SpaceX has gained worldwide attention for its amazing accomplishments. This year SpaceX made history when it returned human spaceflight capabilities to the United States in May. A Falcon 9 rocket propelled NASA astronauts aboard the Crew Dragon spacecraft on a voyage to the International Space Station (ISS) during the Demo-2 mission. It was the first crewed rocket flight launched from American soil since the Space Shuttle fleet was grounded nearly a decade ago. Last month, SpaceX deployed a crew of four astronauts to ISS for the first operational Crew-1 mission. The company has gained multiple contracts to perform crewed missions next year, including private (civilian) passenger flights.

The Coordinating Ministry for Maritime and Investment Affairs of Indonesia told Bloomberg news, the President of Indonesia Joko Widodo invited SpaceX to assess the country as a potential launch site. Bloomberg’s report states President Widodo held a conversation with SpaceX founder Elon Musk on December 11, to discuss the possibility of building a rocket launch facility in the area. Musk has plans to send SpaceX representatives to Indonesia in January to assess the country’s potential and discuss partnership opportunities.

Having launch facilites across the world is something SpaceX plans to do long-term. Launching astronauts to the orbiting laboratory is an accomplishment SpaceX has been working towards since it was founded in 2002, however, Musk does not want to settle in low Earth orbit; He dreams of a future where humans are a multiplanet species, traveling to the Moon and Mars. –“You want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be great and that’s what being a spacefaring civilization is all about,” he says, “It’s about believing in the future and thinking that the future will be better than the past. And I can’t think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars.” SpaceX is actively working to develop the Starship spacecraft that could one day make life multiplanetary. Besides going to Mars, Musk envisions using Starship for hypersonic point-to-point transportation on Earth, this will require setting up SpaceX Spaceports around the planet. The city-to-city version of Starship would be capable of transporting one thousand passengers anywhere on Earth in under an hour!  

Starship is actively under development in South Texas. This week, the company achieved launching a prototype of Starship on an incredible seven-minute test flight which demonstrated SpaceX’s engineering talent as the stainless-steel vehicle glided through the sky, video below. 

Featured Image Source: SpaceX