Crew Dragon has seats for seven but has never flown more than four
SpaceX's Dragon 2 capsule was designed to carry seven astronauts, yet on real missions it takes two to four. It docks itself to the International Space Station without human help, and a cargo version has become the only reusable orbital freighter in service. Its original plan to land on rocket engines was quietly dropped.
Dragon 2 pairs a reusable capsule with a disposable trunk, launches on a Falcon 9 Block 5 and comes home by splashing down in the ocean. Crew Dragon took over the job of ferrying NASA astronauts to the station under the Commercial Crew Program, a role left empty when the Space Shuttle retired in 2011, and it also flies commercial crews. SpaceX unveiled the design on May 29, 2014, at its Hawthorne headquarters, and NASA picked it as a crew candidate that October. The company builds a fresh trunk for every flight and later chose to add a fifth crew capsule, due by 2024.
Unlike the first Dragon, which station crews grabbed with a robotic arm and berthed, the new capsule carries a standard docking port and can rendezvous and dock entirely on its own, with manual override. It normally stays attached for 180 days and is rated for 210, like Russia's Soyuz. Eight SuperDraco engines built into its sides form a pusher escape system that can shove the capsule clear of a failing rocket. SpaceX first wanted those engines to land it on the ground, with parachutes only as a backup, but propulsive landing was cancelled. Astronauts wear custom-fitted suits made of Nomex, a fire-resistant fabric, that cool them in flight and protect against sudden loss of cabin pressure.
Pricing drew attention. SpaceX's contract works out to roughly 88 million dollars per seat, while NASA's inspector general put the face value nearer 55 million, compared with 76 million per seat NASA paid for Soyuz in 2014.
Cargo Dragon, lacking seats, controls, life support and escape engines, emerged after SpaceX won six resupply flights in January 2016 and shares station deliveries with Northrop Grumman's Cygnus. By August 2025 it had completed ten round trips. Since 2021 it can power some experiments while docked, a feature called Extend-the-Lab, and on November 8, 2024, capsule C208 fired its rear Draco thrusters in the first test reboost of the station by a Dragon.
Source: SpaceX Dragon 2
