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President and chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell says SpaceX is simultaneously building a fleet of reusable and orbital Dragon spacecraft designed to support a range of commercial astronauts and NASA cargo launches over the next 5-10 years.
Speaking shortly after the successful debut of the launch of SpaceX’s operational astronaut on November 15, also known as Crew-1, Shotwell revealed that the company is already in the process of building several more crews and upgrading the Cargo Dragon spacecraft above the vehicles already in the last stages of preparing for the first or second flight.
The comments at the end confirm an unsurprising reality of the new Dragon 2 spacecraft: Thanks to reusability, SpaceX intends to achieve more than ever with far fewer vehicles, likely saving a great deal of time and resources over the next 5-10 years.
Specifically, Shotwell revealed that SpaceX intends to build three reusable Cargo Dragon 2 capsules, one of which is already completed and in Florida preparing for its debut for the December 2 CRS-21 launch. From a crew point of view, SpaceX will build “three more” Crew Dragon capsules in addition to the proven Demo-2 and currently orbital Crew-1 capsules. It is unclear if this means that the new Crew Dragon capsule flown during SpaceX’s January 2020 IFA (In-Flight Abort) test will be renewed for further flights.
Excluding the IFA Crew Dragon C205 capsule, SpaceX therefore intends to operate a fleet of at least three Cargo Dragon 2 capsules and five Crew Dragon capsules, representing eight reusable spacecraft each capable of at least five orbital missions.
Reiterated by both Shotwell and director Benji Reed, the company is planning up to eight or more Dragon missions – including Crew-1, which launched November 15 – between now and February 2022.
“Over the next 15 months, we will carry out seven Crew and Cargo Dragon missions for NASA. This means that starting with Crew-1, there will be a continued presence of SpaceX Dragons in orbit. Starting with the CRS-21 cargo mission, every time we launch a dragon, there will be two dragons in space, simultaneously, for long periods of time. In truth, we are giving back the US capability of full launch services and we are very, very honored to be a part of it. “
Benji Reed, SpaceX – November 10, 2020
After mirroring Reed’s estimate of seven flights for the next year or so, Shotwell later added that she had covered herself by adding a completely private Crew Dragon mission recently announced by Axiom Space and scheduled to launch no earlier than (NET) at the end of. 2021. hinted at the possibility of “some other fun missions that I will talk about later”. All in all, SpaceX appears to be gearing up for an incredibly busy year and a half of three NASA Crew Dragon missions, four unmanned Cargo Dragon launches, and even a private astronaut launch.
Indeed, NASA’s official planning documents confirm plans for eight Crew and Cargo Dragon launches – including Crew-1 – between November 2020 and March 2022. In other words, even ruling out the possibility of Dragon’s first private Axiom launch at November or December 2021, SpaceX is already following an average of a Dragon launch every two months (or less) for the next 16 months.
To complete this hugely ambitious manifesto, SpaceX and NASA will have to rely more than ever on the reusability of Falcon 9 and Dragon, testing whether the updated Dragon 2 capsules are significantly more reusable than their Dragon 1 predecessors. SpaceX’s Dragon 1 capsule delivery was just 15 months between orbital launches. To complete five CRS2 cargo launches and three or four Crew Dragon launches in 16 months, SpaceX will need to break its orbital spacecraft turnaround record at least twice, if not three or four times.
SpaceX’s next launch of NASA’s astronaut (Crew-2) is already scheduled to crush Dragon’s five-month reuse record (~ 33%) when it launches in March 2021, marking the Demo Capsule’s second orbital mission. -2 C206. Meanwhile, Cargo Dragon 2’s CRS-21 launch debut is expected to fly the Falcon 9 booster B1058, making it NASA’s first orbital launch on a flight twice. is booster three times flown.
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