April 1 (Reuters) – Elon Musk’s SpaceX has confidentially filed for its hotly anticipated U.S. initial public offering, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday, taking space exploration from a speculative venture to a mainstream investment theme.
Here is a timeline of SpaceX’s journey to the blockbuster IPO:
March 2002 – Elon Musk launched SpaceX using money he made from the sale of PayPal.
March 2006 – SpaceX launched its first rocket, the Falcon 1, which failed.
September 2008 – SpaceX’s Falcon 1 launched successfully for the first time and became the first privately developed liquid-fuel rocket to reach Earth’s orbit.
December 2008 – SpaceX secured its first major contract with NASA to ferry cargo and supplies to the International Space Station (ISS).
May 2012 – A Dragon capsule was taken to space by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, making it the first private spacecraft to dock at the ISS.
June 2015 – Falcon 9 Rocket exploded mid-air.
December 2015 – First successful vertical landing of Falcon 9 rocket. The soft touchdown marked the first time any large rocket managed a controlled recovery after delivering a payload into orbit.
February 2018 – The first Falcon Heavy launch carried Musk’s Tesla Roadster and its mannequin driver, Starman, into space.
April 2019 – Crew Dragon test vehicle capsule exploded during ground test.
May 2019 – SpaceX began launching Starlink satellites, a constellation capable of beaming signals for high-speed internet service from space to paying customers around the globe.
October 2020 – SpaceX completed its 100th successful flight of a Falcon rocket since Falcon 1 first flew to orbit in 2008.
November 2020 – SpaceX Crew-1 mission – the first operational mission under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
April 2021 – NASA awarded SpaceX the contract for the first commercial human lander, part of its Artemis program.
September 2021 – SpaceX launched the first all-civilian crew ever to circle the Earth from space.
November 2021 – NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission was launched into an interplanetary transfer orbit aboard a SpaceX rocket, marking the world’s first test of a planetary defense system designed to prevent a potential asteroid collision with Earth.
April 2023 – First Starship Rocket exploded after losing control.
November 2023 – Starship launch failed minutes after reaching space.
November 2023 – A U.S. judge blocked the U.S. Department of Justice from pursuing an administrative case accusing Elon Musk’s SpaceX of illegally refusing to hire refugees and asylum recipients.
September 2024 – The SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission carried out its first privately managed spacewalk.
January 2025 – SpaceX’s Starship rocket broke up in space minutes after launching from Texas, forcing airline flights over the Gulf of Mexico to alter course to avoid falling debris.
June 2025 – Starship exploded during a ground test.
February 2026 – SpaceX acquired Musk’s artificial-intelligence startup xAI in a record-setting deal worth $250 billion, unifying the world’s richest man’s AI and space ambitions by combining the rocket-and-satellite company with the maker of the Grok chatbot.
February 2026 – SpaceX shifted its focus to building a “self‑growing city” on the moon, Musk said.
March 2026 – NASA official said the Starship has accumulated at least two years of development delays since NASA picked the rocket as an astronaut moon lander in 2021, and is expected to require more time to clear remaining hurdles before landing on the moon.
April 2026 – SpaceX confidentially files for its blockbuster U.S. initial public offering, laying the groundwork for what could be the biggest stock market flotation ever.
(Reporting by Prakhar Srivastava and Arasu Kannagi Basil in Bengaluru; Editing by Leroy Leo and Anil D’Silva)
