American private space transportation company SpaceX has developed and produced several spacecraft named Dragon. The first family member, now referred to as Dragon 1, flew 23 cargo missions to the ISS between 2010 and 2020 before retiring. With this first version not designed for carrying astronauts, it was funded by NASA with $396 million awarded through the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program,[1] with SpaceX being announced as a winner of the first round of funding on August 18, 2006.
SpaceX developed its Dragon 2 spacecraft starting in 2014, with a cargo and crewed version. It entered service in 2019 with the Demo-1 flight, and performed its first flight with astronauts on May 30, 2020, during the Crew Dragon Demo-2 flight.
SpaceX also investigated a version named Red Dragon for Mars exploration, but the project did not go forward.
A version named Dragon XL Is proposed to provide Gateway Logistics Services to the Lunar Gateway.
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