The History of SpaceX's Falcon 9
Video from the channel RUMO A MARTE about Falcon 9, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 23:07. Language: Portuguese. Video type: Documentary.
What it's about
Portuguese-language documentary from the Rumo a Marte channel that traces the history of SpaceX and its Falcon 9 launcher, from the company's founding to crewed flights and first-stage reuse. It combines narration with launch footage and clips from the company's own broadcasts.
Historical context
After leaving PayPal in 2001, Elon Musk devised the Mars Oasis project, a small robotic greenhouse that would land on Mars, and created the Life to Mars Foundation. Faced with the price of American launchers and his failure to buy rockets in Russia, he founded SpaceX in 2002. That same year, eBay bought PayPal for $1.5 billion. The company relied on three principles: rockets built entirely in-house, modular, and reusable. The Falcon 1, named after the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars, failed on its first three launches starting in 2006. In 2008, with Musk nearly out of resources, the fourth flight reached orbit. Months later, shortly before Christmas 2008, NASA awarded it a contract worth about $1.6 billion to supply the International Space Station ahead of the Space Shuttle's retirement in 2011.
Key facts
The Falcon 9 v1.0 had nine Merlin engines, stood about 55 m tall, and could carry just over 10 tons to low Earth orbit; it flew for the first time on 4 June 2010 from Cape Canaveral. In 2012 Dragon became the first private company spacecraft to dock with the station. The v1.1 version, from 2013, reached 68 m in height, carried Merlin 1D engines, and could place just over 13 tons into orbit. In 2014 NASA selected Boeing, with the Starliner, and SpaceX for the commercial crew program, the latter with a $2.6 billion contract. On 21 December 2015 a Falcon 9 first stage landed for the first time at Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral. The Full Thrust version culminated in the Block 5, capable of carrying 22 tons to low Earth orbit. On 30 May 2020 Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken traveled to the station aboard the Crew Dragon, the first American crewed flight in nine years since the end of the Space Shuttle program. Other missions followed, such as Inspiration4. According to the video, the Falcon 9 had already surpassed 250 successful launches and helps fund the development of Starship.