Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX, recently confirmed that its Starship project will not interfere with the company's commitment to providing commercial spacecraft for NASA.
According to Musk, the majority of SpaceX's resources are still being used for the development of Crew Dragon and other similar space vehicles.
The 48-year-old technology entrepreneur made the statement during a presentation held by SpaceX for Starship and its launch vehicle Super Heavy. The event was held on September 28 at the company's launch facility in Cameron County, Texas.
During the presentation, Musk provided new updates regarding Starship, which was designed to be SpaceX's fully reusable spacecraft. The company intends to use the spacecraft to provide commercial flights across space.
Although SpaceX seems to be preoccupied with Starship at the moment, Musk confirmed that he has not forgotten about his commitment to NASA as part of the space agency's Commercial Crew Program.
Through this program, NASA awarded SpaceX with a multibillion-dollar deal to develop a spacecraft that can be used to transport astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).
As part of the deal, SpaceX began developing the capsule Crew Dragon. Unfortunately, during a test procedure on April 20, an anomaly triggered a series of events that led to the destruction of the capsule. The incident forced NASA and SpaceX to postpone their spaceflight plans involving the Crew Dragon.
During SpaceX's recent event, Musk clarified that even though SpaceX is currently working on Starship, it does not automatically mean that projects about the development of Crew Dragon and other spacecraft such as the Dragon cargo vessel and Falcon launch vehicle will stall. He noted only a small portion of the company's efforts and resources are being used for Starship.
"To be clear, the vast majority of our resources are on Dragon and Falcon, especially Crew Dragon," Musk said during the event according to Space.com. "It was really quite a small percentage of SpaceX that's devoted to Starship – less than 5% of the company, basically," he added.
Musk, however, did not provide further updates regarding the current status of Crew Dragon and its upcoming test flight. Originally, the capsule was tentatively planned for launch in November for its first crewed test flight to the ISS. NASA astronauts Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken were selected as the primary crew members of Crew Dragon for its upcoming flight. It has not yet been confirmed if this mission will push through as planned.
