SpaceX hasn’t made it to Mars just yet.
But the Hawthorne-based rocketbuilder — founded in 2002 with a mission of slashing space-transportation costs, reusing key components and, some day, forging a sustainable colony on the red planet — essentially launched a new space race. For dollars.
Myriad companies benefited from SpaceX’s high-profile campaigns, with countless key moments aired live on the internet along the way, which buoyed the business of commercial spaceflight.
The company, valued at more than $210 billion according to Bloomberg reports, has led a fevered rush to cash in on the business of space transportation and helped spark an aerospace revival in the South Bay, aka “Space Beach.”
Related: Elon Musk says he’s moving SpaceX and X headquarters from California to Texas
Founded in 2002 in El Segundo, the company builds and operates the Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy and Dragon rockets. And it is working on Starship, envisioned as a mashup between a contemporary rocket and a Star Trek-style spaceship.
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The company’s pioneering spacecraft, the Falcon series, was named for Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon — “the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy!” — from George Lucas’ Star Wars franchise.
Founded by Elon Musk, the company made headlines anew on Tuesday as the mercurial billionaire continued his flirtation with the political right by declaring he was bolting from California. He vowed to move SpaceX and his X social-media company to Texas — all in response to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signing of AB 1955, which bars school districts from informing parents if their children decide to undergo gender change.
“This is the final straw,” Musk wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Musk, the bombastic South African who makes web headlines practically daily, made his initial fortune through Internet start-ups such as PayPal.
He founded SpaceX in 2002 using $100 million of his own money. His goal was to develop low-cost rockets that would make flights to space and back more accessible — and more affordable.
From its startup, the company expanded quickly, thanks in part to a $440 million NASA contract to design and develop the immediate future of U.S. human spaceflight. The contract included missions to the International Space Station, a breakthrough for a private business.
The company has had a mammoth impact on the Southern California business scene, as well as on its pop culture. Along the way, Musk dabbled in drilling tunnels that promised to ease L.A. traffic with his Boring Company, engaged in a high-profile romance with performance artist Grimes, sparked controversy by buying Twitter, aimed to build a functional “hyperloop,” hosted “Saturday Night Live,” veered in and out of the news with outrageous social-media posts, launched a sports car into space and even briefly marketed personal flamethrowers. And his long-range business plan still includes missions to Mars.
“If SpaceX moves a large amount of its operations, it’s a loss (for local industry), because SpaceX is a significant part of it,” said Mike Gruntman, a professor of astronautics at USC. “It especially hurts young people who dream of working in the space industry and their ability to get these high-paying jobs.”
SpaceX moved to Hawthorne in 2008 from seven buildings scattered around El Segundo and Los Angeles. Its goal: Build a site large enough to house all of its headquarters operations, a much more efficient setup, SpaceX spokesman Roger Gilbertson said at the time.
“We try to do as much in here in-house as possible,” Gilbertson said. “Engineering, shaping metal, parts testing and assembly are done here. It’s very tight control of everything.”
SpaceX timeline
2008: After three failed attempts, SpaceX launched Falcon 1, the first orbit of a private venture liquid-fueled rocket.
2009: Falcon 1 became the first privately developed liquid fuel- rocket to deliver a commercial satellite to orbit.
2010: Falcon 9 became the first privately funded company to successfully launch, orbit and recover a spacecraft.
2011: Elon Musk announced new SpaceX office in Chantilly, Va.
2012: Dragon became the first private spacecraft in history to visit the space station.
2015: Falcon 9 rocket delivered 11 communications satellites to orbit, and the first stage returned and landed at Landing Zone 1.
2016: Falcon 9 rocket launched the Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station, and the first stage returned and landed on the “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship.
2017: Falcon 9 became the first successful relaunch and landing from space of a used orbital rocket.
2018: Falcon Heavy made its first launch to orbit, successfully landing two of its three boosters.
2019: Dragon became the first American spacecraft to autonomously dock with the International Space Station.
2020: SpaceX launched 26 missions, which four more than previous record of 21 in 2018.
2021: SpaceX launched 31 Falcon 9 carrier rockets, including 29 reused rockets.
2022: SpaceX Crew-4 mission launched toward the International Space Station with four astronauts.
2024: Elon Musk announces he is moving SpaceX HQ from California to Texas.
SpaceX renewed its deal with the city in 2017.
Early on at the Hawthorne site, Musk had no office — just his corner cubicle. His secretary had an adjacent cubicle. On his desk, featuring a row of books on space and rockets, sat a small toy robot next to a model rocket. On the wall was a poster of boxing legend Muhammad Ali standing over a knocked-out Sonny Liston.
In its early days, SpaceX was fraught with public bumbles. But Musk insisted that businesses must fail — and tap the lessons learned from such failures — to succeed. Musk even began to predict such failures, assuring that they would assure later successes. He still does that, shrugging off recent fiery explosions of Starship prototypes.
Amid the stumbles, the company snagged contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars and became a household word beyond the legions of “space nerds” who followed the company’s every move.
Since then, the company has racked up many “firsts” among private companies:
First to put a rocket powered by liquid fuel in orbit.
First to build, launch, orbit and recover a spacecraft.
First to repurpose and relaunch a rocket booster.
First to send astronauts to the International Space Station.
As faux pas turned to triumphs, and SpaceX’s clientele boomed concurrently, the spotlight shone on Hawthorne — and city officials took heed.
In 2017, SpaceX agreed to stay in its 1-million-square-foot headquarters building adjacent to Hawthorne Municipal Airport through 2022 as long as the city reduced certain taxes on the business as promised.
The deal included a $260,000 cap on annual business license fees, which are calculated based on gross receipts – meaning that the more revenue SpaceX made, the more fees it would have to pay. This agreement allowed SpaceX to maintain a flat tax rate as it got larger, city officials said.
City officials, aware that officials in Florida and Texas were trying to woo the rocket company, worked hard to keep SpaceX in town.
“When they mention SpaceX in the future, they’re also going to mention Hawthorne,” Mayor Danny Juarez said in 2017. “We’re very, very proud of that.”
In addition to reduced fees, the company’s economic development agreement with Hawthorne included a “corporate citizenship” clause that allowed the city to use the SpaceX logo for its own branding, and encouraged the company to engage with schools and community events.
Beyond its operations in Hawthorne, SpaceX announced in 2017 that it wanted to double its footprint in the Port of Long Beach, and, in 2021, it subleased a marine terminal from the port to house its West Coast rocket recovery operations.
In 2017, Hawthorne Councilmember Olivia Valentine called the company an inspiration.
“They are going to bring to us not only a wonderful company, but they’ve made a real commitment to maintain their place of business in the city, and to provide an inspiration to our schoolchildren,” Valentine said. “I think the city is going to benefit greatly from having them here, and I look forward to a long association with them.”
Staff writer Delilah Brumer contributed to this report.
