What SpaceX Dragon just did with NASA ISS shocked Russia & China

What SpaceX Dragon just did with NASA ISS shocked Russia & China
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What SpaceX Dragon just did with NASA ISS shocked Russia & China
SpaceX has just reached a historic milestone, using a Cargo Dragon to fire its thrusters for over 19 minutes, boosting the ISS into a higher orbit. In doing so, it instantly smashed previous longest burns by Russia Progress. The irony is hard to miss. Not long ago, Roscosmos claimed the U.S. would have to rely on them to carry out this exact task. And now? SpaceX didn’t just do it, they did it even better.
So how did SpaceX turn the “impossible” into reality? And how will this engine burn reshape Dragon’s role in the future of space transportation?
Let’s find out in today’s episode of Alpha Tech.
What SpaceX Dragon just did with NASA ISS shocked Russia & China
ISS Reboost Operations
Earth behaves like a gigantic magnet. It pulls everything toward its surface, humans, objects, and yes, even the ISS.
Despite orbiting at an altitude of around 400 kilometers, the space station still loses about 100 meters of altitude every single day due to atmospheric drag. Without regular reboosts, month after month, the ISS wouldn’t last long. Eventually, it would fall back to Earth and burn up like a shooting star.
In the past, this reboost job was handled by NASA’s Space Shuttle. But after the Shuttle retired in 2011, the responsibility fell to Russia, specifically the Progress cargo spacecraft, a vehicle widely regarded as extremely reliable.
That system stayed in place until 2022, when war broke out between Russia and Ukraine. The United States openly supported Ukraine and imposed heavy sanctions on Russia.
What SpaceX Dragon just did with NASA ISS shocked Russia & China
In response, Dmitry Rogozin, then head of Roscosmos, turned the ISS into a political pressure tool. He repeatedly emphasized how dependent the U.S. was on Russia to keep the station in orbit. In multiple interviews, Rogozin openly claimed that without Progress, the U.S. simply could not reboost the ISS, and even threatened an early Russian withdrawal unless sanctions were lifted.
If that had actually happened, it would’ve triggered a massive crisis. No reboost capability would mean the ISS could survive only one to two more years, effectively ending the most important international cooperation project in space.
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