News
Boeing Starliner abort test (mostly) a success as SpaceX nears Crew Dragon static fire
On November 4th, Boeing completed a crucial pad abort test of its reusable Starliner spacecraft, successful in spite of an unintentional partial failure of its parachute recovery system. Three days later, Boeing revealed what it believed to be the cause of that anomaly in a November 7th press conference.
Meanwhile, SpaceX – having completed Crew Dragon’s pad abort test in 2015 – is preparing for an equally important In-Flight Abort (IFA) test and is perhaps just a day or two away from static firing the Crew Dragon capsule assigned to the test flight.
According to a NASA press release after the test, it “was designed to verify [that] each of Starliner’s systems will function not only separately, but in concert, to protect astronauts by carrying them safely away from the launch pad in the unlikely event of an emergency prior to liftoff.” Although the test wasn’t without flaws, the pad abort test successfully demonstrated the ability of the four launch abort engines and control thrusters to safely extricate astronauts from a failing rocket.
Those theoretical astronauts would have almost certainly survived the ordeal unharmed despite the failed deployment of one of Starliner’s three main parachutes, testing the spacecraft’s abort capabilities and redundancy quite a bit more thoroughly than Boeing intended. To put it bluntly, Boeing’s above tweet and PR claim that the failed deployment of 1/3 parachutes is “acceptable for the test parameters and crew safety” is an aggressive spin on a partial failure that NASA undoubtedly did not sign off on.
Boeing and SpaceX have both suffered failures while testing parachutes, leading NASA to require significantly more testing. However, in a November 7th press conference, Boeing revealed that Starliner’s parachute anomaly wasn’t the result of hardware failing unexpectedly under planned circumstances, but rather a consequence of a lack of quality assurance that failed to catch a major human error. Boeing says that a critical mechanical linkage (a pin) was improperly installed by a technician and then not verified prior to launch, causing one of Starliner’s three drogue chutes to simply detach from the spacecraft instead of deploying its respective main parachute.
Space is Parachutes are hard
Parachutes have been a major area of concern for the Commercial Crew Program. Both SpaceX and Boeing have now suffered failures during testing and have since been required to perform a range of additional tests to verify that upgraded and improved parachutes are ready to reliably return NASA astronauts to Earth. Although the Starliner pad abort test did indeed demonstrate the ability to land the capsule safely under two main chutes, an inadvertent test of redundancy, the series of Boeing actions that lead to the failure will almost certainly be scrutinized by NASA to avoid reoccurrences.
Boeing believes that the parachute failure won’t delay the launch of Starliner’s Orbital Flight Test (OFT), currently targeting a launch no earlier than (NET) December 17th. However, it can be said with some certainty that it will delay Starliner’s crewed launch debut (CFT), at least until Boeing can prove to NASA that it has corrected the fault(s) that allowed it to happen. SpaceX is similarly working to qualify upgraded Crew Dragon parachutes for astronaut launches, although the company has thus far only suffered anomalies related to the structural failure of parachute rigging/seams/fabric.
Abort tests galore
Boeing’s Starliner pad abort test occurred just days prior to a different major abort test milestone – this time for SpaceX. SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule C205 will perform a static fire test of its upgraded SuperDraco abort system, as well as its Draco maneuvering thrusters.
SpaceX has made alterations to the SuperDraco engines to prevent a failure mode that abruptly reared its head in April 2019, when a leaky valve and faulty design resulted in a catastrophic explosion milliseconds before a SuperDraco static fire test. Prior to its near-total destruction, Crew Dragon capsule C201 was assigned to SpaceX’s In-Flight Abort test, and its loss (and the subsequent failure investigation) delayed the test’s launch by at least six months. Crew Dragon’s design has since been fixed by replacing reusable check valves with single-use burst discs, nominally preventing propellant or oxidizer leaks.
If capsule C205’s static fire testing – scheduled no earlier than November 9th – goes as planned, SpaceX may be able to launch Crew Dragon’s in-flight abort (IFA) test before the end of 2019e. Likely to be a bit of a spectacle, Crew Dragon will launch atop a flight-proven Falcon 9 booster and a second stage with a mass simulator in place of its Merlin Vacuum engine, both of which will almost certainly be destroyed when Dragon departs the rocket during peak aerodynamic pressure.
NASA made in-flight abort tests an optional step for its Commercial Crew providers and Boeing decided to perform a pad abort only and rely on modeling and simulations to verify that Starliner’s in-flight abort safety. Assuming that NASA is happy with the results of Starliner’s pad abort and Boeing can alleviate concerns about the parachute anomaly suffered during the test, Starliner’s uncrewed orbital flight test (OFT) could launch as early as December 17th. Starliner’s crewed flight test (CFT) could occur some 3-6 months after that if all goes as planned during the OFT.
If SpaceX’s In-Flight Abort (IFA) also goes as planned and NASA is content with the results, Crew Dragon could be ready for its crewed launch debut (Demo-2) as early as February or March 2020.
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News
SpaceX set to launch astronauts and a classified Falcon Heavy mission on the same day
SpaceX plans three launches Thursday, including Crew-13 astronauts and Falcon Heavy’s first classified NRO mission.
SpaceX is lining up one of the busiest single days in its history, and the company offered a preview on Wednesday morning with a simple post on X: “Sunrise at pad 40.” The video and photos show Falcon 9 standing at Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral, roughly a day before it is scheduled to carry four astronauts to the International Space Station.
That launch is only the first of three SpaceX missions planned for Thursday, October 1, across both coasts.
Sunrise at pad 40 pic.twitter.com/J7Qme4VvIX
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 30, 2026
Crew-13 is targeting liftoff at 11:10 a.m. ET, with a backup opportunity Friday at 10:47 a.m. ET. NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins will command the mission, with NASA’s Luke Delaney as pilot and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov serving as mission specialists. According to NASA, Dragon is set to dock with the forward port of the station’s Harmony module around 8 p.m. ET, less than nine hours after launch. Watkins is the only member of the crew who has flown before, and Kutryk will become the first Canadian to reach orbit through NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
The Falcon 9 booster is flying for the third time after supporting Crew-12 and a Starlink mission, and it will attempt a landing at Landing Zone 40 beside the pad. That site made its debut in February when the Crew-12 booster touched down there, as Teslarati reported at the time. Crew-13 will relieve the Crew-12 astronauts, who have been aboard the station since the middle of February.
On the West Coast, another Falcon 9 is scheduled to lift off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in a window running from 2:18 to 3:16 p.m. ET, a flight NASASpaceflight lists as a Transporter rideshare mission.
The day is set to close at 11:53 p.m. ET, when Falcon Heavy launches from Launch Complex 39A with NROL-97, the first National Reconnaissance Office payload ever to fly on the rocket. SpaceX rolled the vehicle out to the pad Tuesday night. Its two side boosters, which previously flew GOES-U, ViaSat-3 F3 and NASA’s Roman Space Telescope, will return to Landing Zones 1 and 2, while a new center core will be expended in the Atlantic. The Roman launch took place on August 30, so NROL-97 will come barely a month later as Falcon Heavy’s third flight of 2026 and 14th overall.
NASA taps SpaceX to launch the telescope that could unlock new worlds
If all three Florida boosters land as planned, it would be the first time the Space Coast has seen landings at LZ-40, LZ-1 and LZ-2 on the same day, according to the Orlando Sentinel, which has warned residents in Brevard, Orange and Volusia counties that more than one sonic boom is possible.
The schedule arrives just three days after Starship reached orbit for the first time on Flight 14 from Starbase, Texas, deploying 26 Starlink V3 satellites. If Thursday’s missions stay on time, SpaceX will have flown Starship, Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy from four different pads in about four days.
Crew-13 is also the start of a longer run for Dragon. NASA recently added Crew-15, Crew-16 and Crew-17 to SpaceX’s contract in a $946 million modification, keeping Dragon as the agency’s only operational ride to the station while Boeing’s Starliner remains grounded.
Although the two vehicles are built for completely different use cases, Tesla utilized engineering expertise while developing both the Cybercab and Semi to build a thermal architecture that would fit both vehicles. Of course, with some slight revisions.
The development was noted by Lars Moravy and Dan Priestley last week at Tesla’s Semi Handover event in Sparks, Nevada, where the company showed off its dedicated production facility for the Class 8 truck.
🚨 Tesla designed the integrated thermal systems for Cybercab and Semi at the same time as the vehicles were both in development
Tesla wanted to build one thermal system that worked with both vehicles, apart from small modifications.
Semi and Cybercab share parts 🤯 pic.twitter.com/KmzSsUbrcg
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) September 25, 2026
Tesla’s decision to develop one thermal architecture for both the Cybercab and Semi is one of the more revealing engineering choices in the company’s 2026 lineup:
“We designed it at the same time we designed the Cybercab and we said okay we’re going to take our most efficient vehicle and our biggest vehicle and we’re going to take one thermal system and make it work for both.”
Core parts, meaning the compressor, pumps, and heat exchangers, are shared, with only modest changes to cooling-loop sizing and a larger radiator on the truck. The result, they said, is a compressor and thermal stack already proven across millions of miles, delivering “reliability from day one.”
Priestley also highlighted a practical payoff of the indirect design:
“There’s no AC lines, there’s no refrigerant lines…It comes from the factory fully charged, sealed with refrigerant, and it just exchanges coolant. It doesn’t actually run refrigerant up to the front of the vehicle.”
This eliminates potentially leak-prone plumbing that would otherwise require hands-on service, reducing overall uptime and potentially cutting into business margins. The megamanifold runs cabin HVAC and every powertrain heating and cooling loop at once, recapturing waste heat from motors and the battery instead of dumping it the way a diesel engine does.
The approach is just the latest chapter in a continuing story of stretching thermal solutions across wildly different vehicles. Model Y’s Octovalve evolved into the Super Manifold used on Cybertruck, and later Model S/X refreshes. Cybercab then introduced Supermanifold V3, which Tesla says is 80 percent automated to build and 38 percent more efficient than typical automotive thermal systems.
This thermal system is also shared with Cybercab – one thermal system for both our most efficient vehicle & our biggest vehicle
— Tesla Semi (@tesla_semi) September 25, 2026
Tesla has done the same with the 4680 cells, both being utilized in the Cybertruck and Semi, and with heat-pump compressors that Priestley noted were already common across the passenger-car fleet.
Concurrent development of crucial vehicle elements buys scale and reliability that a truck-only thermal system could not match. High-volume passenger car parts are cheaper and more accessible, which can give fleets a sealed, low-maintenance loop of operation from their first day of operation.
For owners and operators, that translates into less energy spent on cabin heat in the colder months, fewer refrigerant-related repairs, and a thermal architecture already stress-tested at passenger-car volumes before the first high-volume Semi left the lines in Nevada.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk certainly tipped off some details of the Tesla Roadster event with a broadening of information regarding the company’s decision to delay the unveiling for two weeks.
For years, people have speculated about what the Roadster will be capable of. While there have been plenty of things said about what it *could* do, we have not seen or been told by Tesla what it will actually be capable of.
However, over the past few days, Tesla’s weather updates have truly pushed the speculation into Plaid Mode, basically all but confirming the car will have some sort of aerial capability — whether that would be hovering or fully flying remains to be seen — but it definitely seems that it will be able to leave the ground intentionally.
“Because this event can only be held outdoors…”
Tesla posted on Monday that it would delay the Roadster event until October 15, and it indicated that it had to do this because the event “can only be held outdoors.”
With the potential SpaceX collaboration to develop cold-gas thrusters that will help the vehicle go airborne, doing this indoors is probably not a safe, or even plausible, possibility.
Roadster event update
We’ve been tracking the weather closely with local meteorologists, but given the severe conditions predicted & because this event can only be held outdoors, we’ve made the difficult decision to reschedule.
New date is October 15. Additional details to…
— Tesla (@Tesla) September 28, 2026
FAA Airspace Restriction
The FAA gave Tesla a Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) for 10,000 feet above ground level, much higher than the typical 2,000-foot restrictions that are usually placed at SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas site.
Tesla Roadster event requires restricted airspace, and the FAA obliges
Some have said that this massive increase is due to Tesla’s need to restrict unauthorized drone use for spying on the event.
Elon Admits High Winds
“Due to high winds, the new Roadster demo is postponed by 2 weeks,” Musk said in a post on X yesterday.
Due to high winds, the new Roadster demo is postponed by 2 weeks https://t.co/dV3ojDh1iT
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 30, 2026
A reply reading, “What’s strong wind got to do with a car demo with four grounded wheels?” was directly below Musk’s post, satirically and sarcastically probing for more details.
All signs are pointing toward an aerial demonstration for the Roadster.
SpaceX set to launch astronauts and a classified Falcon Heavy mission on the same day
Tesla Cybercab and Semi have more in common than you might think
