50 Fun Facts About SpaceX

Musk funded SpaceX with money from selling which company?

PayPal's sale to eBay made Musk rich, yet by 2008 SpaceX, Tesla and Musk himself were all close to going broke.

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

Star Wars' Millennium Falcon gave the rockets their name, and Musk says he named Dragon after 'Puff the Magic Dragon' to answer critics who called his plans impossible.

Falcon 1's failed third launch in August 2008 carried the ashes of which Star Trek actor?

James Doohan's ashes were lost in that failure, but another portion finally reached orbit on a Falcon 9 in May 2012.

From which Pacific atoll were all Falcon 1 launches conducted?

Kwajalein, a US Army missile test range, took Falcon 1 after SpaceX was shut out of launching from California's Vandenberg base.

In March 2025, SpaceX's Crew-9 brought home two NASA astronauts whose own capsule, built by which company, had thruster trouble?

Boeing's Starliner flew Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams up in June 2024 for an eight-day test, but NASA judged it too risky to fly them home, so they stayed until March 2025.

Which $1.6 billion NASA contract did SpaceX win in December 2008, when it was nearly broke?

Commercial Resupply Services bought 12 cargo flights to the space station before the Falcon 9 rocket meant to fly them had even launched.

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

Land a greenhouse on Mars needed a cheap launch, so Musk tried to buy Russian missiles, but two trips to Moscow came back empty-handed.

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

Michael Griffin was on the flight home when Musk turned around with a spreadsheet and said they could build the rocket themselves.

When one of its nine booster engines failed in 2012, how did Falcon 9 still reach orbit?

Its other engines burned longer and software adjusted the climb, so Dragon reached its orbit, but a secondary Orbcomm satellite was left too low and fell back.

What propellants does the Merlin engine burn?

Liquid oxygen and RP-1, a rocket-grade kerosene, feed Merlin, an engine SpaceX built in-house when most rocket makers bought theirs from established suppliers.

Which engine powered Falcon 1's second stage?

Kestrel shut down early on Falcon 1's second flight in 2007, when the upper stage began to wobble and roll, so the rocket fell short of orbit.

What are the small thrusters that steer SpaceX's crew and cargo capsules in orbit called?

Draco thrusters also let a cargo Dragon boost the space station's orbit, which a Dragon did for the first time in November 2024.

What fuel does the Raptor engine burn alongside its oxidiser?

Liquid methane can be made on Mars from underground water and atmospheric carbon dioxide, which is why SpaceX's Mars plan counts on brewing return-trip fuel there.

After a Falcon 9 booster first landed in December 2015, which rival space billionaire tweeted 'Welcome to the club'?

Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin had already landed its suborbital New Shepard rocket in 2015, and his tweet called SpaceX's a 'suborbital booster stage'.

Which drone ship caught SpaceX's first at-sea booster landing, in April 2016?

Of Course I Still Love You hosted SpaceX's first sea landing on the fifth attempt, after earlier boosters had crashed or toppled on drone ships.

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

Iain M. Banks gave his Culture starships joke names, and SpaceX's drone ship names were a posthumous tribute after he died of cancer in 2013.

In March 2017, the SES-10 satellite became the first to launch on what?

A reused Falcon 9 first stage that had flown the year before lifted SES-10, then landed at sea for a second time.

What did investigators blame for the Falcon 9 explosion that destroyed CRS-7 in June 2015?

A failed steel strut let a helium bottle break loose in the upper stage's oxygen tank, and NASA's review faulted SpaceX's choice of an industrial-grade part.

A 2016 Falcon 9 launch-pad explosion destroyed a satellite whose internet capacity had been leased by which tech company?

Facebook and Eutelsat had agreed to pay $95 million to lease its broadband capacity for Internet.org and African businesses, a deal the explosion wiped out.

Falcon Heavy's 2018 debut launched a car into an orbit around what?

The Sun: the car loops out past the orbit of Mars, and in January 2025 astronomers briefly logged it as a new asteroid before deleting the entry.

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

Starman, named after a David Bowie song, beamed back live video from cameras mounted on the car for hours after launch.

A copy of which novel rides in the glovebox of Musk's space-bound Tesla Roadster?

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is aboard as a nod to Douglas Adams, one of the authors Musk devoured as a boy.

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

Made on Earth by humans suits Musk's hope, voiced more than once, that some future alien race might discover the car.

What did side boosters do after the 2018 Falcon Heavy debut?

Landed together: the two side boosters touched down almost at once on twin pads at Cape Canaveral, while the center core crashed.

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

Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken made the first crewed launch from US soil since 2011, years in which NASA had bought seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

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

Endeavour was chosen partly because both Demo-2 astronauts had made their first spaceflights on the space shuttle Endeavour.

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

The 'worm' was retired in 1992 in favour of the older 'meatball' insignia, then brought back in 2020 in time for the Demo-2 booster.

From which launch pad did Demo-2 lift off?

SpaceX won Kennedy LC-39A's lease by bidding for exclusive use, arguing that refitting the pad for several rockets would cost too much.

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

Jared Isaacman bought the flight himself and gave away its seats, one of them to the winner of an online contest for entrepreneurs.

Inspiration4 raised money for which Memphis institution?

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital chose one of its own physician assistants, a bone cancer survivor and former patient, to fly as a crew member.

Which 2024 mission featured the first private spacewalk?

Polaris Dawn flew as far as 1,400 km from Earth, through parts of the inner Van Allen belt, to study how space radiation affects astronauts.

Which SpaceX engineer and trained violinist stepped outside on the first commercial spacewalk in 2024?

Sarah Gillis ran SpaceX's astronaut training, and she had prepared the Demo-2, Crew-1 and Inspiration4 crews before flying herself.

Which SpaceX leader, hired in 2002, rose to company president after helping win NASA contracts in 2008?

Gwynne Shotwell chose engineering as a teenager after a mechanical engineer at a Society of Women Engineers panel inspired her, sharp suit and all.

In 2022, Starlink became vital to which country's military after its minister publicly asked Musk?

Ukraine's plea came from minister Mykhailo Fedorov on Twitter, and in June 2023 the Pentagon signed a contract to pay for its Starlink service.

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

Krypton-fuelled thrusters also let each satellite hold its altitude, and nearly all of its components were designed to burn up at the end of its life.

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

Starshield adapts Starlink for government use, and in 2023 the US Space Force hired SpaceX to provide military satellite communications through it.

What is Starship's first stage called?

Super Heavy flies back to its launch site after staging and is caught in mid-air, while Falcon 9 boosters land on legs.

In 2023, Starship's booster became the most powerful rocket stage ever flown, beating which Soviet rocket's old record?

N1, built to land Soviet cosmonauts on the Moon, failed on all four of its test launches between 1969 and 1972.

In 2019, Musk said Starship's hull would switch from carbon fibre to which material?

Stainless steel was far cheaper than carbon fibre, grows stronger in extreme cold and has a higher melting point for surviving re-entry heat.

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

Mechazilla catches boosters so they need no landing legs, which Musk said saves mass and puts a booster back on the launch mount, ready to refly in under an hour.

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

Self-destruct before staging followed several engine failures, and the liftoff tore chunks of concrete out of the launch pad and left a crater beneath it.

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

Near Brownsville, Texas, Starbase is the site SpaceX asked a county judge, in 2024, to put to an election to become an incorporated city.

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

McGregor's test stands were a leftover from banker Andrew Beal's rocket startup, which folded in 2000 after pouring millions into the site.

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

Berthing with the ISS came after astronaut Don Pettit caught Dragon with the station's robotic arm, joking, 'Looks like we got us a dragon by the tail.'

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

Dragon XL was to ride on Falcon Heavy, but in March 2026 NASA said it would no longer build the Gateway the craft was designed to supply.

Which Musk venture began as a SpaceX subsidiary in 2017?

The Boring Company grew out of Musk's complaints about Los Angeles traffic, which he called one of the most soul-destroying things.

Which exchange changed its index rules before listing SpaceX in 2026?

Nasdaq rewrote its index rules for SpaceX, but S&P Global refused to change its own, blocking a quick entry into the S&P 500.

Which Musk AI company did SpaceX acquire in February 2026?

xAI, which makes the Grok chatbots, joined SpaceX as Musk pitched a plan to put AI data centers in space.

What sent dozens of new Starlink satellites back into the atmosphere in February 2022?

A geomagnetic storm kept the new satellites from raising their orbits, so most of the 49 on that launch re-entered.

How did Starship prototype SN8's high-altitude test flight in December 2020 end?

It exploded on landing: low pressure in a fuel header tank left the engines short of thrust in the landing burn, so it touched down too fast.