Dragon 2

Endeavour (C206) approaching the ISS during Crew-2.

**Dragon 2** is a next generation capsule spacecraft designed, manufactured and operated by SpaceX along with NASA. It has two variants: **Cargo Dragon** and **Crew Dragon**. It is an improved design of the robotic Dragon 1 vehicle which was used to resupply cargo to the ISS. Cargo Dragon now takes over the job of Dragon 1 and Crew Dragon is a crewed variation of Cargo Dragon, despite Crew Dragon coming first. It is the first American made spacecraft since the retirement of the Space Shuttles to have orbital crewed capability.

Dragon 2 was chosen along with Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser, Northrup Grumman's Enhanced Cygnus and Boeing's CST-100 Starliner as the next spacecraft for NASA usage in the commercial Crew ad Cargo programs. NASA's Orion capsule is capable of going to the moon, while Dragon 2 and friends are bound to LEO.

## Variations

* Cargo Dragon
* Crew Dragon
* Dragon XL

## Crew Dragon

Crew Dragon is the United State's first manned orbital space vehicle since the space shuttle. Multiple test articles of Dragon 2 were constructed for various test missions during its testing phase, including structural testing, Demo-1 and the In-Flight Abort Test.

The first manned test flight of Crew Dragon was conducted successfully on Saturday, May 30th 2020. It was originally scheduled for the 28th, but due to weather the launch was scrubbed and rescheduled. After a 2-month mission, the crew splashed down. Crew-1, the first true mission for Crew Dragon was scheduled for November 14th, 2020, but was then scrubbed and launched the following day.

## Cargo Dragon

The crewed variant of Dragon 2 was constructed by SpaceX before the Cargo variant. The Cargo variant has only two trunk fins and no abort system, allowing more room for cargo.

The first mission of Cargo Dragon (CRS-21) was to deliver the Bishop Airlock Module to the ISS and over a ton of other scientific experiments and supplies.

## Missions

A list of all missions is at the bottom, and some notable missions are listed in paragraphs below.

### Demo-2

The first manned test flight of Crew Dragon was conducted successfully on Saturday, May 30th 2020. It was originally scheduled for the 28th, but due to weather the launch was scrubbed and rescheduled. After a 2-month mission, the crew splashed down. It returned spaceflight capability to the US after the retirement of the space shuttle.

### Crew 1

The first operational mission for Crew Dragon after Demo-2.

### CRS-21

The first Cargo Dragon was flown on this mission and delivered the Bishop Airlock Module to the ISS, the second commercial module to be added. The docking of the Cargo Dragon broke the total Post-Shuttle Mass Record of the ISS, previously held by 1 Progress, 2 Soyuz, 1 ATV and 1 HTV. At the time of Cargo Dragon's docking, there was also 2 Progress, 1 Soyuz, 1 Cygnus (*SS Kampala Chawla*) and 1 Crew Dragon (*Resilience*). The new record was over 980,000 lbs, just short of a million pounds.

The image in the gallery of CRS-21 by a reddit user shows both variants of Dragon 2 docked to the station as they were during CRS-21, outlining their differences.

## Spacecraft List

This is a list of all Dragon 2 spacecraft. "Desig" stands for designation.

Prototypes
 *ECLSS Module* | C203

Cargo Dragon
 C209

## Gallery

C208 and Resilience docked to the ISS during CRS-21Resilience during Inspiration 4 with the glass dome in place of a docking port.Endeavour approaching the ISS during Demo-2.A computer generated image of Crew DragonEarly render of crew dragon.Jared Isaacman in the cupola of C207 Resilience.The Cargo Dragon (C208) for CRS-21. Notice the missing abort engines.The original Dragon spacecraft Dragon 2 is based off.A 3D rendering of Dragon XL, an expendable lunar cargo vehicle.