The feud raised questions about how far Trump, an often unpredictable force who has intervened in past procurement efforts, would go to punish Musk, who until last week headed Trump’s initiative to downsize the federal government.
If the president prioritised political retaliation and canceled billions of dollars of SpaceX contracts with NASA and the Pentagon, it could slow US space progress.
SpaceX has won US$15 billion worth of contracts from NASA as the agency relies on Dragon, puts many of its science payloads and spacecraft on the company’s Falcon 9 rocket and helps fund development of SpaceX’s Starship, which is poised to land NASA astronauts on the moon this decade.
At the Pentagon, SpaceX’s rocket launch business is crucial for putting national security satellites in space. SpaceX’s military satellite unit is building a massive spy constellation in orbit for a US intelligence agency.
Taking Dragon out of service would likely disrupt the ISS programme, which involves dozens of countries under a two-decades-old international agreement, but it was unclear how quickly such a decommissioning would occur.
Musk has been looking to retire Dragon for years in order to prioritise Starship as the company’s flagship human spaceflight vessel. In 2022, SpaceX opted to halt Dragon production, capping its fleet at four before NASA urged the company to build more as Boeing’s Starliner capsule struggles in development.
NASA had hoped to certify the Starliner for crewed missions, but that programme has faced severe delays.
Its most recent test flight last year ended in failure after the spacecraft experienced propulsion issues en route to the orbital lab with its first astronaut crew.
The Starliner ultimately returned to Earth empty, while the two astronauts were brought home by SpaceX earlier this year.
