SpaceX has ended production of its new Crew Dragon astronaut capsules, a company executive told Reuters, as Elon Musk's space transportation company piles up resources for its next-generation spacecraft program.
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The fleet cap at four Crew Dragons adds more urgency to the development of the eventual successor to the astronaut capsule, Starship. Starship's launch has been long delayed by engine development hurdles and regulatory reviews.
The company must learn how to maintain a fleet and quickly fix unexpected problems without delaying a busy astronaut mission schedule.
SpaceX said it would retain the ability to build capsules – should such a need arise in the future – but argued that “fleet management is key.”
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Musk's business model is supported by reusable spacecraft, so it was inevitable that the company would stop producing these capsules.
Crew Dragon has flown five crews of government and private astronauts into space since 2020, when it flew the first pair of NASA astronauts and became the US space agency's primary route for transporting people to and from the International Space Station.
After each flight, the capsules undergo refurbishment at SpaceX's facility in Florida, which the company calls "Dragonland."
“SpaceX is very good at identifying these problems and then acting quickly to fix them,” said retired NASA astronaut and former SpaceX executive Garrett Reisman, pointing to a 2021 investigation in which SpaceX discovered and fixed within months a toilet leak in a Crew Dragon capsule that had flown people twice.
NASA gave SpaceX about $3.5 billion to help develop and then use Crew Dragon for six flights to the space station.
SpaceX has flown four crews of astronauts to the space station under a NASA contract for about $255 million per flight. The company conducted an all-private mission last year with four passengers, including a billionaire businessman who financed the flight, for a three-day trip to Earth orbit.
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At least four more private astronaut missions on the Crew Dragon are planned with Houston-based space station builder and spaceflight manager Axiom Space, with the first so-called Ax-1 mission scheduled for April carrying four entrepreneurs to the space station to conduct scientific research.
Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, has in recent years focused on developing a reusable Starship, the centerpiece of Musk's goal to colonize Mars.
Like the Crew Dragon, SpaceX's reusable rocket, the Falcon 9, and its more powerful variant, the Falcon Heavy, are refurbished after each flight and cannot fly into space more than once.
Source of information: reuters.com
