SpaceX won’t be building anymore Crew Dragon capsules and instead it will focus on refurbishing the four capsules it has currently.
Why has SpaceX made this decision? As reported by Reuters, the firm needs to finish development of Starship which has been delayed for months. It also needs to get better at fleet management which requires refurbishment between launches and SpaceX can’t really hold up astronaut launch missions as it attempts to fix something from a prior launch.
This is not to say that SpaceX is bad at fleet management, rather that adding Starship to its mix of vehicles will test the firms processes and it’s important to have those ironed out before then.
It’s also important because SpaceX seems to envision a future where rockets perform more like airplanes. That is to say, being able to land a rocket, refuel it and send it up to space again as soon as possible. Unfortunately we are still far from that future as even now, Falcon9 rockets consist of components that aren’t reusable.
SpaceX will continue to manufacture components for Crew Dragon but it won’t be building any new capsules.
Of course, testing fleet management processes requires launching and landing rockets and the Crew Dragon capsule. To that end, SpaceX has four missions to the International Space Station scheduled with Axiom which develops commercial space stations including its agreements with NASA. The first of these Axiom missions was set to launch this coming weekend but a “wet dress rehearsal” of the Artemis mission is taking place this weekend pushing that first Axiom/SpaceX mission dubbed Ax-1 back until 6th April, Space.com reports.
That Artemis dress rehearsal will simulate the activities and procedures that would take place during launch. This includes fuelling NASA’s Space Launch System rocket.
Truth be told, the news that SpaceX isn’t building more Crew Dragon capsules makes sense. The firm is intent on recycling its equipment as often as possible and so far it’s done very well in that regard. However, as time marches on and more launches on completed, this may become harder to maintain.
“There’s lifetime cycle issues, where once you start using it the third, fourth, fifth time, you start finding different things,” former SpaceX executive and retired NASA astronaut, Garrett Reisman, told Reuters.
“SpaceX is really good about identifying these issues quickly and then acting quickly to fix them.”
Should Starship meet SpaceX and indeed other firm’s requirements, it could ostensibly replace Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy and Dragon Crew.
