SpaceX closes America's ISS crew gap, ushering in private-spaceflight era
TL;DR
NASA retired the Space Shuttle in 2011, leaving the ISS without an American crew vehicle and forcing reliance on Russian Soyuz. SpaceX stepped in with Dragon and Falcon 9 under fixed-price contracts, delivering cargo starting in 2012 and crewed flights beginning in 2020 with Crew Dragon Demo-2, effectively ending the long gap in U.S. access to the station. Boeing’s Starliner faced delays, but SpaceX remains the primary operational crew vehicle, as private firms and new commercial missions expand access to the ISS and future commercial stations.
- The International Space Station orbits Earth roughly every 90 minutes, yet for years no American spacecraft could reach it — a gap a single private company stepped in to close Space Daily
- NASA still has no American-built way to reach the International Space Station except SpaceX's Dragon capsule — a dependency that has lasted years and shows no sign of ending soon Space Daily
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