It was the Falcon 1, a small rocket with a single Merlin engine on its first stage. The Falcon 9 is a serious rocket with 9 on the same engine (hence the name) which came later.
As for the contract, it was a $1.6B contract, not small. And sure, it wasn't a grant, something was expected in return, but in practice, it was essentially the same, SpaceX wouldn't have been able to survive without it, and grant or contract, had they missed the chance, it would have been the end. Also, the US regularly gives new contracts to SpaceX, and I suspect at an inflated price compared to purely commercial launches. In theory, these are not subsidies, but in practice, I can't imagine NASA and the US government not do anything in their power to keep SpaceX healthy as they don't have anything better by far.
> and I suspect at an inflated price compared to purely commercial launches
They do cost more than commercial launches, but that is because they have extra requirements that commercial customers don't, and that adds a bunch to the total cost to fly those missions.
That $1.6B contract was not free, they had to do a whole lot of work for it. In fact, this was an incredible cheap price for what SpaceX had to provide. So cheap in fact that SpaceX lost money on this contract. And they didn't just get $1.6B in cash, the had to clear many milestones and actually fly missions before they got the money.
Had Arianespace been required to actually do the same thing, it would likely have cost the government 4+ billion $.
So this 'not small' contract was actually an incredible hart to fulfill and incredibly risky gamble by SpaceX.
I am not saying SpaceX would definitely have survived without government, but just disagreeing on the "heavy push" part if it just done for mutual benefit. Government only works with SpaceX because it is cheaper or better, not because they want SpaceX to succeed.
They used to use Russian rockets as well just few years back because it was cheaper[1], even though US has an more expensive replacement. I don't see any reason why US won't opt for europe's rocket if it means better cost.
> Russian rockets as well just few years back because it was cheaper
Your link says that US had no homegrown option, when it used russian rockets.
The only part that matches “because cheaper”, was atlas rockets using soviet engines, but that also had additional reasoning of keeping russian rocket engineers away from iran and north Korea.
So overall,
US definitely will subsidise a US company. (If not spacex, then other company which demonstrates competence)
Strategically it is a must have capability. If you depend on others, you open your self up for bunch of risks.
US had space shuttle which was the better in most of the metrics compared to Russia except cost. They knowingly discarded it because Russian rockets were cheaper.
Did you even read my comment? NASA was ahead with Space Shuttle in terms of technology(at least not hopelessly behind) but still selected Russian rockets because of lower price. And working with Europe is definitely better for NASA in terms of PR than working with Russia.
As for the contract, it was a $1.6B contract, not small. And sure, it wasn't a grant, something was expected in return, but in practice, it was essentially the same, SpaceX wouldn't have been able to survive without it, and grant or contract, had they missed the chance, it would have been the end. Also, the US regularly gives new contracts to SpaceX, and I suspect at an inflated price compared to purely commercial launches. In theory, these are not subsidies, but in practice, I can't imagine NASA and the US government not do anything in their power to keep SpaceX healthy as they don't have anything better by far.