The Crew Dragon is the first privately-developed human orbital spacecraft and is currently the only way NASA and private company Axiom can get astronauts to the International Space Station from US soil. The fleet is comprised of four reusable spacecraft: Endeavour, Resilience, Endurance, and Freedom.

Called Crew Dragon, but known officially as Dragon v2, this SpaceX capsule is designed to carry a maximum of four passengers to the International Space Station or other Earth orbit destinations after being launched atop a reusable Falcon 9 rocket.

The name Endurance is "a tribute to the tenacity of the human spirit, as we push humans and machines farther than we ever have," said NASA Astronaut Raja Chari in the naming announcement for this Crew Dragon.

Dragon Vehicle Statistics

Total launches: 45

Visits to the ISS: 40

Total reflights: 24

Technical Specifications

Height: 8.1 m / 26.7 ft
Diameter: 4 m / 13 ft
Capsule volume: 9.3 m³ / 328 ft³
Trunk volume: 37 m³ / 1300 ft³
Launch Payload Mass: 6,000 kg / 13,228 lbs
Return Payload Mass: 3,000 kg / 6,614 lbs

Dragon for crew

This SpaceX capsule is designed to carry a crew of four to the International Space Station or other Earth orbit destinations after being launched atop a reusable Falcon 9 rocket.

The capsule includes a launch abort system, an advanced environmental control and life support system that keeps the crew safe during flight, and state-of-the-art touchscreen interfaces.

Crew Dragon is designed to operate autonomously but can be manually controlled by SpaceX teams in Hawthorne, California, and the astronauts on board.

Under the contracted crew rotation missions to the Space Station for NASA, Dragon will carry a regular crew of 4 international astronauts.

Crew Dragon is also available for private missions to Earth orbit for paying customers.

For missions to the Station, Crew Dragon can remain in orbit for up to 6 months.

Falcon 9 is a reusable, two-stage rocket designed and manufactured by SpaceX for the reliable and safe transport of people and payloads into Earth orbit and beyond.

Falcon 9 is the world’s first orbital-class reusable rocket.

Stats

Total launches: 322

Total landings: 280

Total reflights: 253

The Falcon 9 has launched 49 humans into orbit since May 2020

Specs

Height: 70 m / 229.6 ft

Diameter: 3.7 m / 12 ft

Mass: 549,054 kg / 1,207,920 lb

Payload to LEO: 22,800 kg / 50,265 lb

Payload to GTO: 8,300 kg / 18,300 lb

Payload to Mars: 4,020 kg / 8,860 lb

On January 24, 2021, Falcon 9 launched the first ride-share mission to Sun Synchronous Orbit. It was delivering a record-setting 143 satellites to space. And while this was an important mission for SpaceX in itself, it was also the moment Falcon 9 overtook United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V for the total number of consecutive successful launches.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 had become America’s workhorse rocket, launching 31 times in 2021. It has already beaten that record this year, launching almost an average of once a week. While most of the launches deliver Starlink satellites to orbit, the company is still launching the most commercial payloads to orbit, too.

Falcon 9 is a medium-lift launch vehicle, with the capability to launch over 22.8 metric tonnes to low earth orbit. Unlike any other rocket, its first stage lands back on Earth after separating from its second stage. In part, this allows SpaceX to offer the cheapest option for most customers with payloads that need to reach orbit.

Under its ride-share program, a kilogram can be placed in a sun-synchronous orbit for a mere 1.1 million dollars, far cheaper than all other currently operating small satellite launch vehicles.

The reusability and fast booster turnaround times have made Falcon 9 the preferred choice for private companies and government agencies. This has allowed SpaceX to capture a huge portion of the launch market.

Protecting the Crew

On the launch pad, the crew will board Dragon prior to fueling of the rocket.

Dragon's abort system will be armed and ready to pull the crew away from Falcon 9 in the event a critical issue develops during fueling.

The launch to a 200 x 200 km orbit will take just under 9 minutes.

Dragon and its crew will then separate from the Falcon 9 second stage 11 minutes after liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center.

Photo by Erik Kuna for Supercluster

NASA's historic Kennedy Space Center is located on Cape Canaveral, Florida, and has hosted decades of historic space missions since the early days of the Apollo program.

Today, Kennedy Space Center is a multi-user spaceport and hosts private companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, SpaceX, and others.

SpaceX leases Launch Complex 39A at NASA's flagship facility and uses the pad to launch its Falcon Heavy and Falcon 9 rockets. The pad is also used to launch missions for the Commercial Crew Program for which SpaceX launches astronauts to the Space Station for NASA aboard their Crew Dragon capsule.

Launch Complex 39A was previously used by NASA to launch the Apollo 11 mission to land the first humans on the moon and Space Shuttle missions to assemble the International Space Station and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope.

Image: Erik Kuna for Supercluster

ISS - Harmony forward

The Harmony module, also known within NASA as Node-2, was launched to the ISS in October 2007 on the STS-120 mission of Shuttle Discovery.

Harmony serves as the gateway between the U.S. scientific and living modules and ESA's Columbus laboratory and JAXA’s Kibo lab complex.

The module is equipped with two docking ports for U.S. crew (Dragon and Starliner) and cargo (Dragon) spacecraft and also has one berthing port that can be used for either Northrop Grumman's Cygnus or Japan's HTV cargo crafts.

Photo: The Harmony module, with the forward docking port visible. Credit: NASA