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SpaceX’s third Starlink launch in three weeks is just around the corner
SpaceX is just a few days away from Falcon 9’s third Starlink internet satellite launch in 22 days, also the second commercial Starlink rideshare mission in two weeks.
If successfully, Starlink v1.0 L9 mission will mark nearly six hundred internet satellites launched by SpaceX since the company began dedicated missions in May 2019, as well as ~530 operational v1.0 spacecraft launched since November 2019. According to SpaceX executives, the company can begin rolling out internet service to customers via “UFO on a stick” user terminals once 14 v1.0 launches have been completed, meaning that the constellation could be just five launches away from generating consistent revenue after the next batch of satellites are safely in orbit.
Meanwhile, SpaceX debuted a separate method of generating revenue from Starlink launches just ten days ago when it successfully launched three Planet imaging satellites on top of 58 new Starlink spacecraft. While the revenue from booking a few satellites to launch on Starlink missions is likely nowhere close to covering the actual material cost to SpaceX, it can certainly help offset the extraordinarily capital-intensive process of constellation build-out. Less than two weeks after SpaceX’s Starlink rideshare debut, the very next launch is scheduled to include two commercial imaging satellites – this time for BlackSky Global.
Built by Washington startup LeoStella, the two imaging satellites scheduled to launch on Starlink-9 arrived in Cape Canaveral, Florida on June 1st in time to be processed and installed on top of a stack of either 58 or 60 Starlink internet satellites.
Approximately half as large as the three ~110 kg (240 lb) SkySats SpaceX launched on June 13th, LeoStella’s first two BlackSky satellites are believed to weigh around 55 kg (~120 lb) each and are capable of imaging the Earth’s surface at a resolution of ~1m per pixel from a nominal 500 km (310 mi) orbit. BlackSky’s LeoStella contract includes another 18 such satellites, all of which could (but probably wont) launch on future Starlink missions.
Smallsat constellation operators typically aim for diversity when launching more than a handful of satellites, ensuring that a hypothetical launch vehicle failure wont delay or destroy an entire constellation. Still, according to competitor Planet, SpaceX’s rideshare pricing is so good that it has actively changed how the prolific satellite operator thinks about constellation expansion. Planet, for reference, managed to launch three SkySats – weighing ~330 kg (~730 lb) – for something like $3 million, at least 5-7 times cheaper than launching the same spacecraft on three dedicated Rocket Lab Electron rockets.
Supporting Planet’s high praise, SpaceX recently announced that it had already secured launch contracts for more than 100 small satellites less than ten months after the program debuted, potentially injecting an impressive $50 to $100 million in revenue. A large portion of those satellites are likely scheduled to launch on one of SpaceX’s dedicated semi-annual rideshare missions, the first of which is aiming to launch in December 2020, but at least one or several dozen are probably manifested on Starlink launches.
According to CEO Elon Musk, the ultimate cost of a flight-proven Falcon 9 launch can be as low as $15 million – excluding overhead but including a new upper stage, booster recovery, propellant, and other miscellaneous costs. As such, a single 60-satellite Starlink launch likely costs SpaceX less than $30 million total, meaning that an average of five small satellites (base price: $1 million per slot) manifested on a Starlink launch would save SpaceX ~17% every time.
Regardless, Falcon 9 booster B1051 is scheduled to become the third SpaceX rocket to launch five times when it lifts off for Starlink-9 no earlier than (NET) 4:39 pm EDT (20:39 UTC) on June 25th, a delay of three days from the original June 22nd target.
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Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, says that something that was expected with version 14.3 of the company’s Full Self-Driving platform has already partially shipped with the current build of version 14.2.
Tesla and CEO Elon Musk have teased on several occasions that reasoning will be a big piece of future Full Self-Driving builds, helping bring forth the “sentient” narrative that the company has pushed for these more advanced FSD versions.
Back in October on the Q3 Earnings Call, Musk said:
“With reasoning, it’s literally going to think about which parking spot to pick. It’ll drop you off at the entrance of the store, then go find a parking spot. It’s going to spot empty spots much better than a human. It’s going to use reasoning to solve things.”
Musk said in the same month:
“By v14.3, your car will feel like it is sentient.”
Amazingly, Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.2.2.2, which is the most recent iteration released, is very close to this sentient feeling. However, there are more things that need to be improved, and logic appears to be in the future plans to help with decision-making in general, alongside other refinements and features.
On Thursday evening, Elluswamy revealed that some of the reasoning features have already been rolled out, confirming that it has been added to navigation route changes during construction, as well as with parking options.
He added that “more and more reasoning will ship in Q1.”
🚨 Tesla’s Ashok Elluswamy reveals Nav decisions when encountering construction and parking options contain “some elements of reasoning”
More uses of reasoning will be shipped later this quarter, a big tidbit of info as we wait v14.3 https://t.co/jty8llgsKM
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) January 9, 2026
Interestingly, parking improvements were hinted at being added in the initial rollout of v14.2 several months ago. These had not rolled out to vehicles quite yet, as they were listed under the future improvements portion of the release notes, but it appears things have already started to make their way to cars in a limited fashion.
Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.2 – Full Review, the Good and the Bad
As reasoning is more involved in more of the Full Self-Driving suite, it is likely we will see cars make better decisions in terms of routing and navigation, which is a big complaint of many owners (including me).
Additionally, the operation as a whole should be smoother and more comfortable to owners, which is hard to believe considering how good it is already. Nevertheless, there are absolutely improvements that need to be made before Tesla can introduce completely unsupervised FSD.
Elon Musk
Tesla’s Elon Musk: 10 billion miles needed for safe Unsupervised FSD
As per the CEO, roughly 10 billion miles of training data are required due to reality’s “super long tail of complexity.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has provided an updated estimate for the training data needed to achieve truly safe unsupervised Full Self-Driving (FSD).
As per the CEO, roughly 10 billion miles of training data are required due to reality’s “super long tail of complexity.”
10 billion miles of training data
Musk comment came as a reply to Apple and Rivian alum Paul Beisel, who posted an analysis on X about the gap between tech demonstrations and real-world products. In his post, Beisel highlighted Tesla’s data-driven lead in autonomy, and he also argued that it would not be easy for rivals to become a legitimate competitor to FSD quickly.
“The notion that someone can ‘catch up’ to this problem primarily through simulation and limited on-road exposure strikes me as deeply naive. This is not a demo problem. It is a scale, data, and iteration problem— and Tesla is already far, far down that road while others are just getting started,” Beisel wrote.
Musk responded to Beisel’s post, stating that “Roughly 10 billion miles of training data is needed to achieve safe unsupervised self-driving. Reality has a super long tail of complexity.” This is quite interesting considering that in his Master Plan Part Deux, Elon Musk estimated that worldwide regulatory approval for autonomous driving would require around 6 billion miles.
FSD’s total training miles
As 2025 came to a close, Tesla community members observed that FSD was already nearing 7 billion miles driven, with over 2.5 billion miles being from inner city roads. The 7-billion-mile mark was passed just a few days later. This suggests that Tesla is likely the company today with the most training data for its autonomous driving program.
The difficulties of achieving autonomy were referenced by Elon Musk recently, when he commented on Nvidia’s Alpamayo program. As per Musk, “they will find that it’s easy to get to 99% and then super hard to solve the long tail of the distribution.” These sentiments were echoed by Tesla VP for AI software Ashok Elluswamy, who also noted on X that “the long tail is sooo long, that most people can’t grasp it.”
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Tesla earns top honors at MotorTrend’s SDV Innovator Awards
MotorTrend’s SDV Awards were presented during CES 2026 in Las Vegas.
Tesla emerged as one of the most recognized automakers at MotorTrend’s 2026 Software-Defined Vehicle (SDV) Innovator Awards.
As could be seen in a press release from the publication, two key Tesla employees were honored for their work on AI, autonomy, and vehicle software. MotorTrend’s SDV Awards were presented during CES 2026 in Las Vegas.
Tesla leaders and engineers recognized
The fourth annual SDV Innovator Awards celebrate pioneers and experts who are pushing the automotive industry deeper into software-driven development. Among the most notable honorees for this year was Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s Vice President of AI Software, who received a Pioneer Award for his role in advancing artificial intelligence and autonomy across the company’s vehicle lineup.
Tesla also secured recognition in the Expert category, with Lawson Fulton, a staff Autopilot machine learning engineer, honored for his contributions to Tesla’s driver-assistance and autonomous systems.
Tesla’s software-first strategy
While automakers like General Motors, Ford, and Rivian also received recognition, Tesla’s multiple awards stood out given the company’s outsized role in popularizing software-defined vehicles over the past decade. From frequent OTA updates to its data-driven approach to autonomy, Tesla has consistently treated vehicles as evolving software platforms rather than static products.
This has made Tesla’s vehicles very unique in their respective sectors, as they are arguably the only cars that objectively get better over time. This is especially true for vehicles that are loaded with the company’s Full Self-Driving system, which are getting progressively more intelligent and autonomous over time. The majority of Tesla’s updates to its vehicles are free as well, which is very much appreciated by customers worldwide.
Tesla AI Head says future FSD feature has already partially shipped
Tesla’s Elon Musk: 10 billion miles needed for safe Unsupervised FSD
