SpaceX has announced its first profit after two years of losses. This is evidenced by documents published by the Wall Street Journal. During the first quarter of 2023, the space giant, led by Elon Musk, earned USD 1.5 billion, which led to a net profit of USD 55 million.
In 2022, SpaceX suffered losses of USD 559 million with revenue of USD 4.6 billion. This is almost twice as much as in the previous year, the publication emphasizes.
Rare insider
SpaceX, founded in 2002, is a private company that adheres to the policy of keeping financial information secret. Therefore, the Wall Street Journal received a rare insider about the financial activities of the company.
The space giant generates the main part of its revenue through contracts with governments and corporations that use its rockets to launch satellites into space. In addition, the company cooperates with NASA, delivering crews and cargo to the International Space Station. SpaceX also provides an internet service from space under the Starlink brand, which includes regular space launches to deploy small satellites. At the time of May 2023, Starlink already had about 1.5 million paying customers worldwide.
SpaceX continues to increase the frequency of its launches, thanks to the ability to restore the first stages of the Falcon 9 launch vehicles in record time.
Secret of income
Balancing finances is not an easy task for the company, especially given the high costs of developing Starship, a next-generation rocket consisting of the first stage of Super Heavy, the most powerful rocket ever built, and the upper stage of Starship. The company plans to use this rocket for interplanetary missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond the Solar System.
Starship is still in the early stages of development after a disastrous test in April when the rocket crashed during its first orbital flight. Now SpaceX engineers are actively working on preparing for the second orbital test, which may take place in the coming months.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the improvement in SpaceX’s financial performance is partly due to rising prices for Falcon Heavy launches and problems faced by competitors, which leads to delays in launching new rockets. The report also indicates that SpaceX is following the strategy of large technology companies, investing heavily in the development of its key business areas (Starlink and Starship), hoping to receive significant returns from these investments.
Earlier we talked about the most interesting facts about SpaceX rockets.
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