SpaceX capabilities -

Yesterday SpaceX IPO was the biggest IPO in history. Today the company is 24 years old and is full of capablities.

They are not going to stop here, so I plan to draw how they evolve within the pass of the years.

Description of the capabilities

Starship — this is the one to go to Mars, fully reusable super-heavy launch system still in flight-test and rapid iteration. Main goal is to collapse cost-per-kilogram to orbit

Reusable rockets (booster recovery & relaunch) — Land- and droneship-based booster landing plus refurbishment and re-flight. SpaceX-specific and still being refined, though increasingly routine.
Raptor & Merlin engines — In-house engine designs. Merlin (Falcon 9) is mature; Raptor (methane, full-flow staged combustion, for Starship) is still evolving. Engine design remains a bespoke, deeply specialised capability.
Dragon spacecraft — The “cargo track” Human-rated crew and cargo capsule for ISS missions.
Vertical integration (in-house manufacturing) — Building most components internally rather than buying them.

Starlink service — Subscription broadband delivered via the LEO constellation. A commercial product competing on coverage, speed, and price.
Satellite mass-manufacturing — Production-line assembly of Starlink satellites at high volume. Repeatable and proprietary, but a settled, productised process.
Launch & landing infrastructure — Launch pads, droneships, and integration facilities (Cape Canaveral, Vandenberg, Starbase). Established, well-understood assets.
Avionics & flight software — Flight computers and the software stack controlling vehicles and missions. Mature and well-understood internally.

Falcon 9 launch service — Routine, high-cadence, reliable launch sold as a standardised service. Competition is now largely on price and reliability.
Ground stations & user terminals — Mass-produced gateways and customer dishes for Starlink. Standardised, high-volume hardware.
Propellant (LOX / RP-1 / CH₄) — Fuel purchased.