News
SpaceX to end Crew Dragon capsule production as Starship’s shadow grows
Reuters reports that SpaceX has begun to shut down Crew Dragon capsule production after assembling a fleet of four reusable spacecraft, highlighting the company’s ever-growing desire to pivot to Starship.
According to SpaceX president and chief operating officer (COO) Gwynne Shotwell, who spoke with Reuters reporter Joey Roulette, the company has already ended production of new Crew Dragon capsules after recently completing a fourth operational spacecraft. Nicknamed “Freedom” by its crew, Dragon capsule C212 (Dragon 2 capsule #12) is scheduled to debut as early as April 19th and will ultimately ferry SpaceX’s fourth crew of government astronauts to and from the International Space Station.
However, while ending production of Crew Dragon might sound like a dramatic and unexpected move after less than two years of operational astronaut launches and undeniably hints at the company’s desire for Starship to take over, it’s not quite as jarring as it seems.
Above all else, Shotwell did not explicitly mention Cargo Dragon 2 production. It’s possible that there was a miscommunication during the brief Q&A and that a generic statement about ending production of all Dragon capsules was projected onto just SpaceX’s Crew Dragon variants, but the Reuters article strongly implies that only Crew Dragon production has been ended.
As of today, SpaceX only has two operational Cargo Dragon 2 capsules in its uncrewed fleet – both of which have already flown twice. Following a recent contract extension, SpaceX is scheduled to complete at least 11 more ISS cargo deliveries and recoveries by 2027 and while it’s possible that the company is confident enough to gamble that two Dragon 2 capsules can complete all 15 CRS2 resupply missions, a SpaceX engineer confirmed that at least one more Cargo Dragon is scheduled to debut in 2022. With three Dragons, that would at least give SpaceX the ability to confidently fulfill its CRS2 obligations even if one capsule is damaged or lost.
Meanwhile, Shotwell indicated that SpaceX would preserve the ability to restart Dragon production if the need arose – far easier said than done. At the same time, the company will still need to churn out at least half a dozen or so expendable Dragon ‘trunks’ per year and continue building a wide range of replacement parts. A substantial team will also be needed to refurbish and operate Crew and Cargo Dragons for as long as launches continue.
But by and large, the move to end Crew Dragon capsule production says one thing above all else: that SpaceX is chomping at the bit to redirect large portions of its Falcon and Dragon workforce to Starship development. If SpaceX can make it work, Starship – a fully-reusable two-stage rocket – could end up costing roughly as much as Dragon and Falcon per launch but its launch costs could also plummet to a magnitude less – all while offering a magnitude more space, performance, and capabilities.
Crew Dragon is currently used to launch four astronauts at a time. A single crewed Starship could have a habitable volume greater than the entire International Space Station and carry 40 astronauts into orbit inside it in a single launch. Cargo Dragon typically delivers about three tons (~6600 lb) of cargo to the ISS. A Cargo Starship could deliver dozens of tons in one go – more cargo space than NASA would know what to do with after decades sent under the tyranny of razor-thin mass margins.
NASA is likely the single largest individual investor in Starship after contracting with SpaceX to build a version of Starship capable of returning astronauts to the Moon for about $3 billion, meaning that the space agency will be intimately aware of and involved in the vehicle’s development over the next 5-10 years. It would only be logical to extract as much value as possible out of that investment and simultaneously revolutionize the transportation of cargo and, one day, astronauts to Earth orbit and beyond.
Unfortunately, there’s no real guarantee that NASA will actually do that, but SpaceX’s choice to end Dragon capsule production so early on makes it clear that the company is more than willing to prepare the groundwork for such a transition itself.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
SpaceX’s Starship flew successfully Friday, landing both stages and deploying its first Starlink V3 satellites.
Starship’s thirteenth test flight delivered exactly what SpaceX needed with a clean liftoff, two successful stage recoveries, and the first real payload the vehicle has ever carried to space. Booster 20 and Ship 40 lifted off at 5:51 p.m. CT from Starbase, and by the time the mission wrapped roughly an hour later, both halves of the rocket had done exactly what they were supposed to do.
Booster 20 separated from Ship 40 a few minutes into the flight and stuck a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico about six minutes after liftoff. That is a meaningful turnaround from Flight 12 in May, when the booster lost several engines during its boostback burn before a hard water landing attempt.
Starship as seen from Starlink satellites pic.twitter.com/e2hvfmnewh
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 25, 2026
Starship 40’s performance was arguably the bigger win. The vehicle deployed the first 20 operational Starlink V3 satellites Starship has ever carried, then flew a suborbital arc to a landing in the Indian Ocean that SpaceX commentator Dan Huot called the company’s softest splashdown yet. “This is a dream scenario for this team that’s trying to get this heat shield data,” Huot said on the live broadcast, according to Space.com’s live coverage. “I’m a little over the moon right now. Wow. Lucky number 13.”
Unlike the mass simulators SpaceX flew on Flight 12, these were production Starlink V3 satellites, meant to extend solar arrays and antennas and attempt to link with the broader constellation before reentering minutes later. Getting real hardware through a full deploy sequence on only the second flight of the V3 generation keeps Starship on schedule for the payload work NASA is counting on for future Artemis lunar landings.
What an awesome launch, really seems like everything went super well and it was all incredibly smooth.
SpaceX is awesome. Very interested to see how the market will respond on Monday pic.twitter.com/KSHmyBfV55
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 25, 2026
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 25, 2026
The flight also arrives at a moment when SpaceX needed a win. SPCX has traded below its $135 IPO price since mid-July, as Teslarati reported when the mission slipped to Friday, and short interest has climbed to roughly a third of the tradable float. A clean flight will not fix a balance sheet, but it does answer the one question SpaceX absolutely needed answered this week: whether the fixes made after the July 16 abort would hold up under real flight conditions. They did, on both stages, on the first try after the redesign.
SpaceX has not set a target date for Flight 14, though the company has said it wants to push toward an orbital attempt on the next mission. After Friday, that goal looks a lot more within reach.
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner in Los Angeles dominated the company’s global usage rankings after just one year, proving the concept is more than just a one-off novelty location that will fade away.
The performance could incite the company to build more locations, something that CEO Elon Musk has hinted at for some time.
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner delivered 21.2 GWh of energy in its first year of operation, the company’s head of Charging, Max de Zegher, revealed on X. Of the top 10 most utilized Supercharger locations in Tesla’s global infrastructure, the Diner in Los Angeles was the most used by drivers, and it wasn’t particularly close:
Tesla Diner opened exactly 1 year ago. Inspiring that futuristic places like this exist.
It’s our highest usage Supercharger in the world: 21.2 GWh delivered in a year, 1.6k sessions/day.
Top 10 Superchargers by energy delivered: https://t.co/9YvJ8lw696 pic.twitter.com/koB3AUJHws
— Max (@MdeZegher) July 21, 2026
On its launch day one year ago, nobody was too sure what the Tesla Diner would be about. It seemed like an interesting concept, and considering it had been in the works for years, it was a highly anticipated launch that many were looking forward to.
Based on its success, we could see additional Diners with Superchargers built throughout the United States, and potentially beyond. Musk has said on several occasions that the company would be willing to bring the Diner idea to more markets.
Tesla makes major change at Supercharger Diner amid epic demand
Of the markets that Musk has mentioned, both Palo Alto and Austin have come to be perceived as ideal selections. However, there are no concrete plans as of now to build new Supercharger Diners anywhere; the location on Santa Monica Boulevard will remain the exclusive spot to pick up Tesla-inspired eats, at least for the time being.
Tesla short sellers won big following the company’s massive fall on Wall Street after it reported subpar Earnings on Wednesday.
Tesla short sellers collected about $4.12 billion in single-day profits on Thursday, according to Bloomberg. Shares fell as much as 15 percent during Thursday’s session. It closed as one of the worst days for Tesla on Wall Street in the past three years.
Investors sold off the stock after Tesla said it would aggressively direct its spending toward AI and its Optimus robot project. The company had record revenues, which were driven by one of the strongest quarters in terms of vehicle deliveries in company history.
However, it missed EPS estimates by reporting just $0.33, a far cry from the $0.53 analysts expected.
S3 Partners reported that about 3 percent of Tesla’s outstanding stock is sold short. Managing Director at S3, Ihor Dusaniwsky, provided the short seller’s potential profit, as well as another figure: shorts have likely had paper gains of $8.92 billion this year, as Tesla shares are down 30 percent in 2026.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla has burned short sellers many times in the past, but the company’s latest Earnings Call was a chance for those skeptics to taste some payback. Although the company gave some very transparent information regarding future projects, the rollout of Robotaxi, Optimus, and Semi, many investors took their profits on Thursday.
Notable short sellers like Michael Burry have been transparent about their skepticism around Tesla shares. Burry just revealed three weeks ago that he had opened up a new short on the stock, stating he shorted Tesla shares at $416.22. “Happy it jumped back to this level,” he said in a blog post.
At the time of publication, Tesla shares were down about 3 percent and the stock was trading at $309.92.
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner probably just secured more locations
