Here’s a timeline of milestones in the commercialization of space:

• 1982: Space Services Inc. of America becomes the first company to reach space with a suborbital launch of a privately designed and built rocket, the Conestoga. However, it carries only a simulated payload and they are not able to recreate this one success.
• 1982: The European Space Agency, having developed the Ariane rocket, creates a private company called ArianeSpace to sell launch services on it for profit.
• 1984: The Commercial Space Launch Act mandates NASA to start supporting private spaceflight in the USA.
• 1990: Orbital Sciences Corporation successfully launches a satellite on the first privately developed orbital rocket, the Pegasus. It is also the first orbital rocket to launch from an airplane. The Pegasus will launch dozens of missions over the next thirty years.
• 2000: A Russian company called MirCorp pays for a crew to fly to the disused Mir space station, to refurbish it and raise its decaying orbit. But with no further funding to save it, Mir is deorbited the following year.
• 2001: Roscosmos sells a seat on a Soyuz flight to the International Space Station to a wealthy tourist, Dennis Tito. They will fly seven others over the following decade.
• 2006: Bigelow Aerospace orbits a prototype of their inflatable habitat on a Dnipr rocket. Though Bigelow does not survive, the inflatable technology will be picked up by other companies.
• 2008: SpaceX reaches orbit with the Falcon 1, the first privately developed orbital rocket with liquid fuel. The next launch in 2009 is the only one to put up a satellite for a paying customer, after which the Falcon 1 is retired.
• 2010: SpaceX uses the first launch of their new Falcon 9 to successfully orbit a mockup Dragon cargo capsule. Later that year, the second launch orbits a completed Dragon, which is successfully recovered after splashdown.
• 2012: A Dragon reaches the ISS with the first commercially delivered cargo.
• 2013: Orbital Sciences, having developed the air-launched Pegasus and the ground-launched Taurus with solid fuel, graduate to liquid fuel with the Antares, using a main stage built for them in Ukraine using a Russian engine. It is used for carrying the Cygnus cargo capsule to the ISS, and they never sell one for any other kind of launch. Once relations with Russia break down, no more can be built. Orbital eventually gets absorbed by Northrop Grumman, who work with Firefly to develop a replacement Antares.
• 2014: The Chinese government opens their spaceflight market to private companies, with many startup ventures soon being founded. At first this results only in a variety of rockets made from solid fuel motors developed for military use. The one standout success among the solid fuel ventures is Galactic Energy with the Ceres-1. The only other models with a good level of success come from the traditional aerospace contractors, either directly or via spinoff companies such as Chinarocket and CAS Space.
• 2015: On the second attempt, Blue Origin’s suborbital New Shepard is the first rocket to reach space and then land itself softly, ready to fly again two months later. In the middle of that interval, after multiple failed attempts, SpaceX successfully lands a Falcon 9 after it has launched a satellite.
• 2017: SpaceX performs the first satellite launch carried by a reused rocket. (And these rocket pages are first published online.)
• 2018: The Rocket Lab Electron performs the first satellite launch from a privately built spaceport. The Electron becomes very successful. I believe it is the first commercially developed orbital rocket from a company not native to the USA, though they did move the bulk of their operations to California before building the Electron.

Here’s where things get busy. Commercialization truly arrives now.

• May 2020: SpaceX’s Dragon 2, the first commercial crewed spacecraft, carries two people to the ISS and back.
• Nov 2020: Rocket Lab recovers an Electron booster after it splashes down in the sea after a launch.
• Sep 2021: SpaceX flies the first fully commercial orbital flight for tourist Jared Isaacman and three of his guests. Commercial flights to the ISS follow, sold by Axiom Space.
• May 2022: Rocket Lab catches a descending Electron booster in midair, but then the pilot has to drop it. They abandon the aerial capture approach.
• Oct 2022: Firefly orbits their Alpha rocket... nearly. A year later they get a payload to stay up correctly. At the time they seem to be just one more in a crowded field of American competitors such as Vector, Astra, Virgin Orbit, ABL, and Relativity, but by 2025 Firefly is the only one of that group whose rocket is still in service, though their success rate remains iffy.
• Apr 2023: Space Pioneer becomes the first Chinese company to reach orbit with a privately developed liquid-fueled rocket, the Tianlong-2, thanks to the failure of the initial flight of the Zhuque-2 from rival company LandSpace, which soon becomes the second to orbit. The Zhuque-2 (or LandSpace-2) is also the first rocket to reach orbit using liquid methane as its fuel, beating ULA, Blue Origin, and SpaceX to that milestone.
• Aug 2023: An Electron flies with one recovered and reused engine. Later, another flies with a reused fuel tank. But these experiments peter out as the company turns its efforts toward building the Neutron rocket.
• Jan 2024: The ULA Vulcan becomes the first privately developed orbital rocket from a traditional American government-contractor aerospace company. Its BE-4 engines, made by Blue Origin, are the first privately developed staged-combustion rocket engines to fly.
• Feb 2024: Intuitive Machines is the first private company to land a probe intact on the moon, though it doesn’t remain fully upright.
• Jun 2024: Boeing’s Starliner is the second commercial spacecraft to bring crew up to the ISS, but it has so many issues that they don’t dare ride it down again.
• Sep 2024: Jared Isaacman becomes the first space tourist to go outside, testing the first commercial EVA suit while standing in the hatchway of a Dragon. (A year later he becomes the administrator of NASA.)
• Oct 2024: SpaceX, on the fifth test flight of their Starship, successfully recovers the booster by catching it with arms on the launch tower, and splashes down the upper stage in the Indian Ocean, demonstrating that in theory they should have a fully reusable two stage rocket. It is also the first rocket to use full-flow staged combustion engines, not to mention the biggest rocket ever built. They do refly a booster the following spring.
• Jan 2025: Blue Origin orbits a satellite with their reusable New Glenn rocket, but fails to recover the booster. They successfully recover the second flight in November.
• Mar 2025: Firefly’s Blue Ghost becomes the second privately developed probe to land on the moon, and the first to be a full unqualified success.
• Dec 2025: The Zhuque-3 from LandSpace becomes the first Chinese reusable rocket to reach orbit — the first from any country outside the USA, in fact — though the booster does not successfully land. (Later the same month, the government’s Long March 12A also reaches orbit and also fails to land the booster. Neither debut flight carries a real payload.)