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The next meeting with SpaceX's chief technologist, David Smith, was

July 11, 2018 by James Ashley

The next meeting with SpaceX's chief technologist, David Smith, was held at 9:40am ET. "I'm not sure what happened, but it's a real sad day for us on the space shuttle," Koenigsmann said.

Koenigsmann said the meeting was a little disheartening, but he also said it was important for his organization to get ready to fly the Falcon 9. He added, "[Our] mission is a long one. We need to test it before we go on."

NASA's commercial crew program is set to go on, so you might think this would have ended with a bit of a shrug. But it might actually have just been a bit of a blunder in that regard. On Thursday, SpaceX announced that it had purchased a second stage booster from Boeing to make the Dragon 9, which is planned to be a big-ticket upgrade for the Space Launch System, a part of the Falcon 9. At that time, the company was planning to take the crew capsule of the Falcon 9, which would be capable of carrying up to 10 astronauts on mission. But that test flight didn't go as far as SpaceX hoped.

"It's a difficult test," says Richard Condon, the company's chief technology officer.

Now, it seems, the whole thing is over. The Dragon mission, which has been in development for the past eight years, has been delayed by a dozen hours but is scheduled for launch early next year. By the time it is, SpaceX is expected to have completed its first stage on the first flight of the Dragon mission.

That's been one of the key arguments for getting the Dragon capsule to test flight. The Dragon capsule is a four-stage rocket, and it has been designed to carry just 10 kilograms of payload on its first flight. The first stage needs to be cooled to a critical mass of about 1.8 million kilograms, which should make it far from a practical flight vehicle capable of carrying more than 20 kilograms of payload. The test flight could take place in early 2015 or even earlier, but that date has not changed because the Dragon capsule will be ready to go for its first flight, at a time when commercial crew has been more active.