SpaceX Transformation

Once a starry-eyed startup, SpaceX now rival space agency capabilities – and on course to become something else…

At the turn of the millennium Elon Musk wanted to do something meaningful to help humans advance to Mars. In 2002, after various adventures courting US and Russian launch companies, his thoughts coalesced on what was truly needed. At the time, only nation states could afford to send people to space, so logically he needed to find some way to lower launch costs – which would require a rather unique company… So in 2002 SpaceX was born with the explicit goal of sending people to Mars, an ambition that far exceeds the ability of any space agency. Every week they held an all-hands meeting to discuss what it might take and how sustained Mars settlement could be accomplished despite the adverse conditions found on this alien world.

Come 2006 they were still struggling to produce their first working rocket, the Falcon 1, with the company exclusively funded by Elon and a few enlightened investors. This effort was hindered by United Launch Alliance (ULA) who objected to SpaceX performing test flights at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. ULA claimed these tests would endanger their own national security launches and infrastructure, which prompted the Air Force to suggest SpaceX find another launch site. After relocating their launch team to an army test range in the Marshall Islands, SpaceX’s first launch of Falcon 1 failed shortly after takeoff. However this was not entirely unexpected for a new vehicle produced by a fledgling launch company.

“They were getting close towards the first launch of Falcon 1 and I said to him (Elon) you should expect the first two launches to fail… And he said to me why, how do you know, what is wrong with our design? I (Zubrin) don’t know what’s wrong with your design, I don’t know if there’s anything wrong with your design but I can tell you these things usually fail the first couple of times and you should expect it to fail.” ~ Robert Zubrin, President of the Mars Society

Fortunately this short demonstration flight was enough to secure some NASA funding to develop a cargo vehicle for the ISS, after SpaceX challenged a sole source contract awarded to Kistler Aerospace for this work. Certainly this NASA funding supplied through the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program helped stretch investor’s money, allowing SpaceX to mount two more attempts to reach orbit with Falcon 1. These were happy times for SpaceX as COTS requirements were fairly broad, allowing them considerable latitude to solve technical problems at comparatively low cost. This marked the first shift for the company as they transformed from a starry-eyed startup to an emerging government contractor – yet still with a gleam in their eye.

Unfortunately, in August 2008 Falcon 1 suffered its third launch failure, ironically when its upgraded Merlin 1C engine supplied too much residual thrust. Undeterred Elon bared his soul in an inspirational speech to the workforce, who produced another Falcon 1 in under a month, which went on to achieve orbit on September 28. However, by the end of the year SpaceX were running on fumes, with most of Elon’s PayPal money gone and storm clouds gathering as they entered the great recession. Considering SpaceX and Tesla were both in trouble, any normal businessman would have chosen to invest their remaining money in either one or the other to ensure at least one of them survived. However, Elon bravely decided to support both these young companies, splitting all his remaining wealth between them equally, effectively making himself a pauper. This act of faith convinced existing investors to match his contribution, ensuring these companies’ immediate survival. Then in late 2008 NASA awarded SpaceX the first Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract, securing the company’s long term future and cementing their place as a mainstream NASA contractor.

Commercial Transformation

Gwynne Shotwell has been responsible for SpaceX sales from its founding and performed herculean work gaining new customers for what was essentially an unproven rocket. Now Falcon 1 was operational they flew one commercial flight (RazakSAT for the Malaysian Government) then bravely decided to discontinue the vehicle in favor of the far more powerful Falcon 9. This heavy lift rocket was designed to send over 10 tons of cargo to the ISS and its comparatively low manufacturing cost made it an ideal launch platform for commercial satellites. Following the successful COTS 1 and COTS 2+ demonstration flights for NASA, it became fashionable for commercial satellite companies to try-out Falcon 9 instead of relying on the legacy Ariane 5 and Soyuz vehicles. At this point ULA had effectively withdrawn from the commercial market to focus on the more lucrative defense sector, leaving a gap in the market which SpaceX were more than willing to fill. As SpaceX entered the teens, NASA remained their anchor customer through the CRS program, yet inexorably commercial launch services became their bread and butter business.

From the first Falcon 1 flight SpaceX designed their hardware to be reusable. Now with the surplus lift provided by Falcon 9 they had a real shot at developing a reusable booster, saving 9 valuable Merlin 1D engines from a watery grave. Disposing rocket stages in the ocean was a short term fix adopted during the space race and SpaceX were determined to make space flight more sustainable. After customer payloads were safely sent to space on Falcon 9, SpaceX tried to salvage the falling boost stage using a parachute but with little success. They discovered its atmospheric entry speed was too great for parachutes to handle which serendipitously suggested a solution. If they could use the existing Merlin engines to slow its descent…these engines might also be used to land the stage propulsively on a suitable platform. After many controlled landing attempts at sea and later on using a converted barge, the Air force kindly allowed them to try at the Cape, using a specially prepared landing pad called LZ-1. There in early December 2015 SpaceX successfully landed the first orbital booster, proving space could be sustainable. The cost savings derived from reusing Falcon 9 boosters, and later recovered payload fairings, put SpaceX in a different league for launch prices. From 2017 onwards they became the go-to company for launch services – whether civil, commercial or military.

Caterpillar to butterfly

No matter their success as a company, launch services could never provide enough income for all they had planned. First to settle Mars they needed a fully reusable launch vehicle more than twice as powerful as the Saturn V moon rocket, projected to cost $5-10bn to develop. And that was merely the entrance fee compared to the cost of making Mars self-sufficient which could take trillions. In 2018, in their boldest move yet, SpaceX began to build prototypes for a Mars capable vehicle called Starship, at their private spaceport in Boca Chica Texas, at their own expense. Doubling down they also began to develop Starlink, a satellite constellation to provide broadband for everyone around the world, like an internet router in space. While this put significant financial strain on the company, they had their pick of investors who appreciated their ambition had no horizon. Just like that SpaceX metamorphosed into something more akin to a space agency, developing own use hardware systems at their own cost then testing them at their own private launch facility.

Starship prepares to launch from SpaceX’s private launch facility in Starbase Texas ~ credit NASASpaceFlight.com

Now Starship test flights are underway and Starlink supplying 2.3 million customers (and more than breaking even), SpaceX are taking all the necessary steps to realize their ambitious Mars project. Entrepreneur Jared Isaacman has partnered with them to create a private space program called Polaris which will culminate with the first crew flight of Starship. Commander Isaacman and Hayley Arceneaux (a medical specialist from the Inspiration4 mission), have effectively become the first members of SpaceX’s astronaut corp, with more being trained for the Polaris Dawn mission or recruited from the private sector. No doubt experienced astronauts will be vital to future SpaceX missions as they plan regular tourist trips around the moon, accompanied by concerted activity on the lunar surface. Starship can deliver 100 tons to any body in the inner solar system, something NASA can hardly ignore given they intend to build a moon base through the Artemis Program. Using Starship as a Human Landing System will be the first big practical test for this unprecedented spacecraft, no doubt a vital step on the road to Mars.

SpaceX Evolution

Evolution doesn’t stop, it’s an ongoing process, particularly for SpaceX as they continue to explore the untapped potential of space. This suggests in future they could far exceed their current status as a private space agency.

“SpaceX so far has been evolutionary, Starship is revolutionary. It’s a fully reusable vehicle that’s designed to operate daily like an airliner; it’s gonna change access to space. People like say why do you need to take 150 ton to space, you know for $5m… What are you going to do with this thing, we don’t even know yet. We do know some things: you’re gonna exploit resources on the moon, water and minerals on the moon, mine asteroids. Use that water to make propellant. Use those minerals and metals to build structures in orbit and in the inner solar system. Build gas stations throughout the inner solar system so you can transport. Put giant solar PV (Photovoltaic) arrays up there so you can have massive energy and move manufacturing into space.” ~ Tom Mueller, former CTO of Propulsion

Considering SpaceX have been working on In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) for over a decade, the propellant production market seems their’s to lose. In addition, Starship promises to be unrivaled in payload capacity, flight frequency and operating cost. This suggests SpaceX will vertically integrate every aspect of space transport and settlement, making them comparable to the “Spacing Guild” from the Dune trilogy or “The Company” from the Alien’s movie milieu. Essentially colonizing a single planet was last decade’s goal, now their future plans stretch far beyond the solar system.

“People tell us we’re crazy every day, but we need to ignore that and push forward. We are trying to find a breakthrough in propulsion technology that allows us to go beyond the Moon, beyond Mars, beyond the entire Solar System. Certainly, within 50 years we’ll have a path that will allow us to fly to other worlds.” ~ Gwynne Shotwell/CTECH

In conclusion

The potential for space has largely been overlooked by national governments over the past fifty years, leaving a huge unregulated expanse for SpaceX to expand into, similar to the early days of the internet. Progressively SpaceX have solved the problem of cheap space access and provided a means through Starlink to generate up to a $trillion per annum, essentially all they need to conquer Mars.

Anyone who believes SpaceX is just a launch company is sadly mistaken, they are truly something else…

Chris Prophet