Although the tensions have exploded between the US president and the boss of SpaceX, the last one threatened to take the Dragon spacecraft out of service, the only certified space vehicle to transport crews to the ISS from the United States.
He threatened and then withdrew. After Donald Trump’s threat to cancel multimillionary contracts with the state on Thursday, Elon Musk said he would put his Dragon room ship out of service before he changed his mind a few hours later. Dragon is mainly used by NASA to transport astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).
“Given the president’s statement regarding the cancellation of my contracts with the state, SpaceX will immediately put his Dragon room ship out of service”said the richest man in the world and founder of the SpaceX Space Company, on his X network. Before withdrawing, a few hours later: “Well, we’re not going to take Dragon out of service”he wrote.
Without the Dragon Capsule, in which people and equipment can be sent, the American Space Agency, NASA, would be without means to guarantee this transport from American soil. The crew Dragon SpaceX capsule is in the form of a drop of water, it leaves a Falcon 9 rocket at the top and falls into the ocean. It is currently the only American spaceship certified to transport crews to the ISS as part of a contract worth more than $ 4.9 billion.
Boeing Starliner’s implementation
The next planned crew lancering is the Axiom-4 mission Tuesday 10 June, in which a crew Dragon Capsule Indian, Polish and Hungarian astronauts will transport to the ISS. A variant, cargo dragon, ensures supplies, as the name suggests.
NASA hoped to certify the Boeing Starliner for the missions with crew, but this program has undergone considerable delays. His last test flight, last year, ended in failure after the spacecraft had experienced propulsion on the way to the orbital laboratory with his first astronauts. The Starliner eventually returned to earth on earth, while the two astronauts were brought to the ground by the SpaceX capsule at the beginning of the year.
After the end of the Space Shuttle in 2011 and before the SpaceX capsule, NASA astronauts used the Soyuz Russian ships to reach the ISS. To take care of their transport from the American soil again, NASA had a contract with Boeing and SpaceX to each build a ship and then to focus on a first mission in 2017. SpaceX developed his Dragon Capsule and started the journeys in 2020, against all expectations.
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