Transport & space · 2008

Falcon 1 reaches orbit

SpaceX's Falcon 1 becomes the first privately developed liquid-fuel rocket to reach orbit.

After three failures, the fourth Falcon 1 reached orbit on 28 September 2008. Its success saved SpaceX and won a NASA cargo contract that funded Falcon 9. It began the shift of launch vehicles from governments to commercial firms.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 2

Microprocessor (Intel 4004) 1971
Liquid-fuel rocket 1926

What it led to 1

Reusable orbital rocket 2015

Watch

Falcon 1, Flight 4SpaceX · YouTube

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Payloads in low Earth orbit Latest: 14.5k objects (2025) Source: Our World in Data

Objects launched into space Latest: 4.51k per year (2025) Source: Our World in Data