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SpaceX’s first “next-gen” Starlink satellites are suspiciously familiar
In a strange twist, SpaceX says that its next Starlink mission will launch 54 satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO), implying that they’re roughly the same size as the V1.5 satellites it’s already launching – not the larger V2 or V2 Mini satellites discussed in recent FCC filings.
However, the data SpaceX provided also shows that those 54 satellites are headed to an orbit that only matches the company’s next-generation Starlink Gen2 (V2) constellation. While SpaceX quietly indicated that a V1.5-sized satellite was an option for early Gen2 launches in a supplemental October 2022 filing [PDF] with the FCC, it’s still unclear why SpaceX would prioritize launching V1.5-sized V2 satellites while its V1 constellation remains unfinished.
Adding to the confusion, in November 2021, CEO Elon Musk strongly implied that the inefficiencies of smaller Starlink V1.x satellites were so significant that they could risk bankrupting SpaceX if the company couldn’t start launching larger V2 satellites on its next-generation Starship rocket by the end of 2022. What, then, is the purpose of SpaceX’s imminent “Starlink G5-1” launch?
The update that's rolling out to the fleet makes full use of the front and rear steering travel to minimize turning circle. In this case a reduction of 1.6 feet just over the air— Wes (@wmorrill3) April 16, 2024
The name alone is confusing. Using the same shorthand as past Starlink V1 launches, “G5-1” refers to the first launch of “Group 5” of a constellation. “Group” here is synonymous with “shell,” which describes a set of satellites that share the same orbital inclination (the angle at which the orbit crosses the equator) and a similar orbital altitude. Of SpaceX’s three approved constellations, only one has five shells, and that shell can only exist at 97.6 degrees, not 43 degrees. SpaceX’s Gen2 constellation technically has nine planned shells, but the FCC has only partially approved three of those shells, one of which is at 43 degrees.
Ignoring the obtuse name, one possibility is that aspects of Starlink V2 satellite upgrades are not explicitly tied to the much larger size of those satellites and can be applied to SpaceX’s first-generation Starlink constellation without requiring a modified FCC license. If SpaceX wanted to add larger satellites to its V1 constellation or change the frequency bands they use, it would almost certainly have to seek a modified license from the FCC, which could take months.
There is no evidence SpaceX has done so, and any attempt would produce public documentation. The 43-degree inclination SpaceX’s mysterious “Starlink G5-1” launch is targeting also rules out any involvement in its V1 constellation, which only has approval for satellites between 53 and 97.6 degrees.
Aside from the unlikely possibility that details about the Starlink 5-1 mission are somehow incorrect or an artifact of a messy launch licensing process, there is at least one other unlikely explanation. In October 2018, the FCC granted SpaceX permission to launch a very low earth orbit (VLEO) constellation of 7518 Starlink satellites with dimensions similar to satellites that make up the 4408-satellite constellation the company is currently launching. More than four years later, SpaceX has yet to begin launching its approved VLEO constellation.
In November 2022, SpaceX told the FCC it intended to combine its Starlink VLEO and Starlink Gen2 constellations by adding V-band antennas to some of the almost 33,000 Gen2 satellites it hoped to launch – a move that would reduce the total number of Starlink satellites SpaceX needs to launch. Around the turn of the month, the FCC partially granted SpaceX’s Starlink Gen2 license, adding unprecedentedly strict requirements and only permitting the launch of 7500 of 33,000 planned Gen2 satellites to a limited set of inclinations (33, 43, and 53 degrees).
Perhaps, then, the uncertainty created by the FCC’s strange partial Gen2 grant made SpaceX change its mind about a dedicated Starlink VLEO constellation. However, without a license modification, SpaceX’s VLEO constellation is stuck with the same smaller (and potentially bankruptcy-inducing) satellites that its CEO believes make the first Starlink V1 constellation unsustainable. SpaceX also has less than two years until its VLEO constellation crosses its first deployment milestone, at which point the company will need to have launched half of it (3759 satellites) to avoid penalties from the FCC – up to and including the revocation of its license.
Despite the numerous reasons it wouldn’t make sense for Starlink 5-1 to be SpaceX’s first Starlink VLEO launch, almost 2500 of SpaceX’s approved VLEO satellites were intended to operate in a 336-kilometer (~209 mi) orbit inclined by 42 degrees – oddly similar to the 338-kilometer (~210 mi), 43-degree orbit SpaceX appears to be targeting with Starlink 5-1.
A surprise VLEO launch is a very unlikely explanation, but it’s only marginally stranger than the alternatives: that Starlink 5-1 is a V1-sized V2 launch with no prior mention or warning, a V1 launch to an orbit that would explicitly violate SpaceX’s Starlink V1 FCC license, or a paperwork error that has propagated so far that SpaceX distributed incorrect orbit information (which could threaten other satellites and rockets) less than two days before liftoff.
Thankfully, there is one last explanation – raised after this article was published – that appears to be much more likely. In response to a tweet summarizing these claims, astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell noted that SpaceX had, in fact, mentioned a third smaller Starlink V2 satellite variant in an October 2022 FCC filing that fell mostly under the radar. In that filing, SpaceX told that FCC it was developing three variants, not two. The smallest variant was said to weigh 303 kilograms and featured dimensions seemingly identical to SpaceX’s existing V1.5 satellites, which are estimated to weigh around 307 kilograms. SpaceX also stated that initial Falcon 9 launches will carry “approximately twenty to sixty satellites,” again confirming that V2 satellites could be about the same size and shape as V1.5 satellites.
SpaceX’s decision to develop a V1.5-sized version of V2 satellites makes little sense in the context of Musk’s implicit claims that problems inherent to its smaller V1 satellites threaten the company’s solvency. It’s clearer than ever that the SpaceX CEO may have been stretching the truth of the matter to craft an existential threat that might encourage employees to work longer hours. Still, developing and launching a V1.5-sized V2 satellite variant and beginning to launch those satellites while SpaceX’s Starlink Gen1 is more than 25% incomplete is confusing at best.
Regardless of what it’s carrying or why, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to launch Starlink 5-1 out of Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) no earlier than 4:40 am EST (09:40 UTC) on Wednesday, December 28th.
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Why SpaceX is finishing another space-internet system that isn’t Starlink
SpaceX launched three final O3b mPower satellites Sunday, finishing a lesser known SES satellite network.
SpaceX had an 87 minute window opening at 2:49 p.m. Eastern on Sunday to fly a Falcon 9 out of Cape Canaveral carrying the final three satellites for SES’s O3b mPower constellation, a project that has taken more than a decade to finish since Boeing and SES first signed SpaceX on for the work.
Unlike the thousands of Starlink satellites SpaceX has stacked into orbit over the years, O3b mPower flies in a different neighborhood entirely. The three new satellites, tagged F11, F12 and F13, are headed for medium Earth orbit at roughly 5,000 miles up, more than ten times higher than Starlink’s shell around 340 miles but still a small fraction of the 22,000 miles where old school geostationary satellites sit. That middle position is the whole point, because a satellite that far out needs far fewer siblings to blanket the globe than a low orbit constellation does. Essentially, SES only needed 13 satellites total to build a network offering quick, steady service that used to require thousands of spacecraft.
With most people having heard plenty about Starlink and almost nothing about O3b mPower, SES and SpaceX already blend the two networks for some customers. Both SpaceX and SES sell satellite broadband, but they’re aimed at different buyers. Starlink is built for volume, direct to consumers, RVs, homes, small businesses, plus a growing aviation and maritime business. O3b mPower skips consumers entirely and sells enterprise grade connectivity to airlines, cruise lines, offshore energy operators, telecoms needing backhaul, and governments, priced and provisioned more like a dedicated circuit.
A 2023 partnership lets cruise ships combine Starlink’s speed with O3b mPower’s steady capacity depending on what a ship needs at a given moment. Sunday’s completed 13 satellite constellation effectively finishes the medium orbit half of that pairing, years after.
Sunday’s mission was already a something on SpaceX’s manifest well before O3b mPower entered the picture. This flight marked its 29th trip to orbit, a history that includes two crewed Axiom missions, the European Space Agency’s Euclid telescope and 22 separate Starlink batches. SpaceX has landed boosters on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas so often that Sunday’s touchdown attempt, if it went as planned, was set to be the 661st successful Falcon booster landing to date.
For a company that pushed the Starlink constellation past 11,000 satellites back in August, almost entirely through bulk launches from California, Sunday’s flight was a reminder that SpaceX’s schedule still has room for someone else’s satellites too. SES gets a finished network built for a narrower set of customers, and Falcon 9 gets one more line on an already long resume.
Elon Musk
Tesla gives the Roadster an official “Go for launch” demonstration date
Tesla teased an October 1 Roadster reveal, reviving years of delayed SpaceX thruster hover promises.
Tesla teased an October 1 event date for its next generation Roadster, posting an image on X Saturday that shows the car lit up like it is sitting on a launch pad, with the date “10.01” stamped across the bottom and the caption “Go for launch.” A countdown clock on Tesla’s Roadster order page now points to the same date, which falls on a Thursday. The company has not said where the event will happen or whether it will be streamed at the moment. Stay with us @Teslarati for live updates.
Go for launch pic.twitter.com/Khu03eiZ04
— Tesla (@Tesla) September 12, 2026
Tesla has since sent formal invitations to reservation holders confirming the event will take place in Waco, Texas, about 90 minutes north of its Austin headquarters, based on a digital ticket shared on X by Sawyer Merritt. Tesla did not name the exact venue, though Waco sits close to SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas, rocket test site, previously reported as the planned location for a Roadster thruster demonstration. The invite sets the reveal for 8:30 p.m. Eastern on October 1, requires RSVPs by midnight on September 16, and limits entry to guests 21 and older. Invitations are non-transferable.
The tease follows nine years of a project defined by unimaginable specs along with slipped dates. Musk first showed the second generation Roadster in November 2017 as a surprise reveal at the end of the Tesla Semi event, promising a 0 to 60 mph time under two seconds, a top speed above 250 mph, 620 miles of range from a 200 kWh battery, and production starting in 2020. At last November’s shareholder meeting, Musk set an April 1 demo date and joked the choice gave him “deniability” if it slipped again, which it did, moving first to late April, then to “a month or so,” then to August.
Tesla Roadster SpaceX Package’s 1.1-second 0-60 mph launch visualized in concept video
Whatever Tesla shows on October 1 is expected to center on the SpaceX developed thruster package Musk has described since 2018. Internally code named A71, a nod to the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, the system reportedly uses cold gas thrusters fed by a composite overwrapped pressure vessel, the same tank design SpaceX uses on Falcon 9. Musk has said a thruster equipped Roadster could hit 60 mph in about 1.1 seconds under roughly 2.75 g of launch force, well past the 1.9 second figure quoted for the standard car. That version reportedly will not be street legal and has reportedly been discussed as a limited run sold through a track only program.
The standard Roadster is still expected to carry the original $200,000 base price and $250,000 Founders Series tier, both set when Tesla opened $50,000 and $250,000 reservations in 2017. Tesla VP of Vehicle Engineering Lars Moravy has confirmed production will happen at Gigafactory Texas, with Musk targeting 2027 or 2028, 12 to 18 months after whatever the company demonstrates next month.
Tesla is planning to roll out some pretty significant safety and accident avoidance features with Full Self-Driving version 15, which will be the next major FSD deployment from the company.
Tesla AI lead Ashok Elluswamy used a near-miss this week to preview what the company says is the next leap in Full Self-Driving.
In response to a driver whose car had swerved away from another vehicle pulling out of a parking lot, Elluswamy wrote that he was glad the owner was safe and that “even earlier prediction of hazards, even faster reaction time and overall significantly better safety and collision avoidance” would arrive with FSD v15.
Glad you are safe. Even earlier prediction of hazards, even faster reaction time and overall significantly better safety and collision avoidance coming as part of the next big upgrade (v15).
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) September 11, 2026
The comment landed as Tesla continues to treat software as the primary safety upgrade path. v15 is described internally as a larger architectural step, with a much bigger neural network and tighter coupling between prediction and control.
The company has already begun using early v15 software in some robotaxi operations while rolling out safety features such as Automatic Collision Evasion into current customer cars, allowing the driving stack to intervene even when the driver is in manual control.
Tesla is rolling out a new FSD version with a massive safety addition
Tesla’s published telemetry is the backbone of its safety argument. In recent North American Vehicle Safety Report data, vehicles with FSD (Supervised) engaged traveled roughly 5.1 million to 5.7 million miles between major collisions, defined as airbag-deployment events.
Tesla’s estimate of the U.S. average over the same period is about 699,000 miles per comparable crash. That is the comparison Tesla often frames as roughly seven times fewer major collisions.
A tighter comparison uses the same Tesla fleet. Cars driven manually with active safety features such as automatic emergency braking still recorded a major collision about every 2.1 million miles. Against that baseline, FSD’s advantage shrinks to roughly 2.4 to 2.7 times fewer severe crashes, which independent researchers argue is the more apples-to-apples figure.
European data released in 2026 pointed in the same direction: Tesla reported FSD as 3.5 times safer than manual driving in the Netherlands and 4.1 times fewer collisions than manually driven Teslas with active safety across more than 100 million kilometers in five approved countries.
Those numbers do not settle every debate. NHTSA’s Standing General Order still shows Tesla accounting for the large majority of U.S. Level 2 driver-assist crash reports, in part because the fleet logs far more assisted miles than rivals. Critics also note that Tesla’s “U.S. average” mixes crash definitions and driving mix.
Even so, Tesla’s own same-car comparisons, plus lower rates of automatic emergency braking and harsh maneuvers when FSD is engaged, are the evidence Elluswamy is pointing to when he says v15 will push prediction and collision avoidance further. The claim is not that software already eliminates risk. It is that each major version is meant to widen the gap between the system and an unaided human driver.
Why SpaceX is finishing another space-internet system that isn’t Starlink
Tesla gives the Roadster an official “Go for launch” demonstration date
