SpaceX
SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spaceship shown off in first high-res orbital portraits
Taken by Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, the first high-resolution photos of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft have begun to trickle in, offering the best views yet of the advanced human-rated spacecraft in its natural habit: Earth orbit.
Filling in for a distinct and uncharacteristic lack of official photos from NASA, the spacecraft’s inaugural spaceflight had thus far only been documented through NASA’s own live coverage of its International Space Station (ISS) rendezvous, limited to a relatively low-quality stream. With Oleg’s extremely high-resolution captures, we can begin to see SpaceX’s Crew Dragon with a level of detail previously only seen (if ever) on the ground.
Stunning photos of Dragon 2 docking from Oleg Kononenko! https://t.co/Lu9zlKFPt9
He was monitoring from the Russian section, near the Soyuz, due to Rocosmos contingency procedures.
Hires set:https://t.co/lFuRSzlvpQ pic.twitter.com/6wrBqVDPOP
— NSF – NASASpaceflight.com (@NASASpaceflight) March 4, 2019
In all fairness to NASA, the ISS is operating with just three crew members, only one of which – Anne McClain – is a NASA astronaut. Particularly the case for an operation as critical as Crew Dragon’s inaugural orbital docking attempt, the task of controlling space vehicle rendezvous typically requires the full attention of one or two onboard astronauts – in this case, NASA’s Anne McClain and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut David Saint-Jacques. Veteran Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, however, was required by Roscosmos to remain in the Russian segment of the ISS in the event of a catastrophic anomaly during Crew Dragon’s approach to the station.
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Just prior to launch, NASA broke the news that its Russian ISS partners had expressed concerns about the design of Crew Dragon’s approach trajectory, mainly focusing on the fact that a loss of control or communications while moving towards the station would leave no way for the spacecraft to naturally slow down. In other words, a dead spacecraft with a forward velocity would simply continue moving forward until it impacted the ISS, a bit like a semi-truck crash in slow motion (i.e. < 0.5 m/s or 1 mph). Weighing a hefty 12 tons (~26,600 lbs) during the arrival, even an extremely low-speed impact could undoubtedly do some damage to the ISS, although an actual hull breach (and thus a need to evacuate) would be extraordinarily unlikely. Still, Oleg was unable to significantly assist during the rendezvous itself, although the cosmonaut was front and center after Crew Dragon’s successful capture.
Taking advantage of the opportunity to observe, the cosmonaut was able to take a number of photos of Crew Dragon’s arrival, although the location of its docking port makes for a less than optimal perspective. Still, it’s hard to complain about any extremely high-quality photos of Crew Dragon, and Oleg’s are nothing short of spectacular. Highlighting the spacecraft’s nose section and docking port hardware, as well as limited views of its trunk section and body, this is quite possibly the first time SpaceX’s newest vehicle has been publicly shown off at this level of detail.
This privileged view includes a detailed look at Crew Dragon’s Draco maneuvering thrusters (elongated black ovals below SpaceX logo), two shrouds containing half of its SuperDraco abort thrusters (beneath the NASA meatball and flag emblem), the ‘Dragon Claw’ latch connecting the capsule and trunk (a smooth rectangle in the lower right), and even a (likely) duo of LIDAR arrays to the left and right of the docking adapter ring. Other notable appearances include the disposable trunk section’s radiators (a series of white rectangles visible on the left) and empennage, four fins meant to provide aerodynamic stability in the event of an abort. Just out of view is trunk’s sculpture-like solar array, curved to fit along the upper (relative) half of the section and fixed in place to minimize failure modes associated to deployable solar arrays like those used on Cargo Dragon.
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- Crew Dragon is backlit by an orbital sunrise over Earth’s limb on its inaugural March 2019 spaceflight. (Anne McClain)
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- Crew Dragon’s ISS approach. (Oleg Kononenko)
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- A better view of the solar array half of Crew Dragon’s trunk section. (NASA)
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- Cloooooser… (Oleg Kononenko)
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- (Oleg Kononenko)
After completing its successful space station docking debut on the morning of March 3rd, Crew Dragon is scheduled to depart the ISS and reenter Earth’s atmosphere for a soft landing in the Atlantic Ocean around 9 am PST (14:00 UTC) on March 8th. According to the SpaceX and NASA hosts of the live docking coverage, Crew Dragon’s DM-1 departure from the ISS will also be treated to a hosted webcast, potentially all the way through reentry and recovery aboard the customized SpaceX vessel GO Searcher. According to CEO Elon Musk, there is a slight but present chance of anomalous behavior during reentry due to aerodynamic instability caused by the shrouds covering Crew Dragon’s unique SuperDraco abort system, while NASA continues to have concerns (largely unexplained) about the spacecraft’s redundant parachute system.
Regardless of technical concerns, Crew Dragon’s reentry will be the final critical challenge in the way of completing its first demonstration launch (DM-1), proceeded by a flawless launch and equally flawless docking. If successful, it will explicitly pave the way for the spacecraft’s second demonstration mission (DM-2), in which two NASA astronauts will be transported to the ISS. That major milestone could occur as early as July, although slips are probable.
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SpaceX will report second quarter results after the market closes on Tuesday, August 4, marking the first time the company has opened its books to the public since its record IPO in June. Management will host a live audio only webcast at 4:30 p.m. ET, streamed on X, with no dial in option.
The debut carries more weight than a typical first quarter as a public company. Two trading days after the release, on August 6, the first tranche of SpaceX’s lockup expires, freeing roughly 911.5 million insider and employee shares, worth well over $100 billion at current prices and the largest such release in Wall Street history. A second, larger tranche tied to the stock trading 30 percent above its $135 IPO price never triggered, since shares have spent most of July trading below that price.
Wall Street’s models point to revenue near $6.9 billion for the quarter, up sharply from the $4.69 billion SpaceX reported in the first quarter, with a narrower per share loss than the $1.27 posted three months earlier, according to estimates compiled by Motley Fool. Those numbers will be the first look at how SpaceX’s three segments, Starlink, launch and AI, are performing independently.
SpaceX scores another massive Pentagon deal to support military satellites
Investors heading into the call have a specific list of questions. How many net new Starlink subscribers did SpaceX add after ending March with 10.3 million, and is average revenue per user holding up as the service expands into lower income markets. How much of the AI segment’s revenue reflects contract signings with Anthropic, Google and Reflection AI this year, deals that combined could annualize to nearly $28 billion if fully ramped. Whether capital expenditures, which nearly doubled in the AI segment alone between 2024 and 2025, are still accelerating or starting to plateau. And whether management offers any forward guidance at all, something SpaceX has never done publicly.
The report will also land days after Elon Musk publicly denied a Wall Street Journal report describing internal planning to separate Tesla’s China business ahead of a potential Tesla-SpaceX merger. Whether Musk or SpaceX executives address that speculation on the call, even indirectly, maybe something investors will be listening for on Tuesday.
As Teslarati reported after Musk’s own warning to short sellers last week, the CEO has made clear he expects skeptics to be proven wrong over time. Tuesday will be the first chance for the numbers themselves to make that case.
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Elon Musk
SpaceX’s Starship just got filmed by its own cargo
SpaceX released new footage of Starship in space captured by the Starlink satellites it deployed.
SpaceX released a new video Friday evening showing Starship from an angle showcased by its own Starlink satellites, watching the rocket drift away in orbit.
The 65 second clip, posted on X, stitches together footage from four cameras mounted on a single Starlink V3 satellite. It opens with a close view of Starship’s 171 foot upper stage, still catching sunlight, then pulls back as the two spacecraft separate.
The footage comes from Starship’s 13th flight test, which launched July 24 from Starbase after a scrubbed attempt and an abort caused by an engine issue the week before. When Flight 13 finally flew, it carried the first batch of functional Starlink V3 satellites Starship has ever deployed, twenty of them, with six equipped with cameras meant to scan the ship’s heat shield during reentry.
View of Starship in space from a Starlink V3 satellite on Flight 13.
This composite is made of imagery from four separate cameras on a single satellite. Six of the satellites were equipped with cameras to scan Starship’s heat shield and transmit imagery down to operators to… pic.twitter.com/sNTHHz5vLr
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 31, 2026
Flight 13 checked most of its boxes. Starship deployed all 20 satellites, relit a Raptor engine in space, and splashed down softly in the Indian Ocean off Western Australia. Musk’s longer term plan calls for a Starlink V3 constellation of 100,000 satellites, according to a recent FCC filing, with Starship as the only vehicle capable of launching them at the volume that requires. Each Starship flight is designed to carry up to 60 V3 satellites once the vehicle reaches routine service, well beyond what Falcon 9 can carry in a single mission.
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Starship is next expected to fly with an attempt at catching the ship itself with the launch tower’s mechanical arms, a maneuver SpaceX has so far reserved for the Super Heavy booster.
SpaceX just picked up another $1.6 billion from the Pentagon, with the U.S. Space Force awarding two task orders worth $1.6 billion to fly 18 Falcon 9 missions from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California through the end of 2027. The launches will carry satellites for the Space Based Sensing and Targeting portfolio, a set of programs meant to help the military detect and track airborne threats and relay that information across forces in near real time.
The award falls under National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 1, the Space Force’s faster, commercial style procurement track for missions that do not require the military’s most demanding certification process. It is also the largest single order publicly disclosed under that program so far, and the first task order issued since the Space Force nearly tripled Lane 1’s contract ceiling from $5.6 billion to $17 billion on July 17.
SpaceX to become America’s Military data backbone for missiles, drones, and warfighters
Eric Zarybnisky, the Space Force’s acting portfolio acquisition executive for space access, said the entire process, from identifying the requirement to signing the contract, took about two months, including a month set aside for companies to prepare proposals.
SpaceX is not just launching these satellites. It already holds the contracts to build two of the programs within the same portfolio, $4.16 billion for the Space Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator system and $2.29 billion for the Space Data Network Backbone, which Teslarati covered in May. That means SpaceX is now responsible for both building key pieces of the military’s next generation sensing network and getting them into orbit.
With this latest award, SpaceX’s Pentagon contract total for 2026 alone tops $8 billion, adding to a defense portfolio that already includes the Golden Dome missile defense software group SpaceX joined in April and a string of GPS launches it inherited after ULA’s Vulcan rocket ran into a booster anomaly, which we detailed in March.
Lane 1’s vendor pool technically includes seven companies: SpaceX, ULA, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, Stoke Space, Impulse Space, and Relativity Space. In practice, SpaceX remains the only provider with the combination of launch cadence, flight proven Falcon 9 hardware, and West Coast infrastructure to support a campaign requiring roughly one Vandenberg launch a month for the next year and a half.
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Some lawmakers have flagged the growing concentration of national security launches with one company as a risk worth watching. For now, the Space Force keeps backing SpaceX, with it being the company that shows up ready to launch.
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