Founder: Elon Musk
Date launched: 2002
Funding: $1.2 billion
Industry disrupted: Aerospace
When Elon Musk, co-founder and CEO of electric-car company Tesla, founded SpaceX back in 2002, he probably didn't envision that his company, which designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft, would be responsible for delivering better coffee to astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS). But in mid-April, that's just what happened. Its Dragon cargo capsule linked up with the ISS to deliver supplies, groceries and an espresso machine named—fittingly—the ISSpresso.
Read MoreFULL LIST: 2015 DISRUPTOR 50
The 3,000-employee company, based in Hawthorne, California, has been flying cargo resupply missions to the ISS under contract with NASA since 2012. Now, under a $440 million contract with NASA, SpaceX is in the midst of making refinements to the Dragon so that in the next two to three years it can fly manned missions as well.
The company has nearly 50 satellite launches booked for commercial customers, as well as additional NASA missions, representing close to $5 billion in contracts. Its Falcon Heavy rocket will lift off later this year with the ability to carry 117,000 pounds into orbit—more than twice the payload of any other rocket operating today. But Musk's real vision for the rocket: to eventually take humans to Mars.
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Elon Musk
"I’m hopeful that the first people could be taken to Mars in 10 to 12 years. I think it’s certainly possible. ... But the thing that really matters in the long term is to have a self-sustaining city on Mars, to make life multiplanetary."
Read MoreSpaceX was No. 1 on the 2014 CNBC Disruptor 50.
