On September 28, 2008, a Falcon 1 rocket lifted off from Omelek Island in the Marshall Islands. It reached orbit. That flight, the fourth attempt, was the last money SpaceX had. Business Insider reported the detail in a 2023 timeline: Musk later said the company would have folded had it failed.
The record shows SpaceX was founded in 2002 after Musk returned from Moscow where a Russian designer spat on his shoes during negotiations to buy rockets for a Mars greenhouse. Former NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver wrote that the insult decided him. Jim Cantrell, a cofounder, confirmed the episode in a Channel 4 documentary and in Ashlee Vance’s biography.
Three failures followed between 2006 and 2008. The first, a fuel leak and fire traced to a corroded fuel-line nut. The next two cleared the first stage but faltered after separation. Musk was simultaneously fighting Tesla’s financing crisis and, per Eric Berger’s book “Liftoff,” waking from nightmares screaming in physical pain.
The fourth launch worked. No major hardware changes. Only the timing between first-stage burnout and second-stage separation was increased. NASA funding and private investment followed. Falcon 1 flew once more in 2009 then retired.
Dragon reached the International Space Station in 2012, the first commercial spacecraft to deliver cargo there. It flew 23 missions before retirement in 2020.
Falcon 9 suffered two major setbacks. In 2015 a steel strut holding a helium pressure vessel failed two minutes into a cargo flight. In 2016 the rocket exploded during a pre-launch static fire test.
Months later, in 2016, SpaceX landed a Falcon 9 first stage on a drone ship in the Atlantic. Musk said recovery cut costs by about 30 percent. The company offered a 10 percent discount for reused boosters and flew the first reflight in 2017.
Falcon Heavy debuted in 2018 with a Tesla Roadster and a mannequin named Starman. Musk called it the silliest payload imaginable. The car remains in orbit, tracked by a public website.
Crew Dragon carried Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the station on May 30, 2020, restoring U.S. human orbital launch capability for the first time since the shuttle’s inaugural flight in 1981. NASA later certified the system for regular crew rotations.
Starship, the fully reusable Mars vehicle, stuck its first landing in May 2021 after four prototypes exploded. Almost two years later, on April 20, 2023, the first orbital attempt launched on the Super Heavy booster, flew nearly three minutes, then exploded before stage separation.
The fifth Starship landed in one piece.
Sources
- Biggest Moments in SpaceX's History – Business Insider
- SpaceX | Spacecraft, Rockets, xAI Acquisition, & 2026 IPO | Britannica Money
