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What is unique about SpaceX?
SpaceX’s achievements include the first privately funded liquid-propellant rocket to reach orbit (Falcon 1 in 2008), the first private company to successfully launch, orbit, and recover a spacecraft (Dragon in 2010), the first private company to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station (Dragon in 2012), the …
How has SpaceX changed the space industry?
It has lowered the cost of spaceflight through innovations such as reusable stages and fairings, saving NASA money. With its outsize capacity, Starship could cheaply put large telescopes in orbit and heavy science experiments on moons and planets.
How much money has NASA given SpaceX?
NASA announced on Friday that it had awarded a contract to SpaceX for $2.9 billion to use Starship to take astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface of the moon. The contract extends NASA’s trend of relying on private companies to ferry people, cargo and robotic explorers to space.
What happened to SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft?
On August 14, SpaceX launched the last of its new first-generation Dragon spacecraft aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, for a resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS). This was the last time Elon Musk’s rocket company will fly unused an Dragon spacecraft.
How much money has NASA saved through space missions?
Since then, according to a new study published by Edgar Zapata from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, the agency has been able to save hundreds of millions in total through all the missions launched in tandem with SpaceX.
Is SpaceX taking money from the government?
While some have criticized SpaceX for taking money from the government, these investments — made in 2006, 2011, and then 2014 — have actually benefited the government more.
Are private space companies like SpaceX cheaper than NASA?
Both are considerably cheaper, around 37 to 39 percent of what NASA would have spent on developing its own spacecraft. NASA acting administrator Robert Lightfoot, Jr. previously told Futurism that the future of spaceflight and exploration is in the hands of private space companies like SpaceX.