Crew Dragon, also called Dragon 2, is SpaceX's crewed orbital spacecraft and the only American vehicle certified to carry astronauts to and from the International Space Station.[1][2] Its first crewed flight, the Demo-2 test on May 30, 2020, was the first orbital launch of NASA astronauts from American soil since the Space Shuttle retired in 2011.[3] Through August 22, 2026, the spacecraft has flown 20 crewed missions: 17 to the station, including 13 under NASA's Commercial Crew Program and four Axiom Space private astronaut flights, plus three free-flying private missions that never docked anywhere.[4][5] NASA certified Crew Dragon and its Falcon 9 launch vehicle in November 2020, the first certification of a commercial system for regular crewed spaceflight.[1]

The capsule seats up to seven people by design, although NASA missions fly four.[5][6] Its launch escape system uses eight SuperDraco engines built into the capsule walls, which can push the spacecraft away from a failing rocket at any point from the launch pad to orbit.[6][7] SpaceX operates a fleet of five reusable capsules named Endeavour, Resilience, Endurance, Freedom, and Grace, has said it will build no more, and is working with NASA to extend each capsule's certification from five flights to as many as 15.[4][8]

Status as of August 2026

Crew Dragon Freedom has been docked at the International Space Station since February 14, 2026, when it delivered the Crew-12 rotation of Jessica Meir, Jack Hathaway, Sophie Adenot, and Andrey Fedyaev.[9][10] NASA targets the next rotation, Crew-13, for no earlier than September 12, 2026; it will be the second flight of Grace, the newest capsule, and the 18th crewed Dragon mission to the station.[4][11] No private Crew Dragon mission has flown in 2026; the next, Axiom Mission 5, is targeted for no earlier than January 2027. SpaceX said on August 3 that it sees significant life left in the fleet and does not plan to build more Crew Dragons.[4] Demand remains high: NASA proposed in May 2026 to buy up to six more rotations beyond Crew-14 because Boeing's Starliner is still uncertified, ESA is considering a dedicated Dragon mission for its astronauts, and flights to Vast's planned Haven-1 commercial station are under contract.[2][4] SpaceX expects Dragon to keep flying alongside Starship as the larger vehicle matures.[4]

Development

Crew Dragon grew out of SpaceX's first-generation cargo Dragon, which in December 2010 became the first commercial spacecraft recovered from orbit and in May 2012 the first to berth with the International Space Station. That earlier vehicle, now called Dragon 1, flew NASA resupply missions until 2020.[12] After the Space Shuttle retired in July 2011, NASA depended on Russia's Soyuz for crew transport, at an average price of 79.7 million dollars per seat for flights after 2017.[13] To restore an American crew capability, NASA awarded fixed-price Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contracts on September 16, 2014: 2.6 billion dollars to SpaceX for Crew Dragon and 4.2 billion dollars to Boeing for the CST-100 Starliner.[14]

SpaceX tested the escape system first. On May 6, 2015, a Crew Dragon test vehicle fired its eight SuperDraco engines to fling itself away from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral in a simulated pad emergency.[7] The uncrewed Demo-1 mission launched on March 2, 2019, docked autonomously with the station, and splashed down six days later.[5]

The program then absorbed a serious setback. On April 20, 2019, the Demo-1 capsule was destroyed in an explosion on a Cape Canaveral test stand during a static-fire test of its SuperDraco engines, less than two months after returning from orbit. The investigation traced the failure to a leaking component that let nitrogen tetroxide oxidizer seep into high-pressure helium lines; during pressurization, a slug of the propellant slammed into a titanium check valve and ignited it.[15] SpaceX replaced the check valves with burst disks, which seal the propellant lines completely until engine startup, and test-fired the redesigned system that November.[16]

Recovery from the accident took about a year. On January 19, 2020, an uncrewed Crew Dragon fired its SuperDracos about 90 seconds into a Falcon 9 launch and escaped the rocket in the program's final major flight test.[17] Demo-2 followed on May 30, 2020, carrying NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the station.[3] The pair returned on August 2 after 64 days in space, splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico off Pensacola in the first return of astronauts aboard a commercially built and operated spacecraft.[18] NASA certified the system on November 10, 2020, and the Crew-1 mission opened operational service five days later.[1][5] NASA has since expanded SpaceX's contract to 14 crew rotations worth about 4.9 billion dollars, running through 2030.[19]

Design

Crew Dragon consists of two elements: a pressurized capsule for crew and cargo, and an unpressurized trunk that carries solar arrays and radiators and is jettisoned before reentry. The spacecraft stands 26.7 feet (8.1 meters) tall and 13 feet (4 meters) across, and docks with the station autonomously, although the crew can take manual control.[6] Falcon 9 launches it from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center and from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral.[6][9]

SpecificationValue
Height26.7 feet (8.1 meters)[6]
Diameter13 feet (4 meters)[6]
Crew capacityUp to 7 by design; 4 on NASA missions[5][6]
Launch vehicleFalcon 9, from LC-39A and SLC-40[6][9]
Launch escape8 SuperDraco engines, about 15,000 pounds of thrust each[7]
Maneuvering16 Draco thrusters[16]
Heat shieldPICA-X ablative shield[20]
DockingAutonomous, with manual backup[6]
LandingDrogue parachutes, then 4 main parachutes, ocean splashdown[6]
Certified reuse5 flights per capsule; extension toward 15 in work[4][8]

The escape system sets Crew Dragon apart from earlier capsules, which pulled themselves off a failing rocket with a tower-mounted rocket that had to be discarded during ascent. Crew Dragon's eight SuperDracos sit in pods around the capsule wall in a pusher arrangement, burn hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide, and remain available from the launch pad all the way to orbit.[6][7][16] Sixteen smaller Draco thrusters handle orbital maneuvering and attitude control.[16]

For reentry, the capsule is protected by PICA-X, SpaceX's version of the phenolic impregnated carbon ablator material that NASA's Ames Research Center developed; the shield chars and erodes in a controlled way to carry heat away from the structure.[20] Drogue parachutes then extract four main parachutes for an ocean splashdown, and a recovery ship with a medical facility and helipad lifts the capsule from the water.[6]

Splashdowns moved coasts in 2025. Dragon originally landed off Florida, but SpaceX shifted recoveries to the Pacific off California so that debris from the discarded trunk falls into open ocean rather than over land. Fram2 made the first crewed Pacific splashdown in April 2025, and Crew-10 became the first NASA rotation to land there that August.[21][22]

Fleet and reuse

SpaceX has built five operational Crew Dragon capsules and says the fifth is the last. Grace, tail number C213, debuted on Axiom Mission 4 in June 2025 with updated storage areas and improved propulsion; at that point Endeavour had flown five missions and Resilience, Endurance, and Freedom four each.[8] Endeavour, which carried Demo-2 in 2020, set the fleet reuse record with its sixth flight on Crew-11 in August 2025.[23] Freedom flew the Crew-12 rotation in February 2026, and Grace is assigned to Crew-13.[4][10]

Each capsule was originally certified for five flights, and NASA and SpaceX are working through the engineering to extend individual components to as many as 15.[4][8] SpaceX intends Starship to take over crew transport eventually but expects a long overlap in which both vehicles fly.[4]

Flight history

Crew Dragon's 20 crewed missions through August 22, 2026 break down into one test flight, 12 NASA crew rotations, four Axiom Space missions to the station, and three free-flying private flights. NASA's press kit and mission pages, together with the mission-by-mission reporting cited below, give the following record.[4][5]

MissionLaunchCrewNotes
Demo-2May 30, 20202Crewed test flight; returned August 2, 2020[3][18]
Crew-1November 15, 20204First operational NASA rotation[5]
Crew-2April 23, 20214NASA rotation[5]
Inspiration4September 15, 20214First all-civilian orbital mission; did not visit the station[24]
Crew-3November 10, 20214NASA rotation[5]
Ax-1April 8, 20224First private astronaut mission to the station[25]
Crew-4April 27, 20224NASA rotation[5]
Crew-5October 5, 20224NASA rotation[5]
Crew-6March 2, 20234NASA rotation[5]
Ax-2May 21, 20234Included the first Saudi woman in space[26]
Crew-7August 26, 20234NASA rotation[5]
Ax-3January 18, 20244Included the first Turkish astronaut in space[27]
Crew-8March 3, 20244NASA rotation[5]
Polaris DawnSeptember 10, 20244First commercial spacewalk; 1,400.7 km apogee[28]
Crew-9September 28, 20242Launched two, returned four with the Starliner test crew[29]
Crew-10March 14, 20254First NASA rotation to splash down in the Pacific[5][21]
Fram2March 31, 20254First crewed polar orbit[30]
Ax-4June 25, 20254Debut of Grace; first station visit for India, Poland, and Hungary[31]
Crew-11August 1, 20254Endeavour's record sixth flight; returned early January 15, 2026[23][32]
Crew-12February 13, 20264In progress; Freedom docked February 14[9][10]
Crew-13No earlier than September 12, 20264Target date, not a completed mission[11]

Two missions departed from routine. Crew-9 launched with two empty seats so it could bring home Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, whose Boeing Starliner test vehicle had returned without them; all four splashed down on March 18, 2025.[29] Crew-11 came home about a month early on January 15, 2026, after 167 days, because of a medical concern involving one crew member, whom NASA described as stable.[32]

Private missions

Crew Dragon carries nearly all of the world's private orbital space tourism and commercial astronaut flights, in two forms: station visits brokered by Axiom Space under NASA's private astronaut mission program, and free flights that SpaceX operates directly for a paying commander.

Inspiration4, in September 2021, was the first orbital mission with no professional astronauts aboard. Businessman Jared Isaacman chartered the capsule Resilience for himself, Sian Proctor, Hayley Arceneaux, and Chris Sembroski, flew for about 71 hours at an altitude of roughly 585 kilometers, well above the space station, and used the flight to raise money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. SpaceX replaced the docking adapter with a domed window for the mission.[24]

The Axiom Space series took private crews to the station itself. Ax-1, in April 2022, was the first fully private mission to visit, spending about 17 days in orbit under former NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria.[25] Ax-2, in May 2023, was commanded by Peggy Whitson and carried Rayyanah Barnawi, the first Saudi woman in space.[26] Ax-3, in January 2024, flew the first all-European commercial crew, including Alper Gezeravci, the first Turkish astronaut in space.[27] Ax-4 launched on June 25, 2025, on the new capsule Grace and put astronauts from India, Poland, and Hungary aboard the station for the first time, among them Shubhanshu Shukla, the first Indian astronaut to visit; the crew splashed down off California on July 15.[31] NASA selected Axiom for a fifth mission on January 30, 2026, targeted for no earlier than January 2027, and is finalizing an order for a sixth.[33]

Polaris Dawn, in September 2024, pushed the spacecraft farther from Earth than any previous flight. Isaacman's four-person crew reached an apogee of 1,400.7 kilometers, above the 1966 record of Gemini 11 and the highest any humans had flown since the Apollo program. On September 12 the crew depressurized the entire cabin, and Isaacman and SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis each spent several minutes outside the hatch in the first commercial spacewalk, testing SpaceX-designed suits. The mission also tested Starlink laser communications and ran about 40 experiments before splashing down near the Dry Tortugas on September 15.[28]

Fram2, from March 31 to April 4, 2025, made the first crewed flight over Earth's poles. Bitcoin entrepreneur Chun Wang flew with Jannicke Mikkelsen, Rabea Rogge, and Eric Philips in an orbit passing over both poles, a trajectory no crew had ever attempted, and the mission ended with the first crewed Pacific splashdown of the Dragon era.[30][22]

Cargo Dragon and derivatives

Cargo Dragon 2 is the uncrewed sibling of Crew Dragon, sharing the same capsule design without seats, SuperDracos, or cockpit controls. It first flew on the CRS-21 resupply mission on December 6, 2020, and unlike the berthed Dragon 1 it docks with the station autonomously while carrying about double its predecessor's powered-locker capacity for science payloads.[34] NASA extended the Commercial Resupply Services 2 contract in November 2024 to run through 2030, having obligated about 2.8 billion dollars to SpaceX by then.[35] Because it survives reentry intact, Cargo Dragon is the station's principal means of returning research samples and hardware to Earth.[36]

A modified Dragon will also end the station's life. NASA selected SpaceX in June 2024 to build the US Deorbit Vehicle under a contract worth up to 843 million dollars; NASA will own and operate the vehicle, procure its launch separately, and use it to steer the station into a remote ocean area in a controlled reentry expected in 2031.[37][38]

One proposed derivative is in limbo. NASA picked SpaceX's Dragon XL, an enlarged cargo craft, for Gateway logistics services in 2020, but development moved slowly, work paused in 2025 after the administration proposed canceling Gateway, and NASA has studied using Starship for the job instead.[39] NASA paused the Gateway program in its current form in March 2026, and a decision between the two architectures was still pending as of early 2026.[39][40]

References

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  2. Commercial Crew Transportation Capabilities Contract Notice - NASA procurement notice on SAM.gov, May 18, 2026.
  3. NASA Astronauts Launch from America in Historic Test Flight of SpaceX Crew Dragon - NASA, May 30, 2020.
  4. Future of Crew Dragon weighs on commercial spaceflight industry - SpaceNews, August 4, 2026.
  5. Commercial Crew Program Press Kit - NASA.
  6. NASA's Commercial Crew Partners Mission Profile - NASA, 2021.
  7. Crew Dragon Abort Test - NASA, May 6, 2015.
  8. SpaceX to debut its fifth and final Crew Dragon spacecraft on Axiom Mission 4 - Spaceflight Now, June 10, 2025.
  9. NASA's SpaceX Crew-12 Launches to International Space Station - NASA, February 13, 2026.
  10. Successful lift-off for Crew-12 on 13 February 2026 - European Space Agency, February 13, 2026.
  11. NASA's SpaceX Crew-13 - NASA, updated August 5, 2026.
  12. SpaceX Mission Milestones - SpaceX.
  13. NASA's Management of Crew Transportation to the International Space Station (IG-20-005) - NASA Office of Inspector General, November 14, 2019.
  14. NASA Chooses American Companies to Transport U.S. Astronauts to International Space Station - NASA, September 16, 2014.
  15. SpaceX points to leaky valve as culprit in Crew Dragon test accident - Spaceflight Now, July 15, 2019.
  16. SpaceX fires up Crew Dragon thrusters in key test after April explosion - Spaceflight Now, November 13, 2019.
  17. NASA, SpaceX Complete Final Major Flight Test of Crew Spacecraft - NASA, January 19, 2020.
  18. 'An Incredible Day': Splashdown Concludes NASA's SpaceX Demo-2 - NASA, August 2, 2020.
  19. NASA's Management of Its Commercial Crew Program (IG-26-011) - NASA Office of Inspector General, June 30, 2026.
  20. Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator (PICA) Heat Shield Technology is Used by SpaceX - NASA.
  21. Crew 10 returns to Earth with Pacific Ocean splashdown - Spaceflight Now, August 9, 2025.
  22. SpaceX Fram2 crew splashes down off California coast to close out historic trip around Earth's poles - CBS News, April 4, 2025.
  23. NASA, SpaceX 'thread the clouds' to launch Crew-11 to the International Space Station - Spaceflight Now, August 1, 2025.
  24. All-civilian crew prepares for Saturday evening splashdown - Spaceflight Now, September 18, 2021.
  25. Axiom Mission 1 - Axiom Space.
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  27. Axiom Mission 3 - Axiom Space.
  28. Polaris Dawn Splashes Down After Five Busy Days - SpacePolicyOnline, September 15, 2024.
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  30. Meet the Fram2 crew: A cryptocurrency entrepreneur, a cinematographer, a robotics engineer and an Arctic explorer - Spaceflight Now, March 31, 2025.
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  32. NASA's SpaceX Crew-11 Mission Returns, Splashes Down off California - NASA, January 15, 2026.
  33. NASA Selects Axiom Space for Fifth Private Mission to Space Station - NASA, January 30, 2026.
  34. SpaceX's CRS-21: A Mission of Many Firsts - NASA, December 4, 2020.
  35. NASA extends ISS cargo contracts through 2030 - SpaceNews, November 9, 2024.
  36. International Space Station Visiting Vehicles - NASA.
  37. NASA Selects International Space Station US Deorbit Vehicle - NASA, June 26, 2024.
  38. FAQs: The International Space Station Transition Plan - NASA.
  39. NASA considering alternatives for Gateway logistics - SpaceNews, January 29, 2026.
  40. NASA Unveils Initiatives to Achieve America's National Space Policy - NASA, March 24, 2026.