SpaceX will no longer produce new Crew Dragon capsules to carry astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), according to Reuters. Elon Musk’s company has confirmed the news.
“We are finishing our final (capsule), but we still are manufacturing components, because we’ll be refurbishing,” said Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX President.
Currently, there are four Crew Dragon capsules. The Hawthorne-based company, however, will continue to manufacture components of Crew Dragon for refurbishment purposes. Some might think that space travel would be interrupted due to the decision. Shotwell said they would produce more capsules if required.
Crew Dragon capsule
A Crew Dragon capsule being able to carry up to seven astronauts are the first private spacecraft that has been invented. And since the year 2020, the capsules have been taking humans to space. There have been 5 flights to this day.
“There are lifetime cycle issues, where once you start using it the third, fourth, fifth time, you start finding different things,” Garrett Reisman, retired NASA astronaut and former SpaceX executive, told Reuters.
“SpaceX is really good about identifying these issues quickly and then acting quickly to fix them”. Which made people focus on an investigation in 2021 about the leak in Crew Dragon that was fixed in months.
Starship will carry people to Mars
One of Musk’s plans is to work on a Starship that hopefully will carry people to Mars by the end of this decade. NASA says a one-way trip to Mars would last approximately nine months.
“The goal is to get more and more like aircraft operations, where you can take the vehicle after it lands, fill it back up with gas and oxygen, and go again very rapidly,” said Reisman. “Starship, if it achieves its design objectives, would be able to affordably replace everything that Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Dragon can do”.
The Starship has successfully done its high-altitude flights but space is a whole different story. If Musk can succeed, we might see “the first-ever human to visit Mars” on our news in a blink of an eye.
