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SpaceX founder, Elon Musk, announced on Thursday that his company will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft, following threats by United States President, Donald Trump, to terminate SpaceX’s government contracts, AFP reported.
“In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately,” Musk posted on the social media platform X.
The announcement came amid a sharp and very public breakdown in relations between Musk and Trump, ending a nearly year-long political alliance.
The rift has played out in a series of social media exchanges, with both figures trading insults.
SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, which launched in 2020, currently serves as the only US spacecraft certified to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station.
The spacecraft, under a contract worth over $4.9bn with NASA, has been a cornerstone of America’s crewed spaceflight capabilities since the end of the Space Shuttle programme in 2011.
A separate version, Cargo Dragon, is used for resupply missions to the ISS.
Reacting to Musk’s announcement, NASA spokeswoman Bethany Stevens reiterated the agency’s commitment to the current administration’s space policy. “We will continue to work with our industry partners to ensure the President’s objectives in space are met,” she posted on X.
NASA has also been working to certify Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft for human spaceflight. However, that programme has encountered repeated delays. Its most recent test flight last year failed when propulsion issues disrupted its mission to the ISS.
The spacecraft returned to Earth without completing the mission, and the two astronauts onboard were later retrieved by a SpaceX Crew Dragon.
The certification of Crew Dragon in 2020 marked the end of the United States’ reliance on Russian Soyuz rockets, a dependency that began after the retirement of the Space Shuttle. Despite the current developments, the US and Russia continue to exchange seats on each other’s spacecraft under a longstanding agreement.
In addition to NASA missions, Crew Dragon has also flown private flights, including tourist missions. Its most recent was Fram2, which orbited the Earth’s poles.
The next scheduled launch, the Axiom-4 mission, is slated for Tuesday and is expected to carry astronauts from India, Poland, and Hungary to the ISS aboard a Crew Dragon capsule.
