TechFlow news, June 6 — Elon Musk announced on social platform X that due to the president's threat to cancel government contracts with SpaceX, the company will immediately begin retiring the Dragon spacecraft.
TechFlow note: The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft is a key series of spacecraft developed by Elon Musk's company, initiated in 2005, including the cargo version Dragon 1 (which completed 23 International Space Station missions from 2010 to 2020) and the crewed version Crew Dragon. As the only spacecraft currently capable of transporting large amounts of cargo to orbit and safely returning to Earth, Dragon can carry up to seven passengers and features a modular design consisting of a pressurized capsule and an unpressurized trunk. Each mission can deliver over 6,000 pounds of scientific equipment and supplies to the space station, and it restored America’s independent capability to launch astronauts into space after the Space Shuttle retired in 2011, meeting NASA's requirement of at least 210 days of orbital endurance. If Musk follows through on retiring the Dragon as threatened, it would severely impact the U.S. space program and could cause the United States to lose its independent ability to conduct space station missions once again.
