Company Description

SpaceX is developing a family of launch vehicles intended to substantially reduce the cost of reliable access to space. The company officially began operations in June 2002 and is located in the heart of the aerospace industry in Southern California, about a mile from LAX.

Our first launch vehicle, named Falcon, is a two stage, liquid oxygen and kerosene powered rocket capable of placing half a ton into low Earth orbit. We expect to have the Falcon ready for launch by late 2003, with the actual liftoff date subject to Air Force and NASA safety approval. Following this vehicle, SpaceX plans to develop a large three stage rocket using the first and second stages of the Falcon vehicle as its second and third stages. That vehicle would compete in the heavy lift payload class occupied by Arianespace, Boeing, Lockheed, China Aerospace and Russia's Krunichev.

While drawing upon the ideas of many prior launch vehicle programs from Apollo to the X-34/Fastrac, SpaceX is privately developing the entire Falcon rocket from the ground up, including both engines, the turbo-pump, the cryogenic tank structure and the guidance system. A ground up internal development increases difficulty and the required investment, but no other path will achieve the needed improvement in the cost of access to space.

Elon Musk
Chairman and CEO

SpaceX is the third company founded by Mr. Musk. Prior to SpaceX, he co-founded PayPal in early 1999 and served as Chairman and CEO. Today, Mr. Musk remains a director and the largest shareholder of PayPal -- the world's foremost electronic financial services company. PayPal has over twenty million customers in 38 countries, processes several billion dollars per year and is a public company on the NASDAQ under PYPL. eBay has recently made a $1.5 billion acquisition offer for PayPal, which is expected to close in Q4 2002.

Before PayPal, Mr. Musk co-founded Zip2 Corporation in 1995, a leading provider of enterprise software and services to the media industry, with investments from The New York Times Company, Knight-Ridder, MDV, Softbank and the Hearst Corporation. He served as Chairman, CEO and Chief Technology Officer and in March 1999 sold Zip2 to Compaq for $307 million in an all cash transaction.

Mr. Musk's early experience extends across a spectrum of advanced technology industries, from high energy density ultra-capacitors at Pinnacle Research to software development at Rocket Science and Microsoft. He has a physics degree from the University of Pennsylvania, a business degree from Wharton and originally came out to California to pursue graduate studies in energy physics at Stanford.

Tom Mueller
Vice President of Propulsion Development

Mr. Mueller has a track record as one of the foremost liquid rocket engine designers and is responsible for building and managing a world-class propulsion development group at SpaceX. Before being recruited to SpaceX, Mr. Mueller spent 14 years at TRW where he ran the Propulsion and Combustion Products Department, responsible for all liquid rocket engine activities. During his career at TRW, he was the lead engineer for development of the 650,000 lbf thrust LOX/hydrogen engine, which was successfully hot fired at NASA Stennis in the summer of 2000. He has a broad range of rocket engine design, development and testing experience, including all common liquid propellants and many advanced propellants, ranging in thrust from 5 lbf to 650,000 lbf.

Mr. Mueller has a Master's Degree in mechanical engineering from Loyola Marymount University. He has received many awards, including the TRW Chairman's Award, which is TRW's most prestigious award for technical achievement and holds several US patents in propulsion technology.

Chris Thompson
Vice President of Operations

Mr. Thompson has over 20 years experience in production and test operations on launch vehicles, spacecraft and aircraft. He started his career in the United States Marine Corps before joining McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing), where he successfully managed production of the Delta II, III, & IV, and Titan IV launch vehicles.

Shortly before joining SpaceX, Chris was given responsibility for all Test & Verification activities at the Boeing Huntington Beach Engineering Labs, which supports all development and qualification tests on Delta II, III, & IV, Titan IV, and Space Station. The T&V activities ranged from structural, dynamic, space simulation, material & mechanical properties, and complete system tests at Huntington Beach and various government test facilities.

Mr. Thompson has also worked Delta II launch activities at Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg, and managed the precision inspection, non-destructive test, and Shuttle cryogenic test departments during his tenure at Huntington Beach. Mr. Thompson completed an A&P at Embry-Riddle/Chapman University and attended Cal State Long Beach as an Aerospace Engineering major.

Dr. Hans Koenigsmann
Chief Engineer for Avionics, Guidance and Control

Dr. Koenigsmann is responsible for the avionics, control system and software development at Space Exploration. His experience includes two suborbital launches with newly developed vehicles, a satellite development & launch and several attitude control systems; his specialties are attitude control (in particular magnetic attitude control), orbit and attitude dynamics, systems engineering and guidance & control systems.

Dr. Koenigsmann has served as head of the Space Technology Division of the Center for Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM) at the University of Bremen. In that role, he was responsible for the development and operation of the satellite BREMSAT.

Dr. Koenigsmann then worked for Microcosm as a Chief Scientist and a Flight Systems Manager for their Scorpius sub-orbital launch vehicles, where he led a team that developed the vehicle's avionics, guidance & control systems, as well as supported the thrust vector control development. For their Space System Division, he developed satellite attitude control systems, using a variety of control concepts, including wheels and magnetic torquers, for which he received a US patent.

Dr. Koenigsmann has a Ph.D. in Aerospace and Production Technology from the University of Bremen and an M.S. Aerospace Engineering from the Technical University of Berlin.

Steve Johnson
Senior Mechanical Engineer

At SpaceX, Mr. Johnson is responsible for design of the launch vehicle mechanical structures in conjunction with Mr. Thompson. This includes the cryogenic tanks, thrust structures and separation mechanisms.

Mr. Johnson's career began at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) as a systems and mechanical engineer on satellites and instrument payloads. He served as systems and mechanical engineer on the Cassini Spacecraft, the APS Technology Demonstration Experiment and NASA's SURFSAT-1. Following JPL, Mr. Johnson was responsible for the mechanical structures design of the Scorpius sub-orbital rockets at Microcosm, which were successfully flown at White Sands, and then was lead mechanical engineer on the Scout Rover at BlastOff Corp.

Mr. Johnson has an MS Mechanical Engineering from Standford University and ad BS Aeronautical Engineering degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Tim Buzza
Senior Test Engineer

Prior to joining SpaceX, Mr. Buzza was the test project manager for Boeing's Delta IV 1^st Stage. His test experience ranges from structural testing of the LH2 and Lox tanks, Engine Section, and composite Interstages and Nosecone to separation/shock tests for booster separation and stage separation. Mr. Buzza was responsible for the schedule and budget for 23 major tests with a total budget of $100million.

Mr. Buzza has over 14 years of test experience in the aerospace industry ranging from aircraft systems testing (fuel, hydraulics, and environmental) to stage development of a medium to heavy payload rocket. His career has taken him all over the world to most of the major test sites in Europe and America.

Mr. Buzza has a Master's Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Pennsylvania State University. His work has been published by ASME and several have culminated into US patents.

Gwynne Gurevich
Vice President of Business Development

Ms. Gurevich's responsibilities include developing the customer base for SpaceX vehicles and managing strategic relationships. Her experience prior to SpaceX includes over ten years at the Aerospace Corporation where she held positions of increasing responsibility in Space Systems Engineering and Technology, and Project Management. Highlights include promotion to Chief Engineer of an MLV-class Satellite program, managing a landmark study for the Federal Aviation Administration's Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation, and completing an extensive space policy analysis for NASA's future investment in space transportation. After Aerospace Corporation, Ms. Gurevich served as manager of the Space Systems Division at Microcosm, where she served on the Executive committee, and directed corporate business development.

Ms. Gurevich received her Bachelor's and Master's Degree from Northwestern University in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mathematics. She also serves as an officer of the Space Systems Technical Committee of the AIAA and has authored papers in a wide variety of areas including standardizing spacecraft/payload interfaces, conceptual small spacecraft design, infrared signature target modeling, Space Shuttle integration, and reentry vehicle operational risks.