The private space race

OCT. 30, 1984

President Reagan signs the Commercial Space Launch Act of 1984, which encourages the development of private spaceflight and empowers the Transportation Department to license all commercial space launches.

APRIL 5, 1990

Orbital Sciences Corp., a small Fairfax, Va., company, launches a pair of military satellites into space using an innovative unmanned rocket that was launched after being dropped from a B-52. It was the first time that a payload had been launched into space orbit from a plane.

APRIL 28, 2001

The world’s first space tourist, Dennis A. Tito, is launched into space aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket. Tito, a California multimillionaire who founded Wilshire Associates Inc., an investment firm in Santa Monica, paid $20 million for the trip. Tito spent eight days on the International Space Station with two cosmonauts.

OCT. 4, 2004

SpaceShipOne, a privately funded manned rocket, soared into space and back for the second time, claiming the $10-million Ansari Xprize and raising prospects for low-cost, reliable personal spaceflights.

MAY 22, 2012

Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, becomes the first private company to launch a spacecraft to the International Space Station. The company’s Falcon 9 rocket sent a unmanned capsule carrying cargo to the space station.

OCT. 31, 2015

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, intended to ferry paying customers into space, disintegrates on a test flight, killing one of two pilots.

DEC. 21, 2015

Elon Musk's SpaceX successfully launches 11 satellites into orbit and returns the towering first-stage booster safely back to Earth, with a historic landing at Florida's Cape Canaveral. The milestone opens the door for reducing the cost of delivering cargo to space by reusing rockets.