The upcoming private astronaut mission for the International Space Station managed by AXIOM Space is not only its fourth such flight, but it also marks Swan song for an important part of the construction side of the SpaceX business.
Mission, Dubbed AXIOM Mission 4 or AX-4, crew Dragon Spacecraft, is in the beginning of the tail number C213. It is billed by SpaceX as its fifth and final dragon capsules.
“This is the first flight for Dragon Capsules and I cannot think of a better way to enter the fleet than blowing this international crew for this capsule,” William Gerstenmyer on Monday said the vice-chairman of the build and flight reliability in SpaceX during a review of a post-launch readiness.
Garsenemier stated that this latest dragon is an improvement on previous designs and involves changes, such as updated storage fields and better propulsion systems “to make them more reliable and more reusable.”
“This is not just the dragon capsule we are flying. We have really made some improvements and really continued to continue to fly better,” said Gerrtemier.
SpaceX’s long -term goals are to transfer your human spaceflight missions from dragon to your starship rocket, which said that it will be able to drive dozens of people into space.
(Fifth) Enter Dragon
Dragon C213 starts service currently after the other four crew dragon spacecraft. The first of them was an attempt, which began on the Demo -2 mission in 2020. After this, later there was flexibility on the crew -1 mission.
Thereafter, during Crew -3 in November 2021, there was endurance and recently, freedom with the launch of Crew -4 flight for ISS in April 2022.
- Endeavor -5 (printed with crew -8 returns on 25 October, 2025)
- Flexibility – 4 (after Fram2 printed on 4 April)
- Dheeraj -4 (ISS was docked till 10 June for crew team -10)
- Independence -4 (under renewal to support Crew -11 NET July 2025)
NASA and SpaceX current are expanding the flight capabilities of the dragon beyond the five-climax border. Back to 2023, senior director of human spaceflight programs in SpaceX, Benji Reid said that the company was working with NASA to certify the dragon for every 15 flights.
The following year, in February 2024, NASA’s commercial crew program program manager Steve Stitch said he was “in the midst of doing that work.”
“We are in the midst of all those components going through. Some are actually approved for 15 flights, some we are still in the midst of working,” stitch said. “Some of those components had to undergo some re -merit to ensure that they could make it for 15 flights. So, we are doing so in the middle.”
During Monday’s teleclaving, Dana Weigel, manager of the International Space Station Program for NASA, said the agency was still in the midst of certifying the dragon for more than five crew missions.
“Whatever we are today, beyond a high re -use beyond that we are going through a process of being comfortable, the team is in the process of working through it,” Vigel said. “SpaceX works a great work with hardware tests, so the great thing is, they have a lot of real testing and performance data. It takes us some time to go through it and make sure that we understand the data, but we are still working through it.
“I do not have a specific schedule from the top of my head for you for the timeline, but things are going well because we work through it.”
Originally, SpaceX was planning to enter the service in support of the Crew -9 mission for the Space Station in 2024 for the Dragon C213. When production was delayed, the plan was reduced, then it was designed to fly the crew -10 mission in early 2025.
NASA’s decision to bring back the crew of Starlineer Crew Flight Test of Boeing on a spaceX dragon spacecraft pushed C213 to the place of prominence. Crew -10 needed to be taken to ISS before Crew -9, now as members of NASA astronauts Buch Wilmor and Sun. Williams, can depart on Dragon Freedom.
President Donald Trump added political heat to the fire, when in late January, he called for a rapid return of the former Starlineer crew and incorrectly called the SpaceX founder and political donor, Elon Musk, to “rescue”.
NASA established the return plan for Wilmor and Williams using the dragon in August, which was before the departure of a Starlineer spacecraft without a Starlineer spacecraft.
The teams built our fifth and final dragon crew spacecraft in Hothorn, California. The next stop is Florida, where teams will prepare the dragon to revolve for their first mission! pic.twitter.com/felqzvmnvww
– SpaceX (@Spacex) 31 December, 2024
However, as it became clear that the Dragon C213 would not be ready for launch in February-one of the original windows to launch the Cruh-10 mission and SpaceX decided to switch to using the Dragon Endurance, Tail Number C2010, which was being read to fly the AX-4 mission.
During a crew -10 prelonch briefing, Garseremier, vice -president of the build and flight reliability at SpaceX, stated that the Dragon was a battery issue with C213, which did wide work to address.
“We ended by pulling out the battery. We now understand the failure of the slice on that battery,” Garserstenmier said in early March. “It turns out, it is not easy to get out the battery. To remove the battery, a lot of capsules dysesim took.”
In going through the final preparation for the AX-4 mission, the director of the Dragon Mission Management, Sarah Walker said that during a mission observation, some prelonch checks briefing raised some issues, which delayed the mission from 29 May to 8 June.
“There was a wire harness that we needed to swap. It did not pass its standard preflight, it is called a hipot test. It stands for high-affected and it is a safety test that verify the insulation strength of a device,” Walker explained. “And therefore, when a harness does not pass this check, we have to replace it with a new harness and resume the test. And therefore, we have to spend it a few days.”
Walker said that the teams also discovered some moisture in the bag used to pack the parachute. A few days added to the launch timeline “to set the next set out of line for Florida, instead.”
A busy year almost in books
SpaceX is rapidly busy with its dragon missions, both crew and cargo flights. 2025 will be the third year in a row that they have launched six dragon missions.
While in the previous years, those missions have been distributed very equally throughout the calendar year, there was a large extent in the first half of the year in 2025.
“This year, our customer’s time needs started us to plan accurate equal mission count, six missions, in less than half the time, just less than five months, in less than five months, in March, with crew -10 launch in March and finished with CRS -33 launch in August,” Walker said. “The team has not defeated one.”
He said that the CRS-33 mission would include a more technically detailed trunk for the dragon spacecraft, as it will be used to promote the space station and prove some capabilities that will be included on the ISS Deorbit vehicle, which will be commissioned by NASA to bring out of the orbit at the end of decades by NASA.
“This is actually an unprecedented time in the human spaceflight for my team and for the dragon program in SpaceX,” Walker said. “I think it has been a small part and I think what I have seen this year is looking at the team that they do the best, which is being fully and organized because they prepare for every and every launch and Axiom 4 is not different.”
