocket for it before deciding to build rockets himself.

Which future NASA administrator joined Musk on a rocket-buying trip to Moscow?

Griffin later declined the job of SpaceX chief engineer.

How many Merlin engines power the first stage of a Falcon 9?

The upper stage uses a single vacuum-optimised Merlin; Falcon Heavy's three cores carry 27.

What propellants does the Merlin engine burn?

RP-1 is a refined kerosene; the Starship-era Raptor switched to methane.

Which engine powered Falcon 1's second stage?

It was a pressure-fed engine using the same LOX/RP-1 propellants as Merlin.

What are the small thrusters used for the capsule's reaction control called?

Eight larger SuperDracos give Crew Dragon its launch-escape capability.

What fuel does the Raptor engine burn alongside its oxidiser?

Raptor is a full-flow staged combustion engine first flown in 2019 on the Starhopper test vehicle.

In which year did a Falcon 9 first stage first land successfully after an orbital launch?

Flight 20 touched down at Cape Canaveral that December, a first for an orbital-class booster.

What was the name of the drone ship for the first at-sea booster landing in April 2016?

The booster had just sent the CRS-8 cargo Dragon toward the ISS.

SpaceX's drone ships take their names from spaceships in novels by which author?

The names come from the Culture series of science fiction novels.

Which satellite flew on the first reuse of an orbital-class booster in March 2017?

The stage was recovered again afterwards, the first landing of a reused orbital rocket.

What caused the June 2015 CRS-7 failure two minutes into flight?

The strut held a helium pressure vessel that broke free and over-pressurised the tank.

Which $200 million satellite was destroyed when a Falcon 9 exploded on the pad in 2016?

It happened during propellant loading for a static fire, grounding SpaceX for four months.

Falcon Heavy's first flight in February 2018 carried what dummy payload?

Musk had promised the 'silliest thing we can imagine' for the risky debut.

What is the mannequin in the driver's seat of the space-bound Roadster called?

He is named after a David Bowie song, and the car's stereo was set to loop 'Space Oddity'.

A copy of which novel sits in the Roadster's glovebox, with a 'DON'T PANIC!' sign on the dash?

A towel is aboard too; Asimov's Foundation trilogy rides along on a 5D optical disc.

What phrase is printed on the Roadster's circuit board?

A plaque under the car lists the employees who worked on the project.

How many Merlin engines fire at liftoff on a Falcon Heavy?

Three modified Falcon 9 cores are strapped together.

Which two NASA astronauts flew on Crew Demo-2 in May 2020?

It was the first crewed orbital launch from US soil since the last Shuttle flight in 2011.

What name was given to the capsule flown on Demo-2?

Its water landing was the first splashdown by astronauts since 1975.

The Demo-2 Falcon 9 revived which retired NASA logo?

The red wordmark had not been used officially since 1992.

From which launch pad did Demo-2 lift off?

SpaceX signed a 20-year lease on the historic Apollo and Shuttle pad in 2014.

Who commanded Inspiration4, the first all-private orbital spaceflight, in 2021?

The Shift4 Payments CEO flew with Hayley Arceneaux, Chris Sembroski and pilot Sian Proctor.

Inspiration4 raised money for which Memphis institution?

Crew member Hayley Arceneaux was a former patient and cancer survivor.

Which 2024 mission featured the first private spacewalk?

Its crew also flew 1,400 km out, farther than anyone since Apollo 17 in 1972.

At 30, who became the youngest person to perform a spacewalk, in 2024?

She and Anna Menon also flew farther from Earth than any women before them.

Who was named SpaceX's president and chief operating officer in 2008?

She joined in 2002 from Microcosm and was made president after negotiating the 2008 NASA cargo contract.

How many satellites were in Starlink's first large batch, launched in May 2019?

The constellation orbits at roughly 550 km and passed a million subscribers in December 2022.

Starlink's first-generation satellites de-orbit using Hall thrusters fuelled by which gas?

Later V2 Mini satellites switched to argon; all dodge debris autonomously using uplinked tracking data.

What is the military variant of the Starlink satellite bus called?

The Space Development Agency buys them for a space-based missile-defence system.

What is Starship's first stage called?

Both stages are built from welded stainless steel rings and land back at the tower.

How many Raptor engines power Starship's first-stage booster?

The outer 20 are fixed; the inner engines gimbal and relight for boostback and landing burns.

In December 2018, Starship's structural material switched from carbon composites to what?

Musk cited low cost, strength at cryogenic temperatures and heat resistance.

What is the nickname of the Starship launch tower that catches boosters?

The first booster catch, of Booster 12, came on October 13, 2024.

Starship's first integrated test launch in April 2023 ended how?

Several booster engines failed, the vehicle tumbled and the automated system destroyed it.

Where is Starbase, which became SpaceX's headquarters in 2024?

The Boca Chica site was announced in 2014; Hawthorne, California kept building Falcons and Dragons.

Every SpaceX engine is acceptance-tested at a facility in which Texas town?

The site was part of a World War II ordnance plant and was leased by SpaceX in 2003.

In May 2012, COTS Demo Flight 2 achieved what first for a private spacecraft?

The COTS Demo Flight 2 mission in May 2012 nearly doubled the company's valuation.

Which spacecraft did SpaceX win a 2020 NASA contract to build to supply the Lunar Gateway?

Under the 2020 Gateway Logistics Services award it would launch on Falcon Heavy and stay docked for six to twelve months at a time.

Which tunnelling firm began as a SpaceX subsidiary in 2017?

Its first test tunnel ran beside the Hawthorne headquarters and opened in December 2018.

Under what ticker symbol did SpaceX list on the Nasdaq in June 2026?

The IPO valued the company at $1.77 trillion, the highest ever.

Which Musk AI company did SpaceX acquire in an all-stock deal in February 2026?

The stated goal was space-based AI data centres free of terrestrial power and cooling limits.

How many launches did SpaceX conduct in 2022, then a record for a single vehicle type?

That was roughly one launch every six days; all but one were Falcon 9s.

What was the name of the Starship prototype that hopped to 150 metres in August 2020?

It had no flaps or nosecone, just one Raptor, tanks and a mass simulator.