Institute of Engineering & Management

Y-12, Salt Lake Electronics Complex, Sector-V, Kolkata-700091

SpaceX
Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species

A Technical Report By

Rajat Kumar
Information Technology
Section A
Roll No. – 47

Submitted To

Prof. Dhriti Barua

Department of Information Technology

+

For the Academic Year 2017-2021

Dated 5th May, 2019

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to take this opportunity to extend my gratitude to the

following revered persons without whose immense support,
completion of this report would not have been possible.

I am sincerely grateful to our advisor and mentor Prof. Dhriti Barua

of IT department, IEM, Kolkata, for her constant support, significant
insights and for generating in us a profound interest for this subject
that kept us motivated during the entire duration of this report.

I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to Prof. Dr. Satyajit

Chakrabarti (Director, IEM), Prof. Dr. Amlan Kusum Nayak
(Principal, IEM) and Prof. Dr. Mohuya Chakraborty (HOD, IT
department) and other faculties for their assistance and
encouragement.

Last but not least, I would like to extend my warm regards to my

family and peers who kept supporting me and always had faith in my
work.

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 Table Of Contents

Abstract......................................................................................... 4

1. Introduction To SpaceX...............................................................................5
2. Beautiful Story That paved The Way.......................................................... 7
3. Goals That proved Sky is The Limit…………………………….............. 10
4. Achievements……………………………………………………............. 12
5.Setbacks………………………………………………………................... 13
6. Falcon and Dragon.......................................................................................15
7. Interplanetary Transport System……………………………………...…..17
8.Future Projects............................................................................................. 18
9.Conclusion…………………………………………………………………19
10.References...................................................................................................21
11.Appendices………………………………………………………………..22

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 ABSTRACT

For 1000s of Years, Mankind has dreamt a dream of Embracing the

Space as Its own. Exploring its Vast cosmic Galleries , Setting foot on
dwarfs and craters that have never been touched , but all these dreams
a revolutionary change and that has come in form of SpaceX.

SpaceX has gained worldwide attention for a series of historic

milestones. It is the only private company capable of returning a
spacecraft from low Earth orbit, which it first accomplished in 2010.
The company made history again in 2012 when its Dragon spacecraft
became the first commercial spacecraft to deliver cargo to and from
the International Space Station.

SpaceX successfully achieved the historic first reflight of an orbital

class rocket in 2017, and the company now regularly launches flight-
proven rockets. In 2018, SpaceX began launching Falcon Heavy, the
world’s most powerful operational rocket by a factor of two.

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 1. INTRODUCTION

SpaceX designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and

spacecraft. The company was founded in 2002 to revolutionize space
technology, with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other
planets.

Figure1.1(SpaceX official)

SpaceX has since developed the Falcon launch vehicle family and the
Dragon spacecraft family, which both currently deliver payloads into
Earth orbit.

SpaceX's achievements include the first privately funded liquid-

propellant rocket to reach orbit (Falcon 1 in 2008),the first private
company to successfully launch, orbit, and recover a spacecraft
(Dragon in 2010), the first private company to send a spacecraft to the
International Space Station (Dragon in 2012), the first propulsive
landing for an orbital rocket (Falcon 9 in 2015), the first reuse of an

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orbital rocket (Falcon 9 in 2017), and the first private company to
launch an object into orbit around the sun (Falcon Heavy's payload of
a Tesla Roadster in 2018). SpaceX has flown 16 resupply missions to
the International Space Station (ISS) under a partnership with NASA.
NASA also awarded SpaceX a further development contract in 2011
to develop and demonstrate a human-rated Dragon, which would be
used to transport astronauts to the ISS and return them safely to Earth.

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 2. Beautiful Story That paved The Way

In 2001, Elon Musk conceptualized Mars Oasis, a project

to land a miniature experimental greenhouse and grow
plants on Mars.

"This would be the furthest that life’s ever traveled" in an

attempt to regain public interest in space exploration and
increase the budget of NASA.

Musk tried to buy cheap rockets from Russia but returned

empty-handed after failing to find rockets for an affordable
price.

On the flight home, Musk realized that he could start a

company that could build the affordable rockets he needed.
According to early Tesla and SpaceX investor Steve
Jurvetson,

Musk calculated that the raw materials for building a

rocket actually were only three percent of the sales price of
a rocket at the time. By applying vertical
integration,producing around 85% of launch hardware in-
house,and the modular approach from software
engineering, SpaceX could cut launch price by a factor of
ten and still enjoy a 70% gross margin.

Launch of Falcon 9 carrying ORBCOMM OG2-M1.In

early 2002, Musk was seeking staff for his new space
company, soon to be named SpaceX. Musk approached
rocket engineer Tom Mueller (later SpaceX's CTO of

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 Propulsion) and Mueller agreed to work for Musk, and thus
SpaceX was born. SpaceX was first headquartered in a
warehouse in El Segundo, California. The company has
grown rapidly since it was founded in 2002, growing from
160 employees in November 2005 to 1,100 in 2010, 3,800
employees and contractors by October 2013,nearly 5,000
by late 2015,and about 6,000 in April 2017.As of
November 2017, the company had grown to nearly 7,000.
In 2016, Musk gave a speech at the International
Astronautical Congress, where he explained that the US
government regulates rocket technology as an "advanced
weapon technology", making it difficult to hire non-
Americans.

Figure2.1(Launch Flacon 9)

As of March 2018, SpaceX had over 100 launches on its

manifest representing about $12 billion in contract
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 revenue. The contracts included both commercial and
government (NASA/DOD) customers. In late 2013, space
industry media quoted Musk's comments on SpaceX
"forcing…increased competitiveness in the launch
industry," its major competitors in the commercial comsat
launch market being Arianespace, United Launch
Alliance, and International Launch Services. At the same
time, Musk also said that the increased competition would
"be a good thing for the future of space." Currently,
SpaceX is the leading global commercial launch provider
measured by manifested launches..

Figure 2.2(Falcon Heavy Rocket Pad 39-A)

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 3. Goals That proved Sky is The Limit

Musk has stated that one of his goals is to decrease the cost and
improve the reliability of access to space, ultimately by a factor of
ten.
CEO Elon Musk said: "I believe $500 per pound ($1,100/kg) or less is
very achievable."
A major goal of SpaceX has been to develop a rapidly reusable launch
system. As of March 2013, the publicly announced aspects of this
technology development effort include an active test campaign of the
low-altitude, low-speed Grasshopper vertical takeoff, vertical landing
(VTVL) technology demonstrator rocket,and a high-altitude, high-
speed Falcon 9 post-mission booster return test campaign.

In 2015, SpaceX successfully landed the first orbital rocket stage on

December 21. To date, SpaceX has successfully landed 25 boosters:
23 Falcon 9 and 5 Falcon Heavy.

Figure 3.1(OG2 Mission)

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In 2017, SpaceX formed a subsidiary, The Boring Company, and
began work to construct a short underground test tunnel on and
adjacent to the SpaceX headquarters and manufacturing facility,
utilizing a small number of SpaceX employees, which was completed
in May 2018,and opened to the public in December 2018.
During 2018, The Boring Company was spun out into a separate
corporate entity with 6% of the equity going to SpaceX, less than 10%
to early employees, and the remainder of the equity to Elon Musk.

Figure 3.3(Space Headquarters)

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 4. Achievements

Landmark achievements of SpaceX include:

The first privately funded liquid-fueled rocket to reach orbit

(Falcon 1 flight 4 on September 28, 2008)

The first privately developed liquid-fueled rocket to put a

commercial satellite in orbit (RazakSAT on Falcon 1 flight 5 on July
14, 2009)

The first private company to successfully launch, orbit, and recover

a spacecraft (Dragon capsule on COTS demo flight 1 on December 9,
2010)

The first private company to send a spacecraft to the International

Space Station (Dragon C2+ on May 25, 2012)

The first private company to send a satellite into geosynchronous

orbit (SES-8 on Falcon 9 flight 7 on December 3, 2013)

The first landing of an orbital rocket's first stage on land (Falcon 9

flight 20 on December 22, 2015)

The first landing of an orbital rocket's first stage on an ocean

platform (Falcon 9 flight 23 on April 8, 2016)

The first relaunch and landing of a used orbital rocket stage (B1021
on Falcon 9 flight 32 on March 30, 2017)

The first controlled flyback and recovery of a payload fairing

(Falcon 9 flight 32 on March 30, 2017)

The first reflight of a commercial cargo spacecraft. (Dragon C106

on CRS-11 mission on June 3, 2017)

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 5. Setbacks

In June 2015, CRS-7 launched a Dragon capsule atop a Falcon 9 to

resupply the International Space Station. All telemetry readings were
nominal until 2 minutes and 19 seconds into the flight, when a loss of
helium pressure was detected and a cloud of vapour appeared outside
the second stage. A few seconds after this, the second stage exploded.
The first stage continued to fly for a few seconds before disintegrating
due to aerodynamic forces. The capsule was thrown off and survived
the explosion, transmitting data until it was destroyed on impact.
Later it was revealed that the capsule could have landed intact if it had
software to deploy its parachutes in case of a launch mishap .The
problem was discovered to be a failed 2-foot-long steel strut
purchased from a supplier to hold a helium pressure vessel that broke
free due to the force of acceleration. This caused a breach and allowed
high-pressure helium to escape into the low-pressure propellant tank,
causing the failure. The Dragon software issue was also fixed in
addition to an analysis of the entire program in order to ensure proper
abort mechanisms are in place for future rockets and their payload.

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 Figure 5.1(Blast)

In September 2016, a Falcon 9 exploded during a propellant fill

operation for a standard pre-launch static fire test. The payload, the
Spacecom Amos-6 communications satellite valued at $200 million,
was destroyed. Musk described the event as the "most difficult and
complex failure" ever in SpaceX's history; SpaceX reviewed nearly
3,000 channels of telemetry and video data covering a period of 35–
55 milliseconds for the postmortem. Musk reported the explosion was
caused by the liquid oxygen that is used as propellant turning so cold
that it solidified and it ignited with carbon composite helium vessels.
Though not considered an unsuccessful flight, the rocket explosion
sent the company into a four-month launch hiatus while it worked out
what went wrong, and SpaceX returned to flight in January 2017.

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 6. Falcon and Dragon

Since 2010, SpaceX has flown all its missions on the Falcon 9, with
one test flight of Falcon Heavy. They previously developed and flew
the Falcon 1 pathfinder vehicle.

Falcon 1 was a small rocket capable of placing several hundred

kilograms into low earth orbit. It functioned as an early test-bed for
developing concepts and components for the larger Falcon 9.Falcon 1
attempted five flights between 2006 and 2009. With Falcon I, when
Musk announced his plans for it before a subcommittee in the Senate
in 2004, he discussed that Falcon I would be the 'worlds only semi-
reusable orbital rocket' apart from the space shuttle. On September 28,
2008, on its fourth attempt, the Falcon 1 successfully reached orbit,
becoming the first privately funded, liquid- fueled rocket to do so. In
2005, SpaceX announced plans to pursue a human-rated commercial
space program through the end of the decade. The Dragon is a
conventional blunt-cone ballistic capsule which is capable of carrying
cargo or up to seven astronauts into orbit and beyond.
In 2006, NASA announced that the company was one of two selected
to provide crew and cargo resupply demonstration contracts to the ISS
under the COTS program. SpaceX demonstrated cargo resupply and
eventually crew transportation services using the Dragon. The first
flight of a Dragon structural test article took place in June 2010, from
Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station during the
maiden flight of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle; the mock-up Dragon
lacked avionics, heat shield, and other key elements normally required
of a fully operational spacecraft but contained all the necessary
characteristics to validate the flight performance of the launch
vehicle. An operational Dragon spacecraft was launched in December
2010 aboard COTS Demo Flight 1, the Falcon 9's second flight, and
safely returned to Earth after two orbits, completing all its mission
objectives. In 2012, Dragon became the first commercial spacecraft to

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deliver cargo to the International Space Station, and has since been
conducting regular resupply services to the ISS. SpaceX conducted a
test of an empty Crew Dragon to ISS in early 2019, and later in the
year they plan to launch a crewed Dragon which will send US
astronauts to the ISS for the first time since the retirement of the
Space Shuttle. In February 2017 SpaceX announced that two would-
be space tourists had put down "significant deposits" for a mission
which would see the two tourists fly on board a Dragon capsule
around the Moon and back again.

Figure 6.1(Dragon)

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 7. Interplanetary Transport System

SpaceX is developing a super-heavy lift launch system, the BFR. The

BFR is a fully reusable first stage launch vehicle and spacecraft
intended to replace all of the company's existing hardware by the early
2020s, ground infrastructure for rapid launch and relaunch, and zero-
gravity propellant transfer technology in low Earth orbit (LEO).

SpaceX initially envisioned the ITS vehicle design which was solely
aimed at Mars transit and other interplanetary uses, SpaceX in 2017
began to focus on a vehicle support all SpaceX launch service
provider capabilities: Earth-orbit, lunar-orbit, interplanetary missions,
and even intercontinental passenger transport on Earth.Private
passenger Yusaku Maezawa has been signed to fly around the Moon
in the BFR rocket.

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 8. Future Projects

As one of the world’s fastest growing providers of launch services,

SpaceX has secured over 100 missions to its manifest, representing
over $12 billion on contract. These include commercial satellite
launches as well as US government missions. SpaceX’s Dragon
spacecraft is flying numerous cargo resupply missions to the space
station under a series of Commercial Resupply Services contracts.
Dragon was designed from the outset to carry humans to space and
will soon fly astronauts under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.

Building on the achievements of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, SpaceX

is working on a next generation of fully reusable launch vehicles that
will be the most powerful ever built, capable of carrying humans to
Mars and other destinations in the solar system.

In June 2015, SpaceX announced that they would sponsor a

Hyperloop competition, and would build a 1-mile-long (1.6 km)
subscale test track near SpaceX's headquarters for the competitive
events. The first competitive event was held at the track in January
2017 and the second in August 2017 and the third in December 2018.

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 9. Conclusion

In the 16 years since Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies

Corporation – SpaceX – was founded, the company has transformed
the commercial space market. It has proven that launch services can
be provided at far less cost than previously thought. It has
demonstrated that rocket stages can be successfully reused. And it has
repeatedly accomplished feats no commercial company would have
contemplated in the past.

No doubt about it, SpaceX is a pioneer. But pioneers do not always

come to a good end. The life of Nikola Tesla, the inventor and futurist
for whom Musk’s other great enterprise is named, offers an example
of how even geniuses can lose their way in the jungle-like landscape
of infant industries. SpaceX has changed the world, but the jury is still
out on whether it has a sustainable business model.

That may be one of the reasons why Musk has not taken SpaceX
public – even though analysts estimate its value as high as $28 billion.
The publicly stated reason is that Musk doesn’t want outsiders
mucking around in his plans to send astronauts to Mars, as a prelude
to establishing a permanent colony there. It’s an inspiring vision, but
public or private, there are some serious challenges that the company
will need to overcome first.

Meanwhile, the company is embarked on a plan to orbit 7,500 small

satellites in a constellation capable of providing broadband Internet
service pretty much anywhere on Earth. That might one day offer
SpaceX big revenue opportunities outside the launch arena, but in the
near term it demands lots of investment funding. The risks are hard to
quantify, but huge – so huge that other companies with far greater
resources have elected not to pursue such a project. If SpaceX were
generating the kinds of returns typically associated with a successful
tech company, the financial burden might be bearable. But it seems

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that SpaceX’s investment plans are out of sync with the company’s
ability to raise the necessary capital.

Anybody who has followed the SpaceX saga to this point knows it
would be foolish to discount company plans. Elon Musk is disciplined
and driven, dedicated to a vision of mankind’s future in space. But
when you consider the scale of challenges SpaceX faces, it’s hard to
escape the conclusion that some adjustments in the vision are going to
be necessary.
With This Statement I’m going to give my writing a break as it has
been continuously flowing its veins out.

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 10. References

[1] Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX)

[2] SpaceX official

(https://www.spacex.com/about)

[3] Forbes mention of SpaceX

[4] Youtube.com

[5] NASA official

(https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacex/)

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 11. Appendices

11.1 Chart And Graphs That were Part Of Report but

could not be mentioned:

 Chart presented to the House Subcommittee on Space, Science and Technology by

SpaceX vice president Tim Hughes

Chart Shows How Much SpaceX Has Come to Dominate Rocket

Launches

ULA Atlas and Falcon 9 Orbital Data

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