SpaceX is expanding — here's where all the major facilities of Elon Musk's rocket company are located

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Elon Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 with little more than a handful of staff, an empty office in Los Angeles, and a mariachi band.

Today the rocket company employs more than 5,000 people, has received about $1.6 billion in funding, and is increasingly disrupting a storied (and expensive) space industry.

SpaceX has branched out from relatively small orbital rockets to heavyweight lifters that undercut the competition four-fold.

It's also developing the most expansive satellite internet network in history while pushing to build spaceships capable of sending 100 people to Mars at a time.

To get that work done, though, it's investing millions in remodeling and building new facilities all over America.

Here are the most important locations Musk and his army of SpaceX employees do their work to reach for the stars.

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Where SpaceX is located

SpaceX started out in California in 2002, and soon began test launches in the Marshall Islands. Since moving launches to the US, however, it has since maintained a nearly exclusive American foothold.

Today SpaceX has footholds in California, Florida, New Mexico, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Washington DC. These locations host offices, launchpads, factories, and test facilities.

Headquarters — Hawthorne, California

SpaceX has an expansive campus just south of the Hawthorne Municipal Airport and Century Freeway. The headquarters building — an old Boeing facility — is topped with solar panels that form an "X" in negative space.

Next door is a building owned by Tesla (Musk's car company) and nearby are tooling and machining warehouses, where SpaceX fabricates rocket engines and other parts for Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and soon the Mars-capable Big Falcon Rocket.

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