SpaceX in the context of Starlink

Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR; formerly known as Triana, unofficially known as GoreSat) is a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) space weather, space climate, and Earth observation satellite. It was launched by SpaceX on a Falcon 9 v1.1 launch vehicle on 11 February 2015, from Cape Canaveral. This is NOAA's first operational deep space satellite and became its primary system of warning Earth in the event of solar magnetic storms.

DSCOVR was originally proposed as an Earth observation spacecraft positioned at the Sun-Earth L₁ Lagrange point, providing live video of the sunlit side of the planet through the Internet as well as scientific instruments to study climate change. Political changes in the United States resulted in the mission's cancellation, and in 2001 the spacecraft was placed into storage.

This is a list of crewed and uncrewed flights of Soyuz series spacecraft.

The Soyuz programme is an ongoing human spaceflight programme which was initiated by the Soviet Union in the early 1960s, originally part of a Moon landing project intended to put a Soviet cosmonaut on the Moon. It is the third Soviet human spaceflight programme after the Vostok and Voskhod programmes. Since the 1990s, as the successor state to the Soviet Union, Russia has continued and expanded the programme, which became part of a multinational collaboration to ensure a permanent human presence in low Earth orbit on the ISS (ISS). Soyuz spacecraft previously visited the Salyut and Mir space stations. Between the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011 and the first orbital flight of SpaceX's Crew Dragon in 2019, Soyuz were the only human-rated orbital spacecraft in operation, and the only way to transport crews to the ISS. Russia plans to succeed Soyuz in the 2020s with the Federatsiya/Orel programme, using new reusable capsules launching on Angara rockets, to transport cosmonauts to orbit and to a space station around the Moon.

Space colonization (or extraterrestrial colonization) is the settlement or colonization of outer space and astronomical bodies. The concept in its broad sense has been applied to any permanent human presence in space, such as a space habitat or other extraterrestrial settlements. It may involve a process of occupation or control for exploitation, such as extraterrestrial mining.

Making territorial claims in space is prohibited by international space law, defining space as a common heritage. International space law has had the goal to prevent colonial claims and militarization of space, and has advocated the installation of international regimes to regulate access to and sharing of space, particularly for specific locations such as the limited space of geostationary orbit or the Moon. To date, no permanent space settlement other than temporary space habitats have been established, nor has any extraterrestrial territory or land been internationally claimed. Currently there are also no plans for building a space colony by any government. However, many proposals, speculations, and designs, particularly for extraterrestrial settlements have been made through the years, and a considerable number of space colonization advocates and groups are active. Currently, the dominant private launch provider SpaceX, has been the most prominent organization planning space colonization on Mars, though having not reached a development stage beyond launch and landing systems.

A space launch is the phase of a spaceflight mission during which a launch vehicle reaches space. The launch may be sub-orbital or the launch may continue until the vehicle reaches orbit. A space launch begins at a launch pad, which may be on land or at sea, or when the launch vehicle is released mid-air from an aircraft.

Falcon 9 is a partially reusable, two-stage-to-orbit, medium-lift launch vehicle designed and manufactured in the United States by SpaceX. The first Falcon 9 launch was on June 4, 2010, and the first commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS) launched on October 8, 2012. In 2020, it became the first commercial rocket to launch humans to orbit. The Falcon 9 has been noted for its reliability and high launch cadence, with 568 successful launches, two in-flight failures, one partial failure and one pre-flight destruction.

The rocket has two stages. The first (booster) stage carries the second stage and payload to a predetermined speed and altitude, after which the second stage accelerates the payload to its target orbit. The booster is capable of landing vertically to facilitate reuse. This feat was first achieved on flight 20 in December 2015. As of December 2, 2025, SpaceX has successfully landed Falcon 9 boosters 526 times. Individual boosters have flown as many as 31 flights. Both stages are powered by SpaceX Merlin engines, using cryogenic liquid oxygen and rocket-grade kerosene (RP-1) as propellants.

A spaceport or cosmodrome is a site for launching or receiving spacecraft, by analogy to a seaport for ships or an airport for aircraft. The word spaceport—and even more so cosmodrome—has traditionally referred to sites capable of launching spacecraft into Earth's orbit or on interplanetary trajectories. However, rocket launch sites for sub-orbital spaceflights are also sometimes called spaceports, especially as new and proposed facilities for suborbital commercial spaceflight are often branded as "spaceports". Space stations and proposed future lunar bases are also sometimes referred to as spaceports, particularly when envisioned as nodes for further interplanetary travel.

Spaceports are evolving beyond traditional government-run complexes into multi-functional aerospace hubs, increasingly driven by private companies such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic. A prominent example is Starbase, a private spaceport operated by SpaceX in Boca Chica, Texas. Starbase serves as the primary development and launch site for Starship, a fully reusable spacecraft designed for missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. The facility includes rocket production, launch, and landing infrastructure, and in May 2025, it was officially incorporated as a municipality in Texas—marking the first time a spaceport has become its own city. Starbase is now both a spaceport and a small residential and industrial community, primarily supporting SpaceX operations.

The K_u band (/ˌkeɪˈjuː/) is the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum in the microwave range of frequencies from 12 to 18 gigahertz (GHz). The symbol is short for "K-under" (originally German: Kurz-unten), because it is the lower part of the original NATO K band, which was split into three bands (K_u, K, and K_a) because of the presence of the atmospheric water vapor resonance peak at 22.24 GHz, (1.35 cm) which made the center unusable for long range transmission. In radar applications, it ranges from 12 to 18 GHz according to the formal definition of radar frequency band nomenclature in IEEE Standard 521–2002.

K_u band is primarily used for satellite communications, most notably the downlink used by direct broadcast satellites to broadcast satellite television, and for specific applications such as NASA's Tracking Data Relay Satellite used for International Space Station (ISS) communications and SpaceX Starlink satellites. K_u band satellites are also used for backhauls and particularly for satellite from remote locations back to a television network's studio for editing and broadcasting. The band is split by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) into multiple segments that vary by geographical region. NBC was the first television network to uplink a majority of its affiliate feeds via K_u band in 1983.

Falcon 9 v1.1 was the second version of SpaceX's Falcon 9 orbital launch vehicle. The rocket was developed in 2011–2013, made its maiden launch in September 2013, and its final flight in January 2016. The Falcon 9 rocket was fully designed, manufactured, and operated by SpaceX. Following the second Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) launch, the initial version Falcon 9 v1.0 was retired from use and replaced by the v1.1 version.

Falcon 9 v1.1 was a significant evolution from Falcon 9 v1.0, with 60 percent more thrust and weight. Its maiden flight carried out a demonstration mission with the CASSIOPE satellite on 29 September 2013, the sixth overall launch of any Falcon 9.

Vandenberg Space Force Base (IATA: VBG, ICAO: KVBG, FAA LID: VBG), previously Vandenberg Air Force Base, is a United States Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County, California. Established in 1941, Vandenberg Space Force Base is a space launch base, launching spacecraft from the Western Range, and also performs missile testing. The United States Space Force's Space Launch Delta 30 serves as the host delta for the base, equivalent to an Air Force air base wing. In addition to its military space launch mission, Vandenberg Space Force Base also hosts space launches for civil and commercial space entities, such as NASA and SpaceX.

Dragon 2 is a class of partially reusable spacecraft developed, manufactured, and operated by the American space company SpaceX for flights to the International Space Station (ISS) and private spaceflight missions. The spacecraft, which consists of a reusable space capsule and an expendable trunk module, has two variants: the 4-person Crew Dragon and Cargo Dragon, a replacement for the Dragon 1 cargo capsule. The spacecraft launches atop a Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket, and the capsule returns to Earth through splashdown.

Crew Dragon's primary role is to transport crews to and from the ISS under NASA's Commercial Crew Program, a task handled by the Space Shuttle until it was retired in 2011. It will be joined by Boeing's Starliner in this role when NASA certifies it. Crew Dragon is also used for commercial flights to ISS and other destinations and is expected to be used to transport people to and from Axiom Space's planned space station.

SpaceX CRS-3, also known as SpX-3, was a Commercial Resupply Service mission to the International Space Station (ISS), contracted to NASA, which was launched on 18 April 2014. It was the fifth flight for SpaceX's uncrewed Dragon cargo spacecraft and the third SpaceX operational mission contracted to NASA under a Commercial Resupply Services (CRS-1) contract.

This was the first launch of a Dragon capsule on the Falcon 9 v1.1 launch vehicle, as previous launches used the smaller v1.0 configuration. It was also the first time the F9 v1.1 has flown without a payload fairing, and the first experimental flight test of an ocean landing of the first stage on a NASA/Dragon mission.

SpaceX Mars colonization program (also referred to as Occupy Mars as a joking reference to the Occupy movement) is the planned objective of the company SpaceX, and particularly of its founder Elon Musk, to send humans to live on Mars. The plan is to establish a self-sustaining, large scale settlement and directly democratic, self-governing colony. The motivation behind this is the belief that colonizing Mars will allow humanity to become multiplanetary, thereby ensuring the long-term survival of the human race if it becomes extinct on Earth. Colonization is to be achieved with reusable and mass-produced, super heavy-lift launch vehicles called Starship. They have been referred to as the "holy grail of rocketry" for extraplanetary colonization.

These plans for colonizing Mars have received both praise and criticism. They are supported by public interest in further human involvement beyond Earth and a desire to extend the lifetime of the human race, but doubts have been expressed about whether they will work, how it will be done, and whether humans from Earth could live on Mars.

Falcon Heavy is a super heavy-lift launch vehicle with partial reusability that can carry cargo into Earth orbit and beyond. It is designed, manufactured and launched by American aerospace company SpaceX.

The rocket consists of a center core on which two Falcon 9 boosters are attached, and a second stage on top of the center core. Falcon Heavy has the second highest payload capacity of any currently operational launch vehicle behind NASA's Space Launch System (SLS), and the fourth-highest capacity of any rocket to reach orbit, trailing behind the SLS, Energia and the Saturn V.

In business, a unicorn is a startup company valued at over US$1 billion which is privately owned and not listed on a share market. The term was first published in 2013, coined by venture capitalist Aileen Lee, choosing the mythical animal to represent the statistical rarity of such successful ventures.

Many unicorns saw their valuations fall in 2022 as a result of an economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, an increase in interest rates causing the cost of borrowing to grow, increased market volatility, stricter regulatory scrutiny and underperformance. CB Insights identified 1,248 unicorns worldwide as of May 2024. Unicorns with over $10 billion in valuation have been designated as "decacorn" companies. For private companies valued over $100 billion, the terms "centicorn" and "hectocorn" have been used.

Merlin is a family of rocket engines developed by SpaceX. They are currently a part of the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles, and were formerly used on the Falcon 1. Merlin engines use RP-1 and liquid oxygen as rocket propellants in a gas-generator power cycle. The Merlin engine was originally designed for sea recovery and reuse, but since 2016 the entire Falcon 9 booster is recovered for reuse by landing vertically on a landing pad using one of its nine Merlin engines.

The injector at the heart of Merlin is of the pintle type that was first used in the Apollo Lunar Module landing engine (LMDE). Propellants are fed by a single-shaft, dual-impeller turbopump. The turbopump also provides high-pressure fluid for the hydraulic actuators, which then recycles into the low-pressure inlet. This eliminates the need for a separate hydraulic drive system and means that thrust vectoring control failure by running out of hydraulic fluid is not possible. The engine is named after Merlin (a falcon).

Private spaceflight is any spaceflight development that is not conducted by a government agency, such as NASA or ESA.

During the early decades of the Space Age, the government space agencies of the Soviet Union and United States pioneered space technology in collaboration with affiliated design bureaus in the USSR and private companies in the US. They entirely funded both the development of new spaceflight technologies and the operational costs of spaceflight. Following a similar model of space technology development, the European Space Agency was formed in 1975. Arianespace, born out of ESA's independent spaceflight efforts, became the world's first commercial launch service provider in the early 1980s. Subsequently, large defense contractors began to develop and operate space launch systems, which were derived from government rockets.

Vega (Italian: Vettore Europeo di Generazione Avanzata, French: Vecteur européen de génération avancée, lit. 'Vector European Generation Advanced') was a European expendable small-lift launch vehicle developed by Avio and operated by Arianespace for the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italian Space Agency (ASI). Designed to carry payloads between 300 and 2,500 kilograms (660 and 5,510 lb) into low Earth and polar orbits, Vega served primarily scientific and Earth observation missions.

Development of Vega began in 1998, with its maiden flight launched from the Guiana Space Centre on 13 February 2012. Over the next decade, it became the eighth most launched small-lift launch vehicle history, though it struggled to compete in the commercial launch market. After initial success, two in-flight failures and rising competition from SpaceX's rideshare programs, which offered lower prices, relegated Vega to primarily serving European government agencies willing to pay more to support independent space access.