News
Best places to watch SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy launch
Just a day away from SpaceX’s first inaugural Falcon Heavy launch attempt on February 6 at 1:30 pm EST, hype for the triple-rocket is reaching a boiling point, and for good reason. Already, there are hints and reports that the launch is likely to draw crowds not seen in several years, likely well over 100,000 people. This means that those still interested in viewing the historic launch but not yet committed may have trouble gaining access to the most popular viewing locations in Florida, but there are still a number of ways to join in on the spectacle.

SpaceX’s massive Falcon Heavy seen at Pad 39A ahead of its first successful static fire test. (Tom Cross)
Launch photographers and committed spaceflight fans are by far the best resources in this regard, and many have decades of experience viewing all kinds of rocket launches from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Prominent photographer Ben Cooper has created a brief launch viewing guide specific to Falcon Heavy, the size of which means that certain viewing sites are either closed or already sold out. Quoted below, he provides a solid summary of the options still available to fans and travelers alike:
Falcon Heavy / [No Earlier Than] Feb 6 @ 1:30pm (Pad 39A):
1) If you are heading to PLAYALINDA BEACH (3.6 miles at first parking lot, closest possible spot to watch this launch): They plan to remain open, but the park reserves the right to change that, alter traffic patterns, and close beaches/areas when parking lots are filled. The beach opens at 6:00am. GET THERE EARLY AND HAVE A BACKUP PLAN. THEY MAY CLOSE UPON REACHING PARKING CAPACITY. Plan for the possibility of having to walk between one and three miles from where you park if you wish to get closer.
2) The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Center (KSCVC) is also selling tickets: Saturn V Center (3.9 miles) tickets are SOLD OUT. Tickets to go to the Visitor Complex itself were still available as of Feb. 1 (7.4 miles; you will see the launch and landing only in the sky; the pads are behind the trees). (They are also selling $35 tickets to watch from a location in Titusville which you otherwise go to for free.)
3) Next best for launch only: Titusville riverfront areas (any), but especially on top of the Max Brewer Bridge (11.7 miles, Rt. 406/Garden Street).
4) Next best for launch + landings both: Port Canaveral (Rt. 401, 6.9 from landings, 13 from launch) or Jetty Park (6.0 from landings but no view of launch pad). If 401 is filled or no more parking is allowed, fall back to Rt 528/Beeline behind it.
If you’re looking for a far more populated map including public transport, airports, rest stops, nearby amenities, and more, LaunchRats.com has you covered. They also feature a Falcon Heavy viewing guide, but Ben’s above guide is nearly identical. For a full rundown of the above resources and much, much more, Tim “Everyday Astronaut” Dodd has crafted an extremely well-made video walking viewers through all they need to know ahead of attempting to watch rocket launches in Florida, and I highly recommend it if you have ten or so minutes to spare.
As he rightly points out, Falcon Heavy viewing guides effectively work for all launches Florida, albeit minus any rocket landing attempts in the case of NASA or ULA missions. In the case of Falcon Heavy, not one but two of its three first stages will be attempting landings at Landing Zone 1, guaranteed to produce a visual spectacle from several of the aforementioned viewing locations, as well as a symphony of sonic booms (probably six or more) throughout the East coast of Florida. Buckle up, it’s bound to be a moment to remember, one way or another. For those that can’t attend the launch in person, SpaceX will undoubtedly provide their own exceptional live coverage.
Follow along live as launch photographer Tom Cross covers this incredible moment in person, documenting all of the best parts on Teslarati’s Instagram stories. Up next is the release of be a Falcon Heavy launch animation straight from SpaceX.
Teslarati – Instagram – Twitter
Tom Cross – Instagram
Eric Ralph – Twitter
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s companies made up with Apple but OpenAI still on the hook
Elon Musk’s X Corp and SpaceXAI dropped their Apple antitrust suit, leaving OpenAI as defendant.
X Corp and SpaceXAI, Elon Musk’s social platform and AI venture, have dropped Apple from the antitrust lawsuit that they filed against the iPhone maker and OpenAI last year. In a filing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, attorneys for X and SpaceXAI moved to dismiss the Apple portion of the case, first reported by Reuters. The filing does not explain why the companies are dropping Apple or say whether a settlement was reached.
X and SpaceXAI say they intend to keep pursuing the case against OpenAI, which remains a defendant. That resolves the dispute with one company while leaving the core allegation intact against the other, with no public accounting of what changed in between.
The lawsuit dates to August 2025, when xAI and X sued Apple and OpenAI, arguing that Apple’s decision to make ChatGPT the only generative AI chatbot built into iOS gave OpenAI an unfair structural advantage. The complaint claimed ChatGPT controlled roughly 80 percent of the chatbot market at the time, while Grok held only a few percent. It sought billions of dollars in damages and asked the court to unwind the arrangement.
Elon Musk’s xAI and X file antitrust suit against Apple and OpenAI over AI exclusivity
The filing followed weeks of Musk publicly complaining that Grok and X weren’t appearing in Apple’s “Must Have” App Store section, though Grok ranked second in the Productivity category and X ranked first in News at the time. He accused Apple of “playing politics” and warned of immediate legal action before following through days later.
Apple and OpenAI tried to get the case thrown out, but a federal judge denied both motions in November, ruling the dispute was better suited to summary judgment than an early dismissal. That decision sent the case into discovery, which is presumably what led to Monday’s filing.
Hey @Apple App Store, why do you refuse to put either 𝕏 or Grok in your “Must Have” section when 𝕏 is the #1 news app in the world and Grok is #5 among all apps?
Are you playing politics? What gives? Inquiring minds want to know. https://t.co/3wenLZGtwG
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 11, 2025
The timing is notable given how Musk’s sentiment toward Apple has shifted, with Musk noting that he was open to letting Grok power a revamped Siri after a user suggested Apple replace its aging assistant with xAI’s model.
xAI, the AI venture Musk folded into X Corp last year, has since combined with SpaceX under the SpaceXAI brand. That structure now puts X, Grok and SpaceX’s rocket and satellite businesses under one roof as Musk pushes his AI ambitions beyond chatbots.
OpenAI remains the sole defendant going forward, and Musk’s companies have not said if there’s any changes to those original claims. Apple and OpenAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the filing.
News
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.