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Boeing Starliner spacecraft successfully returns to flight 29 months after ill-fated debut
More than three years after SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft first safely reached orbit and almost three and a half years after Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule’s ill-fated launch debut, Boeing has finally returned to flight and made it farther than ever before towards a successful test flight.
Almost ten months after Boeing’s first attempt at Starliner’s second uncrewed Orbital Flight Test (OFT-2 #1), the stars aligned. As expected, the United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket lifted off on time at 6:54 pm EDT (22:54 UTC) on Thursday, May 19th, ascending from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) Launch Complex 41 (LC-41) without issue. After a four and a half minute burn, the Atlas V booster – powered by a Russian-built RD-180 engine – separated and the Centaur upper stage – powered by two Aerojet Rocketdyne RL-10 engines – took over.
Another six minutes later, Centaur shut down and Starliner ultimately separated from the rocket a bit less than 12 minutes after liftoff. Unlike SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, though, Starliner separated from its launch vehicle before reaching orbit – a task Boeing engineers chose to reserve for the spacecraft itself to limit stress on the spacecraft and crew in the event of a high-altitude abort. However, that design decision also adds significant risk in other ways and – after the spacecraft’s extremely poor performance during its first launch attempt – turns a Starliner launch into a sort of 30-minute cliffhanger.
While just a hair shy of true orbit, Starliner’s suborbital launch trajectory means that whether or not it wants to, the spacecraft will reenter Earth’s atmosphere about an hour after liftoff if it can’t complete a minute-long orbital insertion burn. In the case of OFT-2, that burn came about 31 minutes after liftoff and was thankfully successful, inserting Starliner into a stable, circular orbit and undoubtedly triggering a massive wave of relief for all employees involved. From that stable orbit, Starliner can finally begin to prepare to rendezvous with the International Space Station (ISS) for the first time ever.
The story of Starliner’s tortured orbital flight test (OFT) campaign began in earnest on December 20th, 2019, when an uncrewed prototype of the Boeing spacecraft first attempted to launch to the International Space Station (ISS) atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket. Infamously, a major software bug that could have been easily detected with even the most basic integrated hardware-in-the-loop prelaunch testing caused Starliner to lose control the moment it separated from Atlas V. Only through a heroic last-second effort was Boeing able to insert Starliner into orbit and prevent the spacecraft from reentering prematurely, which would have likely destroyed it. After hundreds of seconds of unplanned burns of its many attitude control thrusters, Starliner no longer had enough propellant to safely reach the ISS.
Boeing would later correct another completely unrelated software bug mere hours before Starliner’s planned reentry and recovery. If undetected, it could have caused the spacecraft’s capsule and service sections to crash into each other shortly after separation, potentially damaging the capsule’s heat shield and dooming it to destruction during reentry. Had astronauts been aboard, either of the two software bugs could have potentially resulted in crew fatalities and total mission failure. Instead, through a combination of sheer luck and a quick emergency response from Boeing and NASA teams, the spacecraft was saved and recovered in New Mexico.
On a positive note, aside from raising deep and foreboding questions about Boeing’s software development and integrating testing capabilities and NASA’s inept and inconsistent oversight, OFT-1 did still demonstrate that Starliner was able to reach orbit, operate in space, deorbit, survive atmospheric reentry, and land softly under parachutes.
However, the problems were about to continue and spread beyond software. On July 30th, 2021, shortly before a different uncrewed Starliner was scheduled to reattempt the first Orbital Flight Test, the launch was aborted. Eventually, Boeing and NASA reported that 13 of Starliner’s 24 main oxidizer valves had failed to open during a prelaunch test just a few hours before liftoff. The resulting investigation ultimately concluded that the Aerojet Rocketdyne-supplied valves had a faulty design and that Boeing had failed to properly insulate those valves from humidity and water intrusion. It also delayed the next OFT-2 launch attempt by almost ten months.
But finally, after almost 30 months of work to rectify those software and hardware failures, Starliner has intentionally reached a stable orbit without running into a major problem – certainly cause for some amount of optimism. Still, safely rendezvousing and docking with the ISS may be the biggest and riskiest challenge Starliner has faced yet and Boeing will be attempting the feat for the first time in its modern history. Starliner is expected to begin proximity operations around 3 pm EDT on May 20th. If the first attempt is perfect, docking could occur as early as 7:10 pm EDT.
Ultimately, even if Boeing is now more than three years behind SpaceX, whose Crew Dragon spacecraft first reached orbit and the ISS in March 2019 and launched its first astronauts in May 2020, it’s essential that NASA has two redundant crew vehicles available to carry its astronauts to and from the station. SpaceX’s extraordinary success and heroic efforts have allowed the company to singlehandedly ensure NASA access to the ISS since November 2020, but no complex system is perfect and even a failure outside of SpaceX’s control could trigger a long delay that could threaten NASA’s uninterrupted presence on the International Space Station.
NASA has contracts with SpaceX to maintain that uninterrupted presence at the ISS through Crew Dragon’s Crew-7 mission, which could launch as early as September 2023 and would then return to Earth around March 2024. If OFT-2 is completed without significant issue, Boeing’s next priority is Starliner’s Crew Flight Test (CFT), a crewed launch debut that could happen before the end of 2022.
After that, Starliner’s first operational crew launch could potentially occur in Q1 2024, just before Crew Dragon’s Crew-7 recovery. Following Crew Dragon’s near-flawless uncrewed test flight, it took another 14 months for NASA and SpaceX to proceed to Demo-2, Dragon’s Crew Flight Test equivalent. Dragon’s first operational astronaut launch occurred in November 2020, 20 months after its uncrewed demo flight. If NASA follows a similar path for Starliner, that meshes well with an operational debut in early 2024.
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It’s official: SpaceX takes aim at Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile
SpaceX is buying 800 MHz spectrum from Grain to turn Starlink Mobile into a carrier.
SpaceX has agreed to buy a nationwide block of low band wireless spectrum, a deal the company says will let Starlink Mobile operate as a full US carrier rather than a satellite add-on for someone else’s network.
The company announced the agreement on X on Thursday afternoon, saying it will “pave the way for @Starlink to become a major mobile carrier in the US.” The seller is Grain Management, a private investment firm that confirmed in a statement that SpaceX will acquire 100% of its nationwide 800 MHz portfolio. That covers up to 14 MHz of paired spectrum in the 817 to 824 MHz and 862 to 869 MHz bands. Neither side disclosed a price, and the deal still needs FCC approval.
We announced an agreement to acquire a nationwide low-band spectrum license portfolio that will pave the way for @Starlink to become a major mobile carrier in the US.
With this new spectrum and our Gen2 constellation, Starlink Mobile can ensure Americans have access to high-speed mobile broadband no matter where they are → https://t.co/1Uaf48v5pm
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 8, 2026
Grain only recently picked up the licenses itself. It bought the portfolio from T-Mobile in a transaction that closed in August, paying cash plus its own 600 MHz spectrum. Rival AST SpaceMobile had been testing satellites on the same bands before SpaceX stepped in.
SpaceX said its 2 GHz spectrum will handle high bandwidth capacity, while the new 800 MHz layer “ensures Starlink Mobile’s signal penetrates through obstacles, such as walls, and can provide service to customers’ devices even when they are in buildings.” The company added that most existing phones already support the band, so customers would not need new hardware to use it.
That 2 GHz spectrum came from SpaceX’s EchoStar acquisition last year, which gave the company exclusive S band rights in the US and global Mobile Satellite Service licenses. The Grain spectrum is different in an important way: it is tailored for service from ground towers, not satellites. SpaceX said that combination would make Starlink Mobile “the first network operator to deploy both satellite and terrestrial spectrum.”
The announcement also follows a key regulatory win. Earlier this week, the FCC approved SpaceX’s plan to deploy 15,000 second generation Starlink Mobile satellites, which the company has said will carry up to 100 times the data density of the current system, as Teslarati previously reported.
Shares of AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile fell in extended trading after the announcement. T-Mobile is currently SpaceX’s launch partner for Starlink Mobile in the US, which makes its position the most complicated of the three.
SpaceX has not been subtle about its plans. During the company’s August earnings call, President and COO Gwynne Shotwell said she expected Starlink Mobile to win over customers from the major carriers. “I anticipate us to be able to acquire quite a few of their customers because I think our service will be better,” she said, pointing to dead zone coverage and resilience during disasters. Shotwell also described plans for low cost cellular base stations that could pair with existing Starlink dishes.
SpaceX has targeted 2027 for deployment of its next generation Starlink Mobile satellites, with upgraded service expected by the end of that year. The FCC review of the Grain deal now determines when the terrestrial half of that network can come online.
Elon Musk
Trump presents Elon Musk with National Medal of Science, calls him “modern-day Thomas Edison”
Trump gave Elon Musk the National Medal of Science and compared him to Thomas Edison.
Elon Musk now has the highest honor the U.S. government gives to scientists and engineers. President Donald Trump presented him with the National Medal of Science on Thursday at the White House’s “Science: A New Golden Age” summit, held at the Institute of Peace in Washington, according to the White House.
Trump called Musk a “national treasure” and “our modern-day Thomas Edison.” “Few Americans in history have done more to advance America’s national interest than Elon in one field after another,” the president said. He also described Musk as an “industrial titan, brilliant engineer and one of the greatest technology founders to ever live.”
The official citation credits Musk “for engineering achievements of extraordinary ambition and scale that have pushed the frontiers of space exploration, intelligent systems, communications, and beyond, renewing American technological leadership and opening a new chapter in American manufacturing.” Tesla is not named in it, but “intelligent systems” and “American manufacturing” cover a lot of ground that Tesla and the Terafab chip project occupy.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and AMD CEO Lisa Su received the same medal. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell were given the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. It was the first time Trump has handed out either award in his two terms. As Teslarati noted when the list was first reported on Wednesday, the National Science Foundation says 529 people have received the Medal of Science since Congress created it in 1959.
🚨 IT’S OFFICIAL: President Trump just PERSONALLY presented Elon Musk the National Medal of Science for his INCREDIBLE contributions to our nation
I can’t think of ANYONE who deserves this honor more 👏🏻
Congratulations, @elonmusk! https://t.co/GkAaVp9wb9
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) October 8, 2026
The ceremony closes a loop that opened in 2025, when Musk left DOGE and criticized the “Big Beautiful Bill,” sparking a public feud. Al Jazeera noted that Musk was the largest contributor to Trump’s 2024 campaign, and CNBC reported that all of the honorees have given financially to Trump or Republican causes in some form. The reconciliation has moved quickly in recent weeks. Musk sat at Trump’s left at the September 29 White House AI lunch, was named to help lead the Pentagon’s Project Meridian study on the future of warfare, and adopted the administration’s “super intelligence” wording when he said SpaceXAI will become SpaceXSI.
For Tesla and SpaceX shareholders, the practical question is what the closer relationship means for federal approvals. Tesla’s Robotaxi and Cybercab expansion depends on national autonomy rules, and SpaceX’s Starship and Starlink plans run through the FAA, FCC and NASA. Thursday’s ceremony did not change any of that directly.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s Boring Company lands a new Middle East deal, and Nashville is about to get faster
The Boring Company signs Abu Dhabi tunnel agreement while adding more Prufrock machines in Nashville.
The Boring Company has signed an agreement with Abu Dhabi to study underground transport and utility tunnels across the emirate, adding a second UAE city to its pipeline as it prepares to also scale up tunneling back home in Nashville.
The deal was signed Thursday at the Liveability and Investment Exhibition (LIVEX 2026) by Boring Company President Steve Davis and Maysarah Mahmoud Salim Eid, director general of the Abu Dhabi Projects and Infrastructure Centre (ADPIC), according to the Abu Dhabi Media Office. Mohamed Ali Al Shorafa, chairman of the emirate’s Department of Municipalities and Transport, attended the signing.
Under the agreement, the two sides will assess feasibility, delivery and operating models for tunnels that could carry passengers or utilities. They will also look at Abu Dhabi’s potential as a regional hub for tunneling work. The current phase is exploratory, and no construction commitment or project budget has been announced.
“Abu Dhabi provides an ideal environment to explore the next generation of underground infrastructure solutions, supported by its ambitious growth vision and strong commitment to advanced technologies,”
Davis said. He added that the company wants to assess how tunnels can “expand urban capacity more efficiently, and enable better use of available space.”
The timing lines up with the money, considering last month, The Boring Company closed a $3 billion Series D led by the UAE and affiliated investors, valuing the company at $23 billion, as Teslarati reported. That round came with a commitment to build more than 150 kilometers of tunnel across the UAE, separate from the Dubai Loop pilot already under contract with Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority. That pilot covers 6.4 kilometers and four stations linking DIFC and Dubai Mall at a cost of about $154 million.
Back home, The Boring Company projects in Nashville are also scaling up, with the company telling local NewsChannel 5 that a third Prufrock machine could start digging the Music City Loop in late October. A fourth is also targeted before the end of the year. Two machines are already mining Nashville limestone at the same time, and work is underway on a new launch site for the third.
The company said it has made more than 300 design and performance upgrades to its original Nashville machine. It is also working with property owners on more than 40 planned stations, with approvals in place for a future Nashville International Airport connection, a downtown station near the Music City Center, and stops at residential towers and the JW Marriott.
Construction on the Music City Loop began the same evening Tennessee and federal regulators approved the project’s lease in February, and the company targeted its first operational segment for late 2026. Back in Las Vegas, The Boring Company has said it plans to double its Vegas Loop station count by year’s end.
It’s official: SpaceX takes aim at Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile
Trump presents Elon Musk with National Medal of Science, calls him “modern-day Thomas Edison”
Elon Musk’s Boring Company lands a new Middle East deal, and Nashville is about to get faster
The Pentagon taps Elon Musk to design the battlefield of the future
Tesla Roadster’s new patent preps white-knuckle speeds, keeping it grounded
