SpaceX stops producing "Team Dragon" capsules and soon also cargo spaceships and will reuse the existing fleet

According to SpaceX President Gavin Shotwell, the company has already stopped the  The production of Crew Dragon capsules after building its fourth spacecraft scheduled for launch on April 19, 2022 for NASA to the space station

SpaceX began shutting down production of the Crew Dragon capsules after it had already built a fleet of four reusable spacecraft. Even the fleet of Dragon-type cargo spaceships will be content with building one more spaceship that will be shared with two more spaceships in 15 supply missions to the space station. According to news published this week by the Reuters news agency, the company seeks to transfer the resources to increase the capacity for the development and production of starship spacecraft, intended for travel in the solar system, outside the Earth's orbit.

According to SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer (COO) Gavin Shotwell, the company has already discontinued the  The production of Crew Dragon capsules after building its fourth spacecraft scheduled for launch on April 19, 2022 to the International Space Station under its contract with NASA - this is also the fourth launch under the contract out of six.

Next week, the second Israeli in space, Eitan Stiva, will fly in one of these three spacecraft (currently the launch is scheduled for April 3rd). This flight and several other sightseeing flights are added to the six flights it performs for NASA to the International Space Station.

As of today, SpaceX only has two operational Dragon 2 cargo capsules, and both have already flown twice. after the contract extension The last one - in which, in fact, SpaceX won some of the flights that were supposed to be carried out by Boeing, whose spacecraft is still not ready, two years after the start of flights by SpaceX.

The company is scheduled to complete at least 11 more cargo deliveries to the space station by 2027 and while the company may be confident enough to bet that two Dragon 2 capsules can complete all 15 delivery missions to the space station, construction of another cargo spacecraft is expected to be completed within the year as a backup in case one capsule is damaged or lost. . A significant team will still be required to maintain both types of capsules and build spare parts.

And as mentioned, the estimate in the industry is that SpaceX wants to invest all its resources in the design and construction of the heavy spaceship Spaceship - which will be able to fly outside the Earth's orbit and bring astronauts to the moon and even to Mars.

More of the topic in Hayadan:

• A Progress cargo spacecraft has arrived at the space station
• SpaceX will launch a cargo spacecraft to the space station in October
• "The great gift of space flights is the opportunity to observe the Earth from the outside and see how fragile it is"
• Israel is electrified
• Russia continues to conduct flight simulations to Mars