SpaceX is a California-based private American aerospace manufacturer founded in 2002 in a bid to build affordable rockets and enable the colonization of Mars.

It also aimed to reduce space transportation costs. The firm, since its creation, has gained fame as a pioneering rocket firm.

It launched its first privately-funded liquid-propellant rocket in 2008 to reach orbit. It became the first private company to launch an object into orbit around the sun.

Who owns it?

Billionaire Elon Mush founded the company. Musk at the age of 30, made his initial fortune by selling his two very successful companies, PayPal and Zip2.

He then decided that his next venture would be a privately-funded space company. This South-African spent a third of his fortune at the time, $100million to get SpaceX going.

When was the SpaceX astronaut launch?

The SpaceX astronaut launch, which was dubbed as Demo-2, set off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, at 8:23pm BST (3:23 pm ET) on May 30, 2020.

Missions and projects

SpaceX has completed several successful missions, including the first liquid-fuelled rocket to reach orbit in September 2008. Since then, the company has completed a mission nearly every year.

SpaceX also became the first private company to send a spacecraft to the ISS in 2012. Likewise, it became the first private company to send an object into orbit, and the being a car from Elon’s other company Tesla.

Likewise, in October 2018, the company made another world first by landing a rocket back on the Californian soil.

(With inputs from Agencies)