--- title: "NASA leans on Boeing after SpaceX moves to retire Crew Dragon" description: "SpaceX told NASA and private station developers it will stop flying astronauts once the ISS ends in 2030, leaving Starliner as the likely sole option." author: "rews desk" published: 2026-09-29T18:34:00Z modified: 2026-09-30T05:13:50Z url: https://rews.cc/a/nasa-leans-on-boeing-after-spacex-moves-to-retire-crew-drago-fb0765 language: en tags: ["spacex", "nasa", "starship", "dragon", "boeing", "tech"] publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)" --- # NASA leans on Boeing after SpaceX moves to retire Crew Dragon *SpaceX told NASA and private station developers it will stop flying astronauts once the ISS ends in 2030, leaving Starliner as the likely sole option.* By rews desk · September 29, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/nasa-leans-on-boeing-after-spacex-moves-to-retire-crew-drago-fb0765 ## In brief - SpaceX to retire Crew Dragon and Falcon 9 from crewed flights after the ISS ends in 2030 - NASA commits additional $359 million to fix Boeing’s Starliner and certify the Vulcan rocket - SpaceX also barred private station developers Axiom, Voyager and Vast from booking Dragon flights - Uncrewed Starliner-1 test targeted for December, crewed Starliner-2 flight set for 2028 - Boeing seats priced around $90 million versus SpaceX’s roughly $78.8 million per seat SpaceX has told NASA and companies building private space stations that it intends to retire the Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket from crewed missions after the International Space Station is retired in 2030, according to Ars Technica, citing multiple industry sources. The move leaves Boeing’s Starliner, which has yet to complete a single operational crewed mission to the station, as the only near-term option for flying astronauts to low Earth orbit, and NASA has responded by committing an additional $359 million to fix the spacecraft’s propulsion system and certify a new rocket to launch it, the agency said Monday. SpaceX has informed Axiom Space, Voyager Space and Vast Space, the three companies developing commercial space stations to succeed the ISS, that they will not be able to book Crew Dragon flights for their habitats, according to Ars Technica. ## NASA doubles down on Boeing NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said at a news conference on Monday that SpaceX’s shift was expected. “I do not think it’s a secret that SpaceX intends to sunset older platforms like Falcon and Dragon as they concentrate on their next-generation capability, Starship,” Isaacman said, according to Ars Technica and other outlets. “Given our extensive history with Starliner and the taxpayer investment already made, we believe it represents the fastest path to preserving reliable crewed access to low Earth orbit,” Isaacman said, according to a report from spacepolicyonline.com. Isaacman said an uncrewed Starliner-1 test flight is targeted for no earlier than December to validate fixes to the spacecraft, with a crewed Starliner-2 mission targeted for 2028, according to [NASA’s news release](https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-boeing-share-update-on-commercial-starliner-development-plans/). NASA said it plans to exercise contract options for a fifth and sixth crewed Starliner flight. [![NASA and Boeing to announce Starliner's future](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Q2bsY3mkmjE/hqdefault.jpg)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2bsY3mkmjE) NASA livestream of the September 28 news conference announcing the Starliner roadmap and the additional $359 million in funding. Video: Spaceflight Now · YouTube Boeing’s fixes address thruster problems that NASA’s investigation attributed to corrosion, following the 2024 crewed test flight during which astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams remained aboard the ISS for an extended stay after Starliner returned to Earth uncrewed. NASA astronaut Woody Hoburg, named to command Starliner-2, said Wilmore and Williams “conducted themselves with the utmost of professionalism, competence, and humility throughout the mission,” according to spacepolicyonline.com. NASA has invested $5.1 billion to date in Boeing’s Starliner development, compared with $3.1 billion for SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, according to Ars Technica. SpaceX has flown 13 crewed missions for NASA and has another scheduled within days; it had agreed to fly through the Crew-17 mission, more than fulfilling its original contract commitment of six flights. ## Why SpaceX is stepping back SpaceX now draws most of its revenue from its Starlink satellite internet business, a trend the company expects to deepen. In its filing for its stock market listing, SpaceX said the category it calls “space enabled solutions,” which includes NASA crew and cargo work, accounts for roughly 1 percent of what it considers its total addressable market, which it put at $28.5 trillion, according to the [filing reported by Fortune](https://fortune.com/2026/05/20/spacex-ipo-filing-s1-total-addressable-market-make-life-multiplanetary/). SpaceX reported $18.7 billion in revenue in 2025, with Starlink as the largest driver. SpaceX has told NASA it is not interested in developing Starship, which can potentially carry dozens of astronauts at a time compared with four on Dragon, for crewed launches into Earth orbit for now, according to Ars Technica. Starship [reached orbit for the first time on its fourteenth test flight](https://rews.cc/a/on-monday-the-most-powerful-rocket-ever-built-loses-its-safe-4d95a8) on the same day as the NASA news conference, a milestone Isaacman said was “paramount to America’s ability to return to the moon,” according to spacepolicyonline.com. ## A costlier, narrower market NASA currently pays SpaceX about $78.8 million per seat on recent Crew Dragon missions, up from roughly $55 million on early flights, according to Ars Technica. Boeing’s price for Starliner seats through the Starliner-6 mission has been set at about $90 million, unchanged from earlier estimates in a 2019 NASA Office of Inspector General report. Asked about Starliner’s pricing for the 2030s, when private space stations rather than NASA are expected to be the main customers, Boeing Vice President John Mulholland said, “Obviously we want to be as competitive as possible,” according to Ars Technica. Mulholland has said Boeing could not yet give commercial station operators firm pricing because neither the Vulcan Centaur rocket nor the upgraded Starliner has been certified. Isaacman said NASA remains committed to having two competing crew providers in principle. “But from the beginning, commercial crew was built around competition,” he said, according to Ars Technica, adding that NASA continues to see value in two transportation providers even as one path narrows. Some industry critics have said NASA’s decision effectively hands Boeing a monopoly on Western crewed access to low Earth orbit for the next decade or two, according to Ars Technica. Others argue NASA had few alternatives, given that a new competition to develop a third crew vehicle would cost billions of dollars NASA is reluctant to spend given competing priorities, including the Artemis Moon program. Blue Origin is developing a crew capsule to launch on its New Glenn rocket, with design work described as “well advanced,” according to sources cited by Ars Technica, but a crewed launch is not expected before 2031 at the earliest. Isaacman’s office said NASA’s near-term crew transport needs amount to roughly two seats every six to nine months to the space station. ## See also - [What's Happening in Space Policy September 27-October 3, 2026](https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/whats-happening-in-space-policy-september-27-october-3-2026/) — spacepolicyonline.com · Weekly roundup with quotes from the NASA news conference - [International Space Station to retire in 2030: private habitats that will replace it](https://starlust.org/international-space-station-to-retire-in-2030-here-are-major-private-habitats-that-will-replace-it/) — starlust.org · Background on Axiom, Vast and Starlab station timelines