History Of SpaceX
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History Of SpaceX
This is a corporate history of SpaceX, an American aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company founded by Elon Musk. Musk's personal ventures and founding After being ousted as the CEO of PayPal in late 2000, Elon Musk started to gain an interest in space exploration ventures. This spark of interest, according to Musk, came when he is being asked by his friend entrepreneur Adeo Ressi about his plan for the future after PayPal. Musk looked up at NASA's website and was surprised that NASA did not have any concrete plan for a human mission to Mars. He then began to attend space conferences and provided funding for private space projects, which include The Planetary Society's solar sail and the Ansari X Prize crewed spaceflight competition. Musk also pledged US$100,000 to the Mars Society and was invited to be in its board of directors. As early as August 2001, in contemporary sources, Musk has publicly expressed his support for Space and survival, making humans an i ...
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Falcon 9 Landing Leg In SpaceX Headquarters, Hawthorne California (11360768016)
Falcons () are birds of prey in the genus ''Falco'', which includes about 40 species. Some small species of falcons with long, narrow bird wing, wings are called hobby (bird), hobbies, and some that hover (behaviour)#Wind hoverers, hover while hunting are called kestrels. Falcons are widely distributed on all continents of the world except Antarctica, though closely related raptors did occur there in the Eocene. Adult falcons have thin, tapered wings, which enable them to fly at high speed and change direction rapidly. Fledgling falcons, in their first year of flying, have longer flight feathers, which make their configuration more like that of a general-purpose bird such as a wikt:broadwing, broadwing. This makes flying easier while still learning the aerial skills required to be effective hunters like the adults. The falcons are the largest genus in the Falconinae subfamily of Falconidae, which also includes two other subfamilies comprising caracara (subfamily), caracaras and ...
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Mars Gravity Biosatellite
The Mars Gravity Biosatellite was a project initiated as a competition between universities in 2001 by the Mars Society. The aim was to build a spacecraft concept to study the effects of Mars-level gravity (~0.38g) on mammals. Presentations were given to Robert Zubrin (Mars Society), and the award for best design was given to The University of Washington (UW). The UW team continued to develop the concept until the end of the school year (June 2002), after which funding became an issue. The team from UW contacted members of the team that presented from MIT, and the two universities agreed to continue development together. Later University of Queensland – Australia (UQ) joined the team as well. The program ended in 2009. Program history and overview The Mars Gravity Biosatellite program began in 2001 as a Mars Society initiative called Translife that grew out of a discussion between Robert Zubrin and Elon Musk. It was intended to study the effects of the gravity of Mars (about o ...
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Gwynne Shotwell
Gwynne Shotwell ( Rowley, previously Gurevich; born November 23, 1963) is an American businesswoman and engineer. She is the president and chief operating officer of SpaceX, an American space transportation company, where she is responsible for day-to-day operations and company growth. , Shotwell is listed as the 28th most powerful woman in the world by ''Forbes''. She was ranked 54th on '' Fortune'''s list of Most Powerful Women in 2023. In 2020, ''Time'' magazine named her as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. In 2018, she was listed as the most powerful female engineer by '' Business Insider''. Early life Shotwell was born in Evanston, Illinois, as the middle of three daughters to a brain surgeon and an artist, and was raised in Libertyville, Illinois. In 1982, she graduated from Libertyville High School. In 1969 when she was five years old, she watched a television broadcast of the Apollo 11 mission with her family, but remembers finding it "boring" an ...
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Avionics
Avionics (a portmanteau of ''aviation'' and ''electronics'') are the Electronics, electronic systems used on aircraft. Avionic systems include communications, Air navigation, navigation, the display and management of multiple systems, and the hundreds of systems that are fitted to aircraft to perform individual functions. These can be as simple as a searchlight for a police helicopter or as complicated as the tactical system for an airborne early warning platform. History The term "avionics" was coined in 1949 by Philip J. Klass, senior editor at ''Aviation Week & Space Technology'' magazine as a portmanteau of "aviation electronics". Radio communication was first used in aircraft just prior to World War I. The first Airborne radio relay, airborne radios were in zeppelins, but the military sparked development of light radio sets that could be carried by heavier-than-air craft, so that aerial reconnaissance biplanes could report their observations immediately in case they we ...
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Hans Koenigsmann
Hans-Jörg Königsmann (born 1963) is a German aerospace engineer who was ''Vice President of Flight Reliability'' for SpaceX until his retirement in 2021. Education and career Hans Königsmann obtained his aerospace engineering diploma at Technische Universität Berlin in 1989, followed by a PhD in Aerospace Engineering and Production Technology at the University of Bremen in 1995. He began working at the Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity at the University of Bremen, where he was in charge of avionics and later management of the ''BremSat'' satellite. After successful launch and the end of the project one year later, he emigrated to California to work for the satellite manufacturer ''Microcosm Inc''. He met Elon Musk at a rocket launch in the Mojave Desert. In 2002 Königsmann became the fourth technical employee for the newly-founded SpaceX. He was part of the launch team starting as VP of Avionics, then from the third Falcon 1 flight forward was the Launc ...
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Rocket Engine
A rocket engine is a reaction engine, producing thrust in accordance with Newton's third law by ejecting reaction mass rearward, usually a high-speed Jet (fluid), jet of high-temperature gas produced by the combustion of rocket propellants stored inside the rocket. However, non-combusting forms such as cold gas thrusters and nuclear thermal rockets also exist. Rocket vehicles carry their own oxidiser, unlike most combustion engines, so rocket engines can be used in a vacuum, and they can achieve great speed, beyond escape velocity. Vehicles commonly propelled by rocket engines include missiles, Rocket-assisted projectile, artillery shells, ballistic missiles and rockets of any size, from tiny Rocket (firework), fireworks to Rocket (weapon), man-sized weapons to huge Space vehicle, spaceships. Compared to other types of jet engine, rocket engines are the lightest and have the highest thrust, but are the least propellant-efficient (they have the lowest specific impulse). The ideal ...
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SpaceX Falcon In Warehouse
Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an American space technology company headquartered at the Starbase development site in Starbase, Texas. Since its founding in 2002, the company has made numerous advancements in rocket propulsion, reusable launch vehicles, human spaceflight and satellite constellation technology. , SpaceX is the world's dominant space launch provider, its launch cadence eclipsing all others, including private competitors and national programs like the Chinese space program. SpaceX, NASA, and the United States Armed Forces work closely together by means of governmental contracts. SpaceX was founded by Elon Musk in 2002 with a vision of decreasing the costs of space launches, paving the way to a sustainable colony on Mars. In 2008, Falcon 1 successfully launched into orbit after three failed launch attempts. The company then pivoted towards the development of the larger Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon 1 capsule to sat ...
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Tom Mueller
Thomas John Mueller is an American aerospace engineer and rocket engine designer. He was employee No.1 of SpaceX and is the founder and now CEO of Impulse Space. Mueller is best known for his engineering work on the Merlin, Draco, Super Draco and TR-106 rocket engines. He is considered one of the world's leading spacecraft propulsion experts and holds several United States patents for propulsion technology. Early life and education Mueller was born in St. Maries, Idaho. His father was a logger and wanted Mueller to be one as well. Mueller compares his story to that of Homer Hickam, growing up in a hard-working family and going off to be an engineer instead of following in his father's footsteps. As a kid, he would build and fly Estes model rockets. He continued to experiment with rockets, even building one out of his father's oxy-acetylene welder and discovering adding water would produce more thrust. Mueller eventually became a logger, working four summers to pay his w ...
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Los Angeles International Airport
Los Angeles International Airport is the primary international airport serving Los Angeles and its Greater Los Angeles, surrounding metropolitan area, in the U.S. state of California. LAX is located in the Westchester, Los Angeles, Westchester neighborhood of the city of Los Angeles, southwest of downtown Los Angeles, with the commercial and residential areas of Westchester to the north, the city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo to the south, and the city of Inglewood, California, Inglewood to the east. LAX is the closest airport to Westside (Los Angeles County), the Westside and the South Bay (Los Angeles County), South Bay. The airport is operated by Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA), a branch of the Government of Los Angeles, Los Angeles city government, that also operates the Van Nuys Airport for general aviation. The airport covers of land and has four parallel runways. In 2023, LAX handled 75,050,875 passengers, making it the List of busiest airports by passenger ...
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Apollo Program
The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the United States human spaceflight program led by NASA, which Moon landing, landed the first humans on the Moon in 1969. Apollo followed Project Mercury that put the first Americans in space. It was conceived in 1960 as a three-person spacecraft during President Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration. Apollo was later dedicated to President John F. Kennedy's national goal for the 1960s of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" in an address to United States Congress, Congress on May 25, 1961. It was the third American human spaceflight program to fly, preceded by Project Gemini conceived in 1961 to extend spaceflight capability in support of Apollo. Kennedy's goal was accomplished on the Apollo 11 mission when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed their Apollo Lunar Module (LM) on July 20, 1969, and walked on the lunar surface, while Michael Collins ( ...
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ISC Kosmotras
The International Space Company Kosmotras or ISC Kosmotras () is a joint project, between Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan, established in 1997. It developed and now operates a commercial expendable launch system using the Dnepr rocket. The Dnepr is a converted decommissioned SS-18 ICBM. ISC Kosmotras conducts Dnepr launches from Baikonur Cosmodrome and Yasny launch base in Dombarovskiy, Russia. In February 2015, following a year of strained relations as a result of a Russian military intervention into Ukraine, Russia announced that it would sever its "joint program with Ukraine to launch Dnepr rockets". ISC Kosmotras said it would honor its remaining launch contracts. Of the three launches planned for 2015, only one took place. As of 2016, it appears ISC Kosmotras no longer has customers, and thus whether the company is operational or not is uncertain. In May 2017, ISC Kosmotras formed a joint venture with Glavkosmos named GK Launch Services, which aims to conduct commercial ...
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