Who Is Zach Dunn? SpaceX Engineer Risked His Life to Help Save Elon Musk's Company On 3/17/21 at 5:24 AM EDT According to Liftoff, a book about SpaceX's early days published March 2, Dunn's actions to prevent damage to that particular rocket could have been a make-or-break moment for SpaceX. It was written by Eric Berger, a senior space editor for Ars Technica. In September 2008, SpaceX launched its Falcon 1 rocket into orbit. It became the first ever privately developed liquid fuel rocket to orbit the Earth. Read more Ahead of the launch, engineers at the rocket firm had hired a military plane to transport the SpaceX rocket to its launch site near Hawaii.