SpaceX

Arising out of the dreams of billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk to visit Mars, SpaceX has grown into the most successful private rocket launching company in history. Once the domain of government agencies, the launch business is growing increasingly commercial, lowering the cost of placing satellites in orbit. With its reusable rockets, SpaceX is at the forefront of the trend. It has also been hired by NASA to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station and is lofting its own constellation of thousands of satellites to provide low-cost Internet access from space.