SpaceX

SpaceX was founded by Elon Musk in 2002. NASA money arrived early: under a 2006 Commercial Orbital Transportation Services agreement NASA paid the company $396 million toward Falcon 9 and Dragon, alongside about $454 million of SpaceX’s own, and a December 2008 contract bought 12 cargo flights to the Space Station for $1.6 billion. In 2026 SpaceX bought xAI, Musk’s artificial-intelligence company, and in June it became a public company.

It flies NASA astronauts to the Space Station under a fixed-price contract, launches many NASA science missions—the Roman Space Telescope went up on a Falcon Heavy in August 2026—and in 2021 was chosen to build a Starship lander for Artemis. Under NASA’s February 2026 plan, Artemis III becomes a 2027 test in Earth orbit in which Orion docks with one or both commercial landers, and lander readiness will decide which one carries astronauts on Artemis IV, the first landing, planned for 2028.

Money from NASA