As President of Donald Trump and Eileon Musk He argued on social media On Thursday, the richest man in the world threatened to turn off a space capsule used to take astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station.
After Trump threatened to cut government contracts granted to Musk Spacex Rocket Company and Starlink Internet Satellite Services, MUSK responded via x This Spacex “will start turning off the Dragon spacecraft immediately.”
It is not clear how dangerous musk threat. But the capsule, which was developed with the help of government contracts, is an important part of keeping the space station in operation. NASA also relies heavily on Spacex for other programs including launching scientific tasks, and later in this decade, they return astronauts to the moon.
Dragon capsule
Spacex is the only American company that is now able to transfer sets to and from the space station, using four people dragon capsules.
Starliner capsule flew only once; Last year’s test trip was so badly that NASA’s astronauts wereobstacleReturn to Earth via Spacex in March, more than nine months after its launch last June.
Starliner is still on the basis where NASA decides whether to go with another test trip with goods, rather than a crew.
Spacex also uses a dragon capsule for its own tasks. One of these is scheduled to fly next week on a rented tripIntuitiveHouston Company.
Cargo versions of the dragon capsule are also used to transport food and other supplies to the orbits laboratory.
NASA’s other option: Russia
Soyuz capsules in Russia are the only way to enter the teams into the space station at the present time.
Soyuz capsules carry three people at the same time. Currently, every Soyuz Russian launch carries one NASA spacecry, and each Spacex launch contains one Russian on board under the barter system. In this way, in an emergency requires the return of a capsule, there is always someone from the United States and Russian on board the plane.
By launching its first crew to NASA in 2020 – the first tropical flight of a crew by a private company – Spacex enabled NASA to rely on Russia to transport the crew. Russian flights cost tens of millions of dollars per seat for years.
NASA also used the Russian spacecraft for the plate, along with the American contractor Northvin Grouman.
The launch of the other government in Spacex
The company used its missiles to launch many scientific tasks for NASA as well as military equipment.
Last year, Spacex as wellHe won the NASA contractTo help get the space station out of orbit when it is no longer used.
The huge missile of Spacex is what NASA has chosen to get astronauts from the moon’s orbit to the moon, at least in the first two tasks to land. The spacecraft succeededThe ninth test tripLast week from Texas, but out of control and breaking.
This story was originally shown on Fortune.com
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