Over the last few years, there has been a renaissance in space technology, much of it led by private companies. In 2024, there were 263 successful orbital launches around the world, and half of those were completed by a single private company – SpaceX. In its short history, SpaceX has revolutionized spaceflight by developing reusable rocket boosters that return to Earth and land upright, deploying the Starlink communications network with thousands of satellites for global internet coverage and reducing launch costs from approximately USD 10,000 per kilogram to as low as USD 1,000 per kilogram with its Falcon 9 rocket. Next month, a SpaceX craft will return two US astronauts stranded on the International Space Station. SpaceX is not alone in the private space race, with Blue Origin pursuing a similar strategy and others like RocketLab focusing on small satellite launches and Relativity Space building 3D-printed rockets.
Source: Jonathan’s Space Report, Harvard January 2025