SpaceX to Retire Crew Dragon and Falcon 9 After 2030

SpaceX has informed NASA that it no longer wants to fly Crew Dragon or Falcon 9 on low-Earth orbit missions and intends to retire the vehicles after supporting the International Space Station until 2030. The company has also told private space station developers Axiom Space, Voyager Space and Vast Space that they cannot order Crew Dragon missions.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said at a Monday news conference that SpaceX intends to sunset older platforms like Falcon and Dragon as it concentrates on Starship. SpaceX has additionally told NASA it is not interested in developing Starship for human launches into Earth orbit at this time.

The decision marks a shift for a company that built its early commercial crew business around NASA. In April 2024, NASA stated it supports a robust commercial space economy. The agency invested $3.1 billion in the development and certification of Crew Dragon under the Commercial Crew Program. SpaceX has flown 13 Crew Dragon missions for NASA to the space station and will launch another in a few days. It had recently agreed to keep flying through the Crew-17 mission.

SpaceX now derives a majority of its revenue from Starlink. In financial filings earlier this year, the company said most future revenue will come from Starlink and orbital data centers. Its "space enabled solutions" category, which includes NASA, is about 1 percent of its total addressable market.

Twenty years ago, NASA launched a program to develop private spacecraft for cargo delivery to the space station. The retirement plan leaves private station developers without a proven U.S. crew vehicle as they prepare for the post-ISS era.