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SpaceX’s Crew Dragon and Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket are almost ready for astronauts

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8 years ago

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In a Commercial Crew update presented by Program Manager Kathy Lueders to the NASA Advisory Council (NAC), the agency has confirmed that SpaceX is deep into the final stages of hardware preparation and testing ahead of their first uncrewed and crewed demonstrations launches of Crew Dragon.

Barring a miracle for Commercial Crew Program partner Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft program or serious faults leading up to SpaceX’s own debuts, SpaceX is all but guaranteed to become the first private company in history to design, build, and launch a spacecraft into Earth orbit with real astronauts onboard.

SpaceX’s DM-1 Crew Dragon (serial number C201; “C” for capsule, “2” for Dragon 2, and “01” for capsule #1) capsule is already in Florida at one of the company’s spacecraft processing facilities, while that vehicle’s trunk segment – a module mounted below the capsule responsible for providing power (solar arrays), thermal regulation (radiator panels), and external cargo lift capacity – is scheduled to ship from Hawthorne, CA to Florida by the end of September. Demonstration Mission-1 (DM-1) is currently targeting a launch debut no earlier than November 2018.

DM-1’s Falcon 9 launch vehicle, booster B1051 and an expendable second stage, are also making significant progress towards the Crew Dragon’s uncrewed debut launch. NASA’s report noted that B1051 was on track for shipment (presumably to the Cape) sometime in the fall (technically anytime after August 31st) and that the upper stage would likely find its way to Florida soon after, sometime in September. Due to the fact that Merlin Vacuum engine qualification has not yet been completed, that milestone is likely the only thing standing between S2 shipment to FL, as SpaceX typically builds and tests both Falcon 9 segments near-simultaneously.

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Meanwhile, SpaceX has successfully completed a duo of unique and critical tests of Crew Dragon’s parachute systems, carrying a Crew Dragon mass simulator (i.e. boilerplate) up to 45,000 feet (13,700 m) under a huge balloon before dropping the mockup, a test series designed to prove out the ability of the parachute system to successfully deploy and function in the exact flight regimes the real hardware will experience while safely returning astronauts to Earth. As NASA Commercial Crew Program Manager Kathy Lueders herself noted, that type of testing is extremely difficult to pull off, but SpaceX has thus far completed two.

On the launch pad side of things, SpaceX will be exclusively conducting Crew Dragon missions from Pad 39A. The company completed installation of a strikingly modern-looking crew access arm (CAA) just days ago, marking a crucial milestone for the historic launch complex to be truly ready to support human spaceflight once more, a heritage represented physically by the tower the arm is installed on (Shuttle-era) and the pad’s foundation and thrust diverter (constructed to support Saturn V’s Apollo moon missions).

Further down the road, SpaceX has already entered into the late stages of hardware integration and preparation for the second Crew Dragon demonstration mission (DM-2), which will almost without a doubt see SpaceX become the first private entity in history to build, launch, and operate a crewed spacecraft in Earth orbit.

According to NASA’s SpaceX-derived schedule, that particularly historic spacecraft is expected to be ready for launch as early as January, a full three months prior to its current April 2018 launch date. CEO Elon Musk did note recently on Twitter that the hardware for both crewed and uncrewed demonstration missions would “def[initely] be ready” for the launch dates of November 2018 and April 2019.

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Catch all the technical SpaceX-related slides below.

 

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Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

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Elon Musk

Musk’s massive Terafab project will get final location soon

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3 hours ago

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July 27, 2026

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Credit: SpaceX

Elon Musk’s massive Terafab project, which will be the first true conglomeration between each of his major entities, is set to get its final location soon, the CEO said on Tesla’s recent earnings call.

“The Terafab, we expect to announce a location soon, and provide more details about our plans in that regard. We’ll leave that to the product, the launch announcement rather than try to squeeze it into an earnings call,” Musk said last Wednesday.

Tesla Terafab set for launch: Inside the $20B AI chip factory that will reshape the auto industry

Terafab was announced by Musk back in March and was essentially a massive, vertically integrated semiconductor manufacturing project that would provide all the chips the three companies needed for their AI initiatives without needing third-party companies.

The plant will produce over 1 terawatt of AI compute each year, and will help back up projects like Optimus, Full Self-Driving, and other AI-based projects that Musk’s companies are working on.

In April, less than a month after the project was launched, Intel announced it would join the project, contributing manufacturing expertise and consulting to Terafab as a whole. Intel is one of three chip manufacturers that produce sub-5 nanometer chips at scale. TSMC and Samsung are the other two.

However, there was no true indication of where Terafab would end up, but most believe it will likely be somewhere in Texas. Business Insider has reported that SpaceX plans to build out Terafab in Grimes County, Texas, but this is unconfirmed.

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Musk confirmed recently that it would not be on Giga Texas property, as it is simply too large.

Terafab holds much of Musk’s grand ambitions for the future within its construct. It holds so much responsibility for the future and the biggest projects that Musk’s companies can imagine.

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“I think this is a very big announcement and it deserves to have its own day in the spotlight and not be squeezed into an earnings call,” he said. “I do think Terafab is going to be an amazing initiative and a necessary one, and one without which we will be constrained in our ability to scale Optimus production, because we simply won’t have enough AI chips.”

He continued by stating that Terafab is necessary for scaling Optimus, which Musk said could be the biggest product of any kind of all time. “It’s crucial to solve that, and we’ll have to solve memory, logic, and packaging in order to scale Optimus.”

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Elon Musk reveals SpaceX performed secret Starship test on Flight 13

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5 hours ago

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July 27, 2026

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Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX performed a secret test on a specific portion of Starship with its recent 13th test flight last week, CEO Elon Musk revealed.

Starship’s 13th test flight took place last Friday, and in many aspects, it was one of the most overwhelmingly successful launches in the project’s history.

All of the mission objectives were met without incident, both the Super Heavy Booster and Ship managed to perform safe splashdowns in the Gulf of America and the Indian Ocean, respectively, and the deployment of Starlink satellites came and went without any complications.

However, there was more on the agenda for SpaceX with Flight 13. Musk revealed an internal test of the ship’s heat shield tiles, as the space exploration company wanted to push them to the limits after previous issues.

Many noticed that Starship’s initial launch seemed to be more accelerated than normal, and that was not a mistake. Musk revealed that SpaceX decided to give Flight 13 an intentionally aggressive acceleration rate in an effort to test how well the tiles would remain attached to the ship:

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SpaceX had issues with some of the heat shield tiles remaining attached early on in the Starship program. The first six test flights presented some kind of anomaly with them, so the company’s big focus with them was to figure out a way to keep them intact through the duration of the flight.

Things truly improved as Flight 10 showed that ceramic tiles generally stayed attached to the ship far better due to refined attachment, as SpaceX utilized pins instead of adhesives. Flights 10 through 13 truly showed some clear progress with the heat shield tiles, and this latest test seems to be where some real progress was noticed, especially by Musk.

The 13th Starship launch last Friday was the second with Starship V3, SpaceX’s latest and greatest iteration of the spacecraft. Goals and ambitions are getting even grander as the project continues to progress. Musk has already hinted that SpaceX will likely try to catch Starship with Flight 14.

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Elon Musk

SpaceX wants to catch Starship for launch 14, Elon Musk says

Published

2 days ago

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July 25, 2026

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Credit: SpaceX

Just hours after Starship Flight 13 achieved a successful soft splashdown of its upper stage in the Indian Ocean on July 24, Elon Musk announced an ambitious next step for the company’s next launch of the rocket.

“Unless we discover problems after mission data review, SpaceX will attempt to catch the ship with the tower on [the] next flight,” the SpaceX CEO posted on X on Friday.

That “next flight” is expected to be Flight 14. The plan involves returning the Starship upper stage, commonly called the “ship,” to the Starbase launch tower in Texas and catching it mid-air using the same mechanical “chopsticks” arms that have already proven themselves with the Super Heavy booster.

A successful catch would mark the first time an orbital-class upper stage has been recovered this way, advancing SpaceX’s goal of full and rapid reusability for the entire vehicle.

SpaceX has already demonstrated the tower-catch technique multiple times with Super Heavy. The first successful catch came on Flight 5 in October 2024, when Booster 12 was plucked from the sky by the Mechazilla arms. Subsequent flights, including those involving Boosters 14 and 15, repeated the feat. Several of those recovered boosters were later inspected, refurbished, and flown again, proving the system’s viability for quick turnaround.

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Traditional reusable rockets, such as SpaceX’s own Falcon 9 or Blue Origin’s New Shepard, land on legs either on land or droneships. Rocket Lab has recovered its small Electron first stages by helicopter, but those are far lighter vehicles.

SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before

The China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), a subsidiary of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. (CASC), completed a catch of its booster on July 10. They are the only entity besides SpaceX to attempt and complete the feat.

Flight 13 provided encouraging data. The ship executed a controlled reentry, flipped, and soft-landed intact in the ocean after deploying Starlink satellites, offering the first clear post-splashdown views of an undamaged heat shield. The Super Heavy booster, meanwhile, experienced a harder splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.

Musk has previously stressed that ship catches would only follow multiple successful soft ocean landings to minimize risk of debris over land.

If Flight 14 succeeds, SpaceX would take a major stride toward routine, rapid reuse of both stages—critical for lowering launch costs and supporting ambitious plans for lunar and Mars missions. For now, teams are reviewing the Flight 13 data. Should everything check out, the next Starship flight could deliver one of the most spectacular recoveries in aerospace history.

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