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SpaceX’s next Crew Dragon astronaut launch slips into April

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NASA, SpaceX, and private customer Axiom Space have decided to slightly delay two of the company’s upcoming Crew Dragon launches, both of which are now scheduled to occur in April.

Originally planned to launch as early as late 2021 and more recently delayed from February 21st to March 30th, Axiom Space’s Ax-1 mission has been pushed back once again and is now working towards a launch no earlier than (NET) 1:13 pm EDT (17:13 UTC) on Sunday, April 3rd. Ax-1 will mark a number of firsts but first and foremost, it will be the first fully private astronaut launch to the International Space Station (ISS) with no space agency-affiliated crew members aboard.

In response, to ensure “appropriate spacing for operations and post-flight data reviews between human spaceflight missions and to allow for multiple consecutive launch attempts based on the orbital mechanics for arrival to the space station,” NASA and SpaceX chose to delay Crew-4 – Dragon’s fourth operational astronaut transport mission – from April 15th to around 6:45 am EDT (10:45 UTC) on April 19th.

According to NASA and Axiom, Ax-1 was delayed to “allow teams to complete final spacecraft processing ahead of the mission,” implying that small delays in preparing Crew Dragon for flight are responsible for the slip. In Ax-1’s case, that’s somewhat understandable.

SpaceX has assigned Crew Dragon C206 (“Endeavour”) to the mission, making it the first time in history a space capsule is scheduled to launch astronauts into orbit for the third. Dragon C206 supported SpaceX’s inaugural astronaut launch – Demo-2 – in May 2020 and safely returned to Earth in August 2020. Fifteen months later, the same capsule carried four Crew-2 astronauts tp orbit, making SpaceX the second entity in spaceflight history to successfully reuse a crewed orbital spacecraft.

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Crew Dragon C206 is fished out of the ocean after a flawless crewed launch and reentry debut. (NASA)
Crew Dragon C206’s second ISS arrival; April 2021. (NASA)

Now, a little over five months after Crew Dragon C206’s second successful reentry and splashdown, the spacecraft is scheduled to launch another four astronauts – this time all private citizens – to the ISS. Possibly explaining some of the launch delays the mission has experienced, that means that Ax-1 – a crewed launch – will be the first time any Dragon 2 capsule flies for the third time. It would be little surprise if combining a reusability pathfinder mission with the safety requirements of crewed spaceflight resulted in a need for more inspections, testing, and analysis than initially expected.

Once the mission launches, Axiom-1’s crew of four – one former NASA astronaut turned private spaceship pilot and three wealthy passengers – will spend around 10 days in orbit and 8 days aboard the space station. For an April 3rd launch, they should thus return to Earth on April 13th, leaving NASA and SpaceX six days to recover Dragon, debrief the crew, analyze data from the mission, and prepare to launch Crew-4.

Falcon 9 B1062 is scheduled to launch Axiom-1 for its fifth mission. (Chance Belloise)
Crew-4 will be Falcon 9 B1067’s fourth launch. (Richard Angle)

Crew-4 will fly out of the same Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A pad, so the latest delay will also give SpaceX 16 days (instead of 12) to inspect the pad, complete any needed refurbishment, integrate Crew-4’s Falcon 9 and Dragon, and roll out the rocket for a static fire test a few days before liftoff

Crew-4 will debut a new Dragon capsule but both it and Ax-1 will use substantially reused Falcon 9 boosters. Axiom-1’s record-breaking Dragon will launch on Falcon 9 B1062, which will itself set a record as the first orbital-class rocket booster to launch humans on its fourth or fifth flight. Flying for the fourth time, Falcon 9 B1067 will launch Crew-4.

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Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

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Tesla to make app change for easier communication following Service

“Looking into it. After a service visit is complete, we close the in-app messaging option after 2 hours. We will change this to 24hours or more.”

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tesla service
Credit: Tesla

Tesla will enhance the ability to communicate through the mobile app with Service after work has been done on your car.

One of the biggest weaknesses of Tesla’s automotive division has been Service, as Service Centers are not necessarily plentiful, and wait times, in some regions of the country, are over a month in duration.

Getting in touch with Service after a car has work done to it is also difficult. Calling showrooms in some regions has proven to be difficult to enable direct communication between the customer and the company.

If something is not resolved properly, Tesla keeps the in-app messaging option active for two hours after the service visit is complete.

However, that doesn’t resolve everything, as some issues may arise again more than two hours later. Then the issue of communication presents itself once again.

Tesla is going to extend that time frame to a day or more, according to Raj Jegannathan, Tesla’s AI/IT-Infra, Cybersecurity, IT Apps & Vehicle Service VP.

Tesla has made several changes over the past few years to attempt to improve its Service. Recently, for Collision repair, it started offering a $45-per-day loaner program with free FSD, free tolls, and free Supercharging.

It also recently started sharing local and regional leader contact information so customers have the ability to reach out when they have complaints or disagree with warranty claims, changes in estimates, or initial diagnostics.

Tesla creates clever solution to simplify and improve its Service

However, this is only available at a few showrooms and is currently a pilot program.

These improvements are aimed at resolving communication breakdown, which appears to be a problem that many owners experience.

Tesla is one of the few companies that also operates a fleet of Mobile Repair vehicles, which will perform service at your house or place of business. However, the size of it has gone down by 11 percent year over year.

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Tesla is overhauling its Full Self-Driving subscription for easier access

The subscription model is more accessible to many owners, as it is reasonably priced and offers the option to take a month off from using it if they are interested in saving money.

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla is overhauling its Full Self-Driving subscription and how it markets it to customers after several owners and fans of the company complained about the accessibility of the monthly access to its driver assistance suite.

Tesla Full Self-Driving is the automaker’s semi-autonomous driving suite, which is widely regarded as the most robust and capable on the market today. Owners can purchase the suite outright for $8,000, or they can subscribe to the program for $99 per month, an option it enabled a few years ago.

However, it is not super easy to subscribe to the subscription model, nor is it even recognized on the company’s Online Design Studio. Without some research or prior knowledge, a consumer might not even know they could pay monthly to experience Full Self-Driving.

That is set to change, according to Tesla’s AI/IT Infrastructure, Cybersecurity, IT Apps, and Vehicle Service head Raj Jegannathan, who said the company is planning to change that.

Instead of having customers only have the option to pay outright for the suite, Tesla is now planning to offer the subscription model in its Online Design Studio, making it easier to activate that option:

It will be the second major change Tesla makes to how it sells Full Self-Driving to customers, the first being videos of real-life operation of FSD in the Design Studio. Previously, the site only showed animations of Full Self-Driving’s capabilities.

Tesla added the videos of FSD handling some tricky situations, as well as general operation of the suite, to the Design Studio in recent weeks.

Tesla makes big change to encourage Full Self-Driving purchases

The subscription model is more accessible to many owners, as it is reasonably priced and offers the option to take a month off from using it if they are interested in saving money.

Many cannot justify paying for the suite outright, especially as it adds $8,000 to the cost of their car. After they experience its capabilities for themselves, they might.

Both moves appear to be an effort to increase the take rate of Full Self-Driving, particularly as autonomy takes center stage at Tesla.

With the rollout of Robotaxi and some teased capabilities of the upcoming v14 iteration of Full Self-Driving, Tesla is gearing up to continue advancing its self-driving technology.

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Tesla talks Semi ramp, Optimus, Robotaxi rollout, FSD with Wall Street firm

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) recently talked about a variety of topics with Wall Street firm Piper Sandler, as the firm released a new note on Friday about their meeting with the company’s Investor Relations team.

According to the note from Piper Sandler, Tesla talked in detail about the Semi program, Optimus, and its potential valuation given its capabilities, the rollout of Robotaxi in Austin, and Full Self-Driving progress in the United States.

Tesla Semi Ramp

The Tesla Semi is set to enter mass production in 2026 at a dedicated factory near the company’s Gigafactory in Reno, Nevada.

The Semi has already been in pilot program testing, as Tesla has partnered with a few companies, like Frito-Lay and PepsiCo., to perform regional logistics. It has been met with excellent reviews from drivers, and it has helped give Tesla a good idea of what to expect when it makes its way to more companies in the coming years.

Piper Sandler said that it is evident Tesla is preparing for a “major ramp,” but it is keeping its expectations low:

“We’ve never expected much from this product, but we’d love to be proven wrong (Tesla is clearly prepping for a major ramp).”

Tesla Optimus and its value internally and externally

Optimus has been working in Tesla factories for some time, but its expectations as a product offering outside of the company internally have major implications.

Its role within Tesla factories, for now, is relatively low, but Optimus is still doing things to assist. By this time next year, Piper Sandler said Optimus should have bigger responsibilities:

“By this time in 2026, Optimus should be moving/staging parts within Tesla’s facilities.”

Outside of Tesla, Optimus could be a major beneficiary for companies as it could be a more affordable way to handle tedious tasks and manual labor. The firm believes that if Optimus can work 18-hour shifts, a cost of $100,000 per unit “would be justified.”

Tesla Robotaxi Expansion

The big focus of the firm with Robotaxi was Tesla’s expansion of the geofence in Austin this week. It was substantial, bringing the Robotaxi’s total service area to around 170 square miles, up from the roughly 90 square miles that rival Waymo is offering in the city.

Tesla Robotaxi geofence expansion enters Plaid Mode and includes a surprise

Tesla has doubled its geofence three times since its launch in late June, and it also revealed that its fleet of vehicles has expanded by 50 percent. It did not give a solid number of how many vehicles are operating in the fleet.

Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 launch

Tesla’s Full Self-Driving suite is set to have a fresh version, v14, rolled out in either September or October, and there are some pretty high expectations for it.

CEO Elon Musk said:

“The FSD release in about 6 weeks will be a dramatic gain with a 10X higher parameter count and many other improvements. It’s going through training & testing now. Once we confirm real-world safety of FSD 14, which we think will be amazing, the car will nag you much less.”

There is also some expectation that v14 could be the public release of what Tesla is running in Austin for Robotaxi. The firm confirmed this in their note by stating it “should enable Tesla owners to use software that is on par with Robotaxis in Austin.”

The only real hold up would be regulator skepticism, but Tesla can alleviate this with strong data.

The firm maintained its ‘Overweight’ rating and the $400 price target it holds on the stock.

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