More than 20 years after SpaceX launched, founder Elon Musk is reflecting on the company’s extraordinary journey. What began in 2002 as an ambitious dream to make space exploration affordable has evolved into a leader in the aerospace industry.
On Friday, the billionaire responded to a post on X (formerly Twitter) that showed the company’s evolution. The post features two images side by side, one from SpaceX’s early stages showing Musk working in a cluttered lab filled with metal parts and scrap. One photo shows the launch of the Starship rocket. The caption read, “How it started and how it’s progressing.”
Musk responded to the post by saying, “We’ve come a long way.”
We have come a long way https://t.co/LKesdMyeD
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 17, 2025
This comes after SpaceX’s Starship prototype failed minutes after launching from Texas on Friday, disrupting air routes through the Gulf of Mexico to avoid possible debris. is.
SpaceX Mission Control lost contact with the upgraded Starship carrying the mock satellite’s first test payload about eight minutes after liftoff from the company’s South Texas facility. Footage showed bright orange streaks of light streaking the sky above Port-au-Prince, Haiti, followed by plumes of smoke.
Nevertheless, SpaceX’s Starship program has achieved some significant successes since its inception. The fourth flight test, conducted on June 6, 2024, marked a significant milestone in which the super heavy booster performed a soft splashdown in the ocean and the Starship upper stage survived atmospheric reentry. The success of this test culminated in a controlled splashdown.
The fifth flight test, which took place on October 13, 2024, was another accomplishment for SpaceX. This mission successfully captured a super heavy booster on its return to the launch site. Starship’s upper stage completed a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
On November 19, 2024, SpaceX conducted its sixth flight test, which was also a successful attempt. This flight marked the first successful space relighting of a Raptor engine.
