Elon said SpaceX is shutting down its Dragon spacecraft program immediately

Elon Musk just threw a live grenade into the middle of his ongoing beef with former buddy Donald Trump. On Thursday, he posted on X that SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately.

The trigger? Trump threatened to kill every government contract tied to Elon’s businesses. The two have been taking shots at each other ever since Elon blasted Trump’s tax plan. Now it’s gotten nuclear.

“In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately,” Elon posted.

Just like that, one of the most important spacecraft flying today—gone. Dragon has been the only US-built ride for astronauts heading to and from the International Space Station. There is no backup that’s ready.

SpaceX is shutting down both Dragon 1 and 2

Elon’s decision doesn’t just hit one version of the Dragon. The entire line is on the chopping block. This includes Dragon 1, which flew 23 missions between 2010 and 2020 under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services program.

It was built with $396 million of NASA funding through the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program. It was only meant for cargo and didn’t carry humans. That job went to Dragon 2.

Dragon 2 came in 2019. Unlike the earlier model, this one could fly both cargo and astronauts. The uncrewed test flight—Demo-1—launched in March 2019. The first crewed launch—Demo-2—followed in May 2020.

Since then, Crew Dragon has become one of NASA’s top options for sending humans to the ISS. It replaced the dependency on Russian Soyuz rockets after the Shuttle program ended. The Cargo Dragon version kept handling deliveries under the CRS contract.

As of now, SpaceX’s Dragon capsules are the only spacecraft made in the US that are capable of flying astronauts to space and bringing them back. One of the most recent flights returned NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to Earth after a months-long delay. They had originally launched on Boeing’s Starliner, which got stuck in orbit. Dragon picked up the slack and got them home.

Red Dragon, Dragon XL also impacted

It’s not just the operational Dragons. The future-facing projects are getting hit too. SpaceX had also proposed Red Dragon, a Mars-focused version. That one never launched but had been teased for a while. A more active project, the Dragon XL, is now caught in the crossfire.

Dragon XL was meant to support NASA’s Lunar Gateway, a station in orbit around the Moon. First unveiled in 2020, NASA and SpaceX have spent years refining its specs. On February 22, 2023, Mark Wiese, NASA’s head of deep space logistics, said during a panel at SpaceCom that the agency had been working with SpaceX on studies to update the Dragon XL’s cargo capabilities.

Wiese also hinted that while Dragon XL would handle early missions, it would later be replaced by Starship: “[NASA] talked to [SpaceX] about Starship evolution and how it all worked together, but we’re not there yet because it’s still in a development phase.” The idea was that Dragon XL would step in while Starship matured. That timeline now looks completely fucked.

NASA even had specific plans for Dragon XL. A March 29, 2024 article from the agency detailed that Dragon XL would support Artemis IV, which is scheduled to be the first crewed mission to the Lunar Gateway in 2028.

It was supposed to carry science equipment and supplies. That mission was also going to overlap with a Starship launch, which would dock with the Gateway and assist in assembling the station.

So now, with Elon ordering the plug pulled, Artemis IV is in a tight spot. Starship isn’t fully operational yet. And Dragon XL—one of the few vehicles that could do the job—may be off the table altogether.

This decision comes during a time when SpaceX has been relied on more than ever by NASA. Cutting off Dragon not only cripples near-term missions but throws future moon and Mars plans into chaos. 

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