Six years ago this past May, when Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken rode a SpaceX Crew Dragon from pad 39A on the Kennedy Space center, it was the first time that a manned flight took place from the US, since the last Space Shuttle flight in the summer of 2011. With the safe return of Crew Dragon, the US space agency broke a nearly decade-long gap in its ability to put humans into orbit.
New readers or people who don't follow this closely may not be clear on this, but when the Commercial Crew program's first contracts were cut, the early winner was Boeing, and their Starliner. Nobody really thought the startup small rocket company, SpaceX would be able to do it. After all Boeing had a massive head start on the little guys and had been a supplier to NASA for practically as long as NASA existed. Since that first SpaceX flight in May of 2020, Boeing's Starliner has not completed one mission, and only made it to the space station one time thanks to a combination of luck and the extreme competence of Butch Wilmore, pilot for that mission.
That mission was later declared a Type A mishap, the worst level in NASA's failure analysis system, and probably won’t fly another crewed mission before 2028. Based on results so far, it's fair to take any date Boeing issues and double the waiting time.
A complication is starting to attract attention to the lack of a second, proven reliable, vehicle to get astronauts into space. The ISS is scheduled to reach end of life in 2030, and whether or not that's a latest or earliest date for the ISS to be deorbited is somewhat like the old jokes about optimists vs. pessimists. A common theme is that each one sees it their way.
With the International Space Station slated for retirement in the early 2030s, NASA is partnering with several US companies to develop private space stations. As part of that effort, the private companies will have to work with NASA to determine how they will transport astronauts to and from their space stations, some of which could launch as soon as 2030.
And it turns out this is more difficult than it sounds.
Over the last couple of years, we've run articles on these efforts to develop private space stations. We've seen mention of Axiom Space, Vast, Voyager, and Blue Origin. SpaceX is in a bit of strange place right now considering they're pretty much the world leader in spaceflight. They haven't been contracted to work on a new space station now, and there's apparently belief in the contracting group at NASA that SpaceX is pushing everything they do in the direction of using Starship and "it's too big" for these small space stations. Add to that the fact that there's no agreement to keep producing Crew Dragon capsules
SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell has said the company will fly Crew Dragon and the Falcon 9 rocket for a finite number of years, possibly for less than a decade as the company transitions its launches to Starship.
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“It’s a disaster waiting to happen,” one industry source told Ars about Crew Dragon availability in the 2030s. [emphasis added - SiG]
Needing a replacement for the Crew Dragon implies that they'd like the new one to be interchangeable with the predecessor and that a well-made copy of the Dragon would be an acceptable alternative. Enter a company we've reported on a few times in the last couple of years, the European startup called The Exploration Company.
Last week, the company hosted an office-opening celebration in Webster, Texas, within a couple of miles of the Johnson Space Flight Center. Founder Hélène Huby said her company was considering making Houston the base of its operations to develop a crewed spacecraft.
The Exploration Company has already won funding from the European Space Agency to develop a cargo vehicle, called Nyx, to carry supplies to the International Space Station. An initial mission may happen in late 2028 or 2029. And Huby has made no secret of her desire to build a crew vehicle.
“It’s very clear that in the United States there is a big need for an additional crew vehicle, and nobody exactly knows if Dragon will continue to serve,” she said. “And even if Dragon continues to serve, which I wish it will because it’s an amazing vehicle, then it’s good to have a bit more competition. And also the path for Boeing is kind of uncertain right now.”
Huby is seeking to attract funding both from the European Space Agency and NASA for the development of a crew vehicle, and then to leverage that money to raise additional private capital for a crew vehicle. The company has already taken preliminary steps toward this, which she estimates will require about eight years and $4 billion.
SpaceX Dragon meets sunrise at launch pad for Crew-10 flight March 10, 2025.
Image credit: SpaceX
Eric Berger at Ars Technica adds this good summary to the situation.
If this sounds far-fetched, perhaps it should not. Huby has shown considerable skill in working with European space officials to emerge as a leading contender to build a crew vehicle at a time when leaders there have made their desire for one clear.
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