In row with Trump, Musk says will finish essential U.S. spaceship program

SpaceX chief Elon Musk mentioned he would start “decommissioning” his firm’s Dragon spacecraft. File
| Photograph Credit score: Reuters

SpaceX chief Elon Musk mentioned on Thursday (June 5, 2025) he would start “decommissioning” his firm’s Dragon spacecraft — very important for ferrying NASA astronauts to and from the Worldwide House Station — after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to terminate his authorities contracts.

“In mild of the President’s assertion about cancellation of my authorities contracts, @SpaceX will start decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft instantly,” Mr. Musk wrote on X.

The feedback — which the mercurial billionaire later appeared to stroll again — got here after Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk’s practically year-long political alliance imploded in spectacular trend, with the 2 buying and selling public insults on social media.

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SpaceX’s Crew Dragon — a gumdrop-shaped capsule that flies atop a Falcon 9 rocket and splashes down within the ocean — is presently the one US spacecraft licensed to hold crew to the ISS underneath a contract value greater than $4.9 billion.

A variant, Cargo Dragon, delivers provides, because the title suggests.

Following Musk’s announcement, NASA spokeswoman Bethany Stevens mentioned on X that the federal government house company would “proceed to execute upon the President’s imaginative and prescient for the way forward for house.”

“We are going to proceed to work with our business companions to make sure the President’s aims in house are met,” she mentioned.

NASA had hoped to certify Boeing’s Starliner for crewed missions, however that program has confronted extreme delays.

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Its most up-to-date take a look at flight final 12 months resulted in failure after the spacecraft skilled propulsion points en path to the orbital lab with its first astronaut crew.

The Starliner in the end returned to Earth empty, whereas the 2 astronauts had been introduced dwelling by SpaceX earlier this 12 months.

Crew Dragon’s certification in 2020 ended practically a decade of US reliance on Russian Soyuz rockets to move astronauts following the retirement of the House Shuttle program in 2011.

American astronauts nonetheless fly aboard Soyuz rockets, whereas Russian cosmonauts experience on Crew Dragons underneath a longstanding seat-swap settlement.

Along with NASA missions, Crew Dragon additionally flies non-public missions — most just lately Fram2, which carried vacationers over the Earth’s poles.

The following scheduled crew launch is Tuesday’s Axiom-4 mission, which can see a Crew Dragon transport astronauts from India, Poland, and Hungary to the ISS.