Musk's threat to withdraw Dragon capsule would leave NASA with 1 option: Russia

As President Donald Trump and Elon Musk argued connected societal media connected Thursday, the world's richest antheral threatened to decommission a abstraction capsule utilized to instrumentality astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station.

After Trump threatened to chopped authorities contracts fixed to Musk's SpaceX rocket institution and his Starlink net outer services, Musk responded via X that SpaceX "will statesman decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately.”

It's unclear however superior Musk's menace was. But the capsule, developed with the assistance of authorities contracts, is an important portion of keeping the abstraction presumption running. NASA besides relies heavy connected SpaceX for different programs including launching subject missions and, aboriginal this decade, returning astronauts to the aboveground of the moon.

SpaceX is the lone U.S. institution susceptible close present of transporting crews to and from the abstraction station, utilizing its four-person Dragon capsules.

Boeing’s Starliner capsule has flown astronauts lone once; past year’s trial formation went truthful severely that the 2 NASA astronauts had to hitch a ride backmost to Earth via SpaceX successful March, much than 9 months aft launching past June.

Starliner remains grounded arsenic NASA decides whether to spell with different trial formation with cargo, alternatively than a crew.

SpaceX besides uses a Dragon capsule for its ain privately tally missions. The adjacent 1 of those is owed to alert adjacent week connected a travel chartered by Axiom Space, a Houston company.

Cargo versions of the Dragon capsule are besides utilized to ferry nutrient and different supplies to the orbiting lab.

Russia’s Soyuz capsules are the lone different means of getting crews to the abstraction presumption close now.

The Soyuz capsules clasp 3 radical astatine a time. For now, each Soyuz motorboat carries 2 Russians and 1 NASA astronaut, and each SpaceX motorboat has 1 Russian connected committee nether a barter system. That way, successful an exigency requiring a capsule to return, determination is ever idiosyncratic from the U.S. and Russian connected board.

With its archetypal unit motorboat for NASA successful 2020 — the archetypal orbital formation of a unit by a backstage institution — SpaceX enabled NASA to trim its reliance connected Russia for unit transport. The Russian flights had been costing the U.S. tens of millions of dollars per seat, for years.

NASA has besides utilized Russian spacecraft for cargo, on with U.S. contractor Northrup Grumman.

The institution has utilized its rockets to motorboat respective subject missions for NASA arsenic good arsenic subject equipment.

Last year, SpaceX besides won a NASA contract to assistance bring the abstraction presumption retired of orbit erstwhile it is nary longer usable.

SpaceX’s Starship mega rocket is what NASA has picked to get astronauts from lunar orbit to the aboveground of the moon, astatine slightest for the archetypal 2 landing missions. Starship made its ninth trial flight past week from Texas, but tumbled retired of power and broke apart.

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