SpaceX has since become the first-and for now, the only-company to fly humans into orbit on its own spacecraft. The fourth time was finally the charm: Just eight weeks after their third failure and once again carrying a dummy payload, the successful launch of a Falcon 1 from Omelek Island made SpaceX the first company to send a privately funded liquid-fueled rocket into orbit.īack in 2008, no one could have envisioned what the brash aerospace company would go on to accomplish. The third attempt in August 2008, with a Falcon 1 carrying two small satellites for NASA and one for the Department of Defense (as well as cremated remains of astronaut Gordon Cooper and Star Trek actor James Doohan), ended in a fiery failure when two parts of the rocket, known as the first and second stage, crashed into each other after they separated. Air Force Academy satellite experienced an engine failure about 30 seconds after liftoff, sending the rocket careening into the ocean and the satellite crashing into a storage shed on the island.Ī year later, a Falcon 1 carrying a dummy payload spun out of control just before reaching orbit. In 2006, during SpaceX’s first launch attempt on Omelek, a Falcon 1 rocket carrying a U.S. While the unproven company was well positioned geographically, it was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. government launch facility on Omelek Island, where the proximity to the Equator-the region of Earth that spins fastest-gives rockets a boost up into orbit.
But a mere 14 years ago, on a tiny Pacific atoll in the Marshall Islands, the upstart outfit was just trying to get off the ground.įounded in 2002 by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, SpaceX was initially operating from a former U.S. On November 14, aerospace company SpaceX is slated to launch humans on the first operational mission to the International Space Station, ending nine years of NASA’s reliance on Russia to launch U.S.
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