Space launch Credit: 3Dsculptor/ Shutterstock

For the first time since 2011, the United States will launch astronauts into space from its home soil. And for the first time ever, the rocket that will get them there was developed and manufactured by a private company—and it's one that has a history with Big Law.   

Space Exploration Technologies Corp., better known as SpaceX, the aerospace company founded by Tesla's Elon Musk in 2002 with the ambition to send manned spacecraft to Mars, was set to launch its Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 4:33 p.m. Eastern Wednesday.

But gray skies and choppy waters delayed the launch, The New York Times reported. The next opportunities to get the shuttle into orbit are Saturday, May 30, at 3:22 eastern and Sunday, May 31, at 3:00 eastern.

The launch, when it does happen, is possible in no small part because of the work done by various Big Law firms on the company's behalf over the years, most notably the lobbying efforts of Washington, D.C.-based Squire Patton Boggs. 

Squire has been the lobbying law firm of choice for SpaceX for a decade, and that decade has proved fruitful for both the company and the law firm. SpaceX has come close to quadrupling its lobbying spend since 2010, when the company spent about $560,000, according to Open Secrets. In 2019, that number was over $2.3 million, of which $320,000 went to Squire. 

Since 2011, SpaceX has paid Squire over $3 million in lobbying fees, including $80,000 so far in 2020. During that time, the company has seen its market valuation skyrocket to over $36 billion.  

There is some star power among the Squire attorneys listed as counsel for SpaceX, including former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and former Louisiana Sen. John Breaux, both of whom joined the firm during its 2010 acquisition of the Breaux-Lott Leadership Group, which also did work for SpaceX. 

SpaceX has turned to firms including K&L Gates, Boies Schiller Flexner, Drinker Biddle & Reath and Cooley for its various legal needs over the years, including a breach of contract suit and antitrust litigation.  

In 2014, Rick Vacura, then a Morrison & Foerster partner, helped SpaceX fend off a challenge to the federal contract that led to Wednesday's launch. Another company, Sierra Nevada Corp., had challenged NASA's award of over $6 billion in contracts to SpaceX and Boeing, but the Government Accountability Office rejected Sierra's objections, paving the way for the Dragon program to proceed. 

Vacura, who chaired the government contracts practice at Morrison & Foerster, left SpaceX behind as a client when he joined King & Spalding earlier this year, however, according to a King & Spalding spokesperson. 

Morrison & Foerster also defended SpaceX in antitrust suits in California against defense contracting heavyweights Boeing and Lockheed Martin. 

While NASA has not been launching from U.S. soil, the space agency has still been sending astronauts into space. The U.S. has been piggybacking off of Russian rockets launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan since 2011, with Russia charging about $75 million to send an astronaut into space. 

Boeing's Starliner, the company's answer to SpaceX's Dragon, costs about $90 million per astronaut. SpaceX is estimating its costs to be about $55 million per astronaut. 

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