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The private spaceflight company Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, better known as SpaceX, achieved a number of important milestones in 2020.
Founded in 2002 by South African-born tech billionaire Elon Musk, the company has come a long way since it first managed to get its Falcon 1 rocket into orbit in 2008.
It has completed more than 100 successful launches to date, 24 of which occurred in 2020, with missions that included launching private and government satellites, as well as transporting cargo to the International Space Station.
It has beaten industry giants like Boeing and the well-funded Blue Origin in securing private contracts for crew and cargo space flights.
Ultimately, the company aims to help make humanity multi-planetary and has set an ambitious goal of landing a spacecraft on Mars by 2024.
Below are several of his most notable accomplishments in 2020.
Manned missions
In late May 2020, SpaceX launched its first manned mission into space, the first of its kind for any private space company.
Astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken boarded the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule atop a Falcon 9 rocket on May 30, 2020 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
They were then put into orbit and traveled to the International Space Station, where they docked the next day.
After spending about two months at the station, Hurley and Behnken returned safely to earth with their capsule splashing in the Gulf of Mexico on August 3.
The astronauts expressed satisfaction with the vehicle’s performance and said they were perfectly comfortable saying that it is ready for the next crew once the engineering and analysis required for certification is completed.
Sure enough, on November 15, SpaceX launched its first unmanned test flight, Crew-1, with four astronauts on board this time.
These four crew members are currently docked to the ISS, where they will be stationed alongside three astronauts from the Soyuz MS-17 mission for operational duties.
Starlink beta goes live
Another ambitious goal that Musk has in mind is to provide connectivity to the entire world and, in particular, to rural areas far from broadband infrastructure.
To achieve this, SpaceX has launched its Starlink program, which wants to transmit satellite connectivity to the Internet through a constellation of thousands of small Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites launched in batches over several years.
These satellites orbit at an altitude of around 550 km and communicate between a client’s antenna, each other, and ground base stations to transfer data and provide online access.
As of November 25, SpaceX had already launched a total of 955 Starlink satellites into orbit. This equates to around 50 satellites per month since the company shipped its first batch in May 2019.
SpaceX recently opened the program to the public through a beta version for select users in Canada and the northern areas of the United States.
The package is priced at $ 99 per month, not including the $ 499 upfront fee for customer-supplied equipment that connects to the network.
Starlink told users to expect speeds between 50 Mbps and 150 Mbps, with latency between 20 and 40 ms at the moment.
Some early users they have claimed download speeds greater than 160 Mbps, with a recording of more than 200 Mbps and a latency of 18 ms.
These speeds are expected to improve as SpaceX adds more satellites to its constellation.
More than 100 successful flights
The Falcon 9 rocket launched on October 24 marked SpaceX’s 100th successful launch.
One of his key focus areas on the journey to this destination has been the use of fully and rapidly reusable rockets.
Space travel is expensive for many reasons, one of which is that the launch system is often considered an expendable component, particularly given the impracticality of recovering rockets.
While NASA’s space shuttle program tried to provide an alternative with reusable thrusters and a spacecraft, these were expensive to retrofit for reuse.
Although previous attempts had been made with spacecraft that could take off and land vertically, SpaceX succeeded in developing first-stage rocket boosters that were capable of falling back to earth and landing vertically on an unmanned ship or on the ground.
Although it took numerous explosive attempts to achieve this goal, his patience has paid off and he has now landed his thrusters numerous times, and the record is held by one who has launched and landed seven times.
Musk has claimed that SpaceX’s latest Falcon 9 rocket will be able to fly 10 times without major renovations, or even 100 times with regular overhauls.
Starship development accelerates
Following the success of the Crew Dragon mission, Musk sent SpaceX employees an email urging them to accelerate development progress on their next major spacecraft – the Starship.
This spacecraft is being developed as a reusable vehicle that will be used to travel on future missions to the Moon and Mars.
SpaceX has already launched several prototypes that have undergone static fire tests and performed lower altitude jumps at its Boca Chica test facility in Texas.
More recently, the SN8 prototype was launched on a test flight 12.5 km in the atmosphere, before descending in a controlled descent to a landing site.
All three Raptor engines shut down after reaching their target altitude, and the vehicle fell back to Earth in a controlled descent in a horizontal orientation.
Moments before landing, SpaceX opted to perform a “bell flop” maneuver by restarting one of the three engines.
This caused the spacecraft to return to its vertical position for landing.
Although it exploded on impact with the ground, the test was labeled a success, as the team had gathered all the necessary data to continue development.
Fortunately, SpaceX already has SN9, the next prototype, ready for further testing.
What to expect in 2021
SpaceX has another exciting year planned with several launches and tests that are part of the Starlink program and its Starship developments.
Your itinerary for the year also includes the following:
- First unmanned orbital flight of the Starship spacecraft.
- Second (Crew-2) and third (Crew-3) unmanned test missions to the ISS.
- Paid space flights for space tourism companies Axiom and Space Adventures.
On the lighter side, the company also plans to compete with radio-controlled cars on the Moon.
The cars, which will be created with the help of some schoolchildren and an acclaimed McLaren designer, will be transported aboard a Falcon 9 rocket in October 2021.
They will be deployed to the surface of the Moon using the first lunar lander privately built by Houston-based Intuitive Machines.
Now Read: NASA Delays First Regular Commercial Flight With SpaceX Crew
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