SpaceX is a company that aims to reduce the cost of space transportation with the long-term goal of creating a colony on Mars.

US billionaire and entrepreneur Elon Musk formed the business in California in 2002 out of a project called Mars Oasis that explored ways to send a mini greenhouse to the Red Planet to grow interplanetary plants.

After failing to elicit cheap rockets for the project from Nasa and returning empty-handed from a low-cost purchasing mission in Russia, Musk decided he would need to create his own rockets. Thus, SpaceX was born.

Fifteen years later, SpaceX has almost 6,000 employees, has sent two rockets to the International Space Station and twice landed a recycled rocket successfully.

What does SpaceX do?

SpaceX is developing the Dragon spacecraft and Falcon reusable rockets with a goal of sending manned missions to Mars. It is researching and developing ways to create cost efficient rockets that can be used more than once, an interplanetary transport system and a global communications network.