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NASA and the defence department rely on SpaceX in so many ways
In 2006, a small, little-known company named Space Exploration Technologies Corp. --
SpaceX
, for short -- won a
NASA
contract to ferry cargo and supplies to the International Space Station.
At that moment, SpaceX had not yet launched anything to orbit and would not succeed until two years later with its tiny Falcon 1 rocket. But since then, the Elon Musk-founded company has become the linchpin of all American civilian and military spaceflight.
It started in 2010 with the launch of the first
Falcon 9
rocket. By 2012 the launcher was sending cargo to the space station.
NASA money helped finance the development of the Falcon 9, and SpaceX capitalized on the NASA seal of approval to entice companies to launch their satellites with SpaceX.
It became the Southwest Airlines of the rocket industry, selling launches and hauling satellites into orbit at a lower price than most other rockets then available.
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That story repeated during the Obama administration when SpaceX won a contract to take astronauts to the space station, which it did for the first time in May 2020 during the first administration of President Donald Trump.
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"Today the ground breaking partnership between NASA and SpaceX has given our nation the gift of an unmatched power a state-of-the-art spaceship to put our astronauts into orbit at a fraction of the cost of the space shuttle," Trump said in a speech at Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on May 30, 2020, after that flight, shortly after giving an ovation to Musk.
As SpaceX succeeded its competitors stumbled, and today Musk's company is the dominant player in the space industry.
The federal government now relies heavily on SpaceX -- and Musk, who founded the company in 2002 on a quixotic quest to send people to Mars one day. In the short term, the government has few other options for getting people and payloads to orbit and beyond.
SpaceX is NASA's only reliable ride to the ISS right now.
SpaceX
Crew Dragon
capsules carry astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station for NASA. If SpaceX were to decommission them, as
Elon Musk
initially threatened Thursday, the future of the beleaguered and aging space station would be in further doubt.
Musk appeared to walk back that threat later in the day. But if he followed through with it, it seems almost certain that SpaceX would at least bring back to the Earth the Crew Dragon currently docked at the space station, as well as the four astronauts relying on it for the trip home.
But it would have no way to send up the next set of astronauts.
NASA has few ready alternatives to get to the ISS.
NASA hired other companies to provide those services so that if something went wrong, it would have an alternative. However, Boeing, the other company NASA hired to take astronauts to orbit, has yet to complete fixes for its Starliner capsule after a test mission left two NASA astronauts, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, in orbit for nine months before they finally returned to Earth in a SpaceX Crew Dragon.
Boeing and NASA have not yet announced when the next Starliner will launch, but that is not expected before next year.
The aerospace company Northrop Grumman also has a contract to take cargo to the space station with its Cygnus spacecraft, but the most recent Cygnus had to be scrapped after it was damaged during shipment to Florida for launch.
NASA has hired a third company, Sierra Space of Louisville, Colorado, for cargo deliveries. But the company's Dream Chaser space plane has yet to make its first flight.
NASA would have to adjust its space station plans.
In the short term, the crew of the space station could be reduced to three -- the number of astronauts that can fit into a Russian Soyuz capsule. NASA could conceivably resume buying Soyuz seats from Russia, as it did between the retirement of the space shuttles and the beginning of Crew Dragon flights.
NASA has also hired SpaceX to build the spacecraft that is to push the space station back into the atmosphere so that it can safely burn up over the Pacific Ocean after it is retired in 2030.
Boots on the moon would likely have to wait.
Without SpaceX, the current plan to land NASA astronauts on the moon in a few years also falls apart. SpaceX has a contract to build a version of the new giant Starship rocket that is to take two NASA astronauts to the surface of the moon during the third mission in the
Artemis program
.
Blue Origin, the rocket company started by Jeff Bezos, also has a NASA contract for a lunar astronaut lander, but that is planned for years later, during the Artemis V mission.
"NASA will continue to execute upon the President's vision for the future of space," Bethany Stevens, NASA's press secretary, wrote on X late Thursday afternoon. "We will continue to work with our industry partners to ensure the President's objectives in space are met."
Security satellites and space explorers would be stranded.
Canceling all of SpaceX's contracts, as Trump threatened, could leave many federal government payloads stranded on the ground. SpaceX has won contracts to launch NASA science missions like Dragonfly, a nuclear-powered drone that is to fly around Saturn's moon Titan. It also routinely launches classified U.S. military and intelligence satellites orbiting Earth.
The Department of Defense has also hired SpaceX to build a more secure version of its Starlink internet satellites for military communications.
There are emerging competitors to SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets for these government payloads.
The Vulcan rocket from United Launch Alliance launched for the first time last year, and the New Glenn rocket from Blue Origin launched for the first time earlier this year. But they lack the long success record of the SpaceX launchers, and they are more expensive.
