Later, SpaceX will update the Crew Dragon capsule after each use.
REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA — Aerospace company SpaceX said it would no longer build new Crew Dragon capsule vehicles. The Crew Dragon is the spaceship the company uses to carry humans to and from the International Space Station (ISS).
Reported from theverge on Tuesday (29/3/2022), the plan for now is for SpaceX to limit the fleet Crew Dragon to carry as many as four humans, which SpaceX will fly again and again to take the crew into space.
“We are finalizing our final capsule, but we are still making components as we will be updating,” said SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell.
After the Crew Dragon flight, the spacecraft had to go through a repair process in Florida. There, certain hardware is changed or swapped to make the vehicle ready to fly again.
SpaceX originally developed Crew Dragon for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, an initiative to spur the creation of private vehicles to transport agency astronauts back and forth from the ISS. As part of that program, SpaceX has launched a crew of four astronauts NASA to the ISS using the Dragon Crew.
In September last year, the company launched its first fully private crew, bringing four civilian astronauts into Earth orbit for a three-day trip. The company has many future trips planned for its four Crew Dragons, each of whom have been named by their first crew of astronauts Endeavor, Resilience, Endurance and Freedom.
Meanwhile, SpaceX still holds a contract with NASA to launch crews to the ISS every six months and then take them home. In February, NASA awarded SpaceX three additional human missions with Crew Dragon to the ISS, on top of the six SpaceX was originally contracted to do. The news brings SpaceX’s Commercial Crew contract award with NASA to $3.49 billion.
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