Elon Musk calls the incident, “just a scratch”, on X early Thursday morning. No injury reported following the explosion in the Starbase installation in Texas. (Credit: Labpadre via Storyful)
Thursday, Elon Musk SpaceX will launch astronauts at the International Space Station (ISS).
The SpaceX Crew-11 mission window from NASA of Kennedy Space Center in Florida opens at 12:09 p.m. HE.
“The flight is the 11th crew rotation mission with SpaceX to Station, and the 12th human space flight as part of the NASA commercial crew program,” NASA said in a blog article.
“The setting of the crew-11 will fly aboard the spacecraft SpaceX Dragon Crew which previously piloted SpaceX Demo Mission-2, CREW-2, CREW-6 and CREW-8 of NASA, in addition to AXIOM Mission 1, the first mission of private astronaut at the microgravity laboratory.”
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and a dragon spacecraft sit on the PAD at the Launch Complex 39a at the NASA Kennedy Space Center before the Axiom Space Axiom mission on June 11, 2025, in Cape Canaveral, Florida. (Joe Raedle / Getty Images)
SpaceX Starship explodes on the Texas launch site
Before the NASA astronauts, Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa) Astronaut Kimiya Yui and the Roscosmos Cosmonaut Oleg Platonov are unloading the launch complex of Kennedy 39a, here are five things to know about SpaceX.
1. CEO of SpaceX Elon Musk
When Musk founded SpaceX in 2002, its head office was in Hawthorne, California. Since then, the headquarters of the aerospace and defense company has moved to Starbase in southern Texas. The company has 13,000 employees and its revenues for 2024 were $ 8.7 billion, according to Forbes.
It is currently the largest private company worth around $ 400 billion compared.
Musk thinks that the company can possibly go to Planet Mars.
He also has a rivalry with the founder of Amazon Jeff Bezos, who has the Blue Origin space company.
The founder of SpaceX, Elon Musk, goes on stage during a joint T-Mobile and SpaceX event on August 25, 2022 in Boca Chica Beach, Texas. The two companies have announced their intention to work together to provide a T-Mobile cell service using Starlink satellites. (Michael Gonzalez / Getty Images / Getty Images)
The launch of NASA Spacex Crew-6 was rubbed after the last-minute technological problem
2. Inside SpaceX
SpaceX is proud of the work he has accomplished in 23 years. The “Space Aviation Company which designs, manufactures and launches rockets and advanced spaceships”, according to the Global Data website. The missions are launched from launch sites at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, at Kennedy Space Center and Vandenberg Air Force in California.
Wednesday afternoon, the SpaceX website indicates that it carried out 521 missions, 482 landings and 448 reflections.
“While most rockets are designed to burn at the start of the school year, SpaceX rockets can not only resist the start of the school year, but can also successfully land on Earth and Refly,” he said.
The support teams work on the Dragon Spacex spacecraft shortly after landing with NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, and Roscosmos Cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov on board on March 18, 2025 off the Côte de Tallahassee, Florida. (Keegan Barber / Nasa via Getty Images)
3. Starlink
With astronauts, SpaceX launches satellites in space, allowing communities and travelers around the world to remain connected. The SpaceX division “is the first and the largest constellation of satellite in the world using a low terrestrial orbit to provide wide -band Internet capable of supporting streaming, online games, video calls and even more,” said its website.
The technology has been recovered by travel activities, such as United Airlines and Carnival Corporation, to provide reliable Wi-Fi to customers in the air and at sea.
| Teleprinter | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ual | United Airlines Holdings inc. | 90.24 | -0.41 |
-0.45% |
| Ccl | Carnival Corp. | 30.14 | +0.44 |
+ 1.48% |
After natural disasters, such as Hurricane Milton in October 2024, Starlink kits were activated to provide a cell satellite service in partnership with telephone operators. Musk also deployed satellites on Ukraine in the middle of his war with Russia.
Starlink Internet is now available on all carnival corporation ships around the world. (Carnival Corporation / Fox News)
4. With success comes to failure
All SpaceX’s missions have not succeeded.
Last month, the SpaceX spacecraft exploded, sending a massive fireball in the Texas sky which was taken on several rivers.
Falcon 9, the “two -story reusable rocket” which is used for the planned launch on Thursday, underwent a “liquid oxygen leak” in July 2024, which made the Merlin vacuum engine experienced an “anomaly”, causing a loss of satellites.
Entrepreneurshares COO EVA Ados weighs the advantages of having SpaceX compared to Tesla on “earning money”.
5. Trump, Government subsidies and contracts
President Donald Trump attended a SpaceX launch last May. It was like him and Musk spent a lot of time in the White House when he was the head of the government’s ministry (DOGE) before a laconic outing.
President Donald Trump Waves Goodbye to the Crowd after Landing A Post Launch Gathering After Nasa Crew Astronauts Doug Hurley (L) and Bob Behnken Blast Off from Historic Launch Complex 39a Aboard the SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket in the Crew D (Jonathan Newton / Washington Post via Getty Images)
Following public benefits between Musk and Trump, a projector said how the government’s financing companies have received over the years.
Elon Musk and US President Donald Trump listen to a question of journalists in the White House Oval Office on May 30, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Images Kevin Dietsch / Getty)
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SpaceX, a crucial entrepreneur for NASA and space force, has received at least $ 1 billion in public contracts, loans, grants and tax credits each year since 2016, and between 2 billion and $ 4 billion per year from 2021 to 2024, as indicated above.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket bearing a payload of 24 Internet Starlink satellites goes up in space after the launch from the Vandenberg Space Force base on July 18, 2025, seen from Santee, California. (Images Kevin Carter / Getty)
Eric Revell by Fox Business contributed to this report.
