President and COO Gwynn Shotwell said SpaceX is simultaneously building a fleet of re-orbital dragon spacecraft designed to support NASA and commercial astronauts and cargo launches over the next 5-10 years.
Speaking shortly after the start of SpaceX’s successful November 15 operational astronaut launch, also known as Crew-1, Shotwell revealed that the company is already in the final stages of building many more crew and upgraded cargo dragon spacecraft on top of the vehicles. Preparing for their first or second flights.
The comments finally confirm a surprising reality of the new Dragon 2 spacecraft: thanks to the re-utility, SpaceX intends to achieve more than ever with much fewer vehicles, possibly a large accumulation of time and resources in the next 5-10 years.
In particular, Shotwell announced that SpaceX plans to build three reusable Cargo Dragon 2 capsules, one of which has already been completed and is preparing for its second CRS-21 launch in Florida. On the crew side of things, SpaceX will create “three more” crew dragon capsules on top of Flight-Proven Demo-2 and currently Orbital Crew-1 capsules. It is unclear whether this means that the new Crew Dragon Capsule, which flew on SpaceX’s January 2020 Flight Abort (IFA) test, will be renewed for additional flights.
With the exception of the IFA Crew Dragon Capsule C205, SpaceX intends to operate a fleet of at least three Cargo Dragon 2 and five Crew Dragon capsules, each featuring eight reusable spacecraft capable of at least five orbital missions.
Repeated by both Shotwell and director Benji Reed, the company plans eight or more dragon missions, including Crew-1 – launched on November 15 – between now and February 2022.
“Over the next 15 months, we will fly seven crew and cargo dragon missions to NASA. This means that there will be a constant presence of the SpaceX Dragon in orbit, starting with Crew-1. Starting with the cargo mission CRS-21, whenever we launch a dragon, there will be two dragons in space – simultaneously – for an extended period of time. Truly, we are returning to the United States capacity for full launch services and we are very, very honored to be a part of it. “
Benji Reed, SpaceX – November 10, 2020
Reflecting on Reed’s estimate of seven flights over the next year or so, Shotwell added that it was hedged by adding the full private crew dragon mission recently announced by Axiom Space and was not preparing to launch before the end of 2021 (net). . “Hinted at the possibility of some other fun missions that I’ll chat about later.” All told, SpaceX is preparing for an incredibly busy year and three NASA crew dragon missions, half four cargo dragon launches and one private astronaut launch.
Indeed, NASA’s official documents confirm plans to launch eight crew and cargo dragons, including Crew-1, between November 2020 and March 2022. In other words, excluding the possibility of Axiom’s first private dragon launch in November or December 2021, SpaceX is. Already tracking towards launching an average dragon every two months (or less) for the next 16 months.
To complete that highly ambitious manifesto, SpaceX and NASA will have to lean more heavily than ever before on Falcon 9 and Dragon Re-usability, to test that the upgraded Dragon 2 capsules are more dramatically reusable than their Dragon 1 predecessor. For reference, SpaceX’s Dragon 1 capsule turnaround record was 15 months shy between orbital launches. To launch five CRS2 cargo and three or four crew dragons in 16 months, SpaceX will have to break its orbital spacecraft turnover record at least twice, if not three or four times.
SpaceX’s next NASA astronaut launch (Crew-2) is set to crush the Dragon’s record of five months (~ 33%) of re-use in March 2021, marking the second orbital mission of the Demo-2 capsule C206. Meanwhile, the CRS-21 launch of Cargo Dragon 2 will fly on the Falcon 9 Booster B1058, making it NASA’s first orbit on twice the flight. And Booster flying three times.
