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Elon Musk shows off SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Block 5 ahead of launch and landing debut
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has published what appears to be the first official photo of the company’s newest Falcon 9 upgrade, known as Block 5. This particular booster is the first Falcon 9 Block 5 to be shipped to SpaceX’s launch facilities and is currently aiming for its first launch sometime next week after a May 4 static fire test, perhaps its first of anywhere from 10 to 100 operational missions.
Designed with reliability and reusability front and center, the booster upgrades have focused on additional thermal protection around the octaweb and interstage, reusable legs capable of retracting after recovery, titanium grid fins, and dramatic improvements to the heatshield at the base of the rocket. On the reliability side of upgrades, SpaceX has completed dozens of Merlin 1D static fires to qualify a turbopump redesign requested by NASA, as well as an upgraded COPV designed to guard against the type of anomaly that catastrophically destroyed Amos-6 and Falcon 9 in September 2016. A huge amount of work has also been done to improve and redesign aspects of Falcon 9 for easier (and cheaper) production and refurbishment, most notably replacing the welded octaweb structure with a bolted alternative likely to relieve many headaches and many days of octaweb weld checks.
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- Falcon 9 B1046 rolled out to the launch pad for the first time ever on May 3rd, 2018. (SpaceX)
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- SpaceX Block 5 Falcon9 at McGregor, Texas [Credit: Chris G – NSF via Twitter, Reprinted with permission from NASASpaceflight.com]
Aside from the biggest and most obvious changes, Block 5 is host to dozens or hundreds of additional tweaks and updates, a reflection of SpaceX’s pursuit of continuous improvement. Per SpaceX’s Vice President of Manufacturing Andy Lambert, SpaceX has “never built any two vehicles identically”, and Block 5 continues that tradition. Many Block 5 features have, however, already been flight-tested and optimized on previous Block 4 launches, including the octaweb heatshield, titanium gridfins, and minor aerodynamic tweaks to the second stage.
Block 5 sitting on the pad – harsh late day lighting [6341x 2804]
by inSpaceXLounge
The rocket is set to conduct its inaugural launch sometime next week – although the current schedule has SpaceX on May 7, Bangladeshi media have indicated that that date will slip a few days to the right after a handful of delays to the booster’s static fire. Tasked with lofting the country’s first geostationary communications satellite, Bangabandhu-1, B1046 will carry the 3500 kg spacecraft on its way to a high-energy geostationary transfer orbit before separating from the second stage and heading back to earth. The drone ship ‘Of Course I Still Love You’ and tugboat Rachel were spied departing from Port Canaveral at around the same time as Falcon 9 rolled out, and they will travel several hundred miles into the Atlantic to catch the pathfinder booster.
Tug boat Rachel has left Port Canaveral with OCISLY ahead of the SpaceX Bangabandhu mission on May 7th. The launch will be the first to feature a Block V Falcon 9.
— Michael Baylor (@MichaelBaylor_) May 3, 2018
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Teslarati photographer Tom Cross will be on hand to capture the historic rocket’s static fire and launch over the next week or so, as well as the first Block 5 recovery on OCISLY if all goes as planned. Failure is always a possibility when flight-testing significantly upgraded technological systems, rockets especially, but SpaceX likely has far less tolerance for failure in the case of Block 5 – any problems with the rocket will almost invariably mothball into NASA concerns and investigations as the company nears its first crewed launches. Fingers crossed for the successful inaugural launch and landing of Falcon 9 Booster 1046.
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- SpaceX’s second Falcon 9 Block 5 booster was spied by an aerial photographer in Texas, April 17. (Aero Photo)
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- The same April 2018 flight captured what appears to be a Block 5 landing leg undergoing testing at a specially-designed test stand. (Aero Photo)
Follow us for live updates, behind-the-scenes sneak peeks, and a sea of beautiful photos from our East and West coast photographers.
Teslarati – Instagram – Twitter
Tom Cross – Twitter
Pauline Acalin – Twitter
Eric Ralph – Twitter
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Tesla flexed the new features of the Model Y L with a dedicated media event at the company’s Diner on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles.
The Model Y L is the extended-wheelbase version of the all-electric crossover, which has been voted the best-selling car in the world on three occasions. The vehicle is already rolling off production lines at Gigafactory Texas, and first deliveries are slated to take place later this year.
Tesla brings Model Y L ‘Launch Series’ to the U.S. at $61,990
Teslarati was invited to the event, but due to some scheduling conflicts, we could not make it to Los Angeles. Instead, we will have our hands on a media unit sometime in August, so we’ll be able to spend some more extended time with the Model Y L.
However, plenty of those who made it to LA shared some cool features that set the Model Y L apart from the Model Y.
Multi-Row Climate Control
Tesla fitted the Model Y L with full climate control on all three rows on the front screen. It can be adjusted by selecting which row you’d like to modify on the right-hand side of the touch screen:
The Model Y L has a little row of icons on the right side of the climate screen so the front passenger can more quickly jump to whatever row they want to control. pic.twitter.com/uJS44mgCvk
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) July 30, 2026
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Better Rear Window Visibility
One of the strangest things about the Model Y, especially the Juniper iteration, is the rear window has extremely limited visibility when looking into the rearview mirror.
Tesla has improved upon this with the Model Y L:
This is a drastic difference. https://t.co/wTdhitD5aA pic.twitter.com/z6hFs0Jkss
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 30, 2026
PowerShare will be included
Model Y L will come with PowerShare in North America, with an 11.5kW output to your home. Tesla said it would require Powerwall 3 for operation.
Wireless Charging Pad
There has been some speculation that Tesla would upgrade the wireless charging pads in the United States, but this is not the case.
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Tesla owner fixes common feature complaint with crafty DIY retrofit
Tesla confirmed that it does not come with the cooled pads as the Y L in China does. This is because North America has not adopted Qi charging yet.
Thermal Management Improvements
These improvements in the Model Y L were seen with thermal management:
- Up to 15% faster cabin cooling
- +23% thermal efficiency gained in hot weather, 7 miles of real-world range gained
- 8x more solar energy reflection off of glass roof
- 30% reduction in solar energy entering the cabin
Some of the thermal management improvements in the new Model Y L Premium:
• Up to 15% faster cabin cooling
• Up to 15 min faster cabin cooling in sunny conditions
• +23% thermal efficiency gained in hot weather +7 miles of real-world range gained
• +10 miles recovered after… pic.twitter.com/jZirFWFdtO— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) July 31, 2026
Demand
Tesla said the Model Y L is almost sold out in the U.S. It comes with
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- 1 year of FSD Supervised
- 1 year of Supercharging
- 1 year of Premium Connectivity
- Free exterior paint color, interior, and wheel option at no additional cost
Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to his social media platform X on Thursday night to deny a ridiculous rumor regarding the sale of the company’s Chinese vehicle production plant, Gigafactory Shanghai.
On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal, citing sources familiar with the matter, claimed in a scathing new report that Tesla was exploring a potential sale of the entire China business in an effort to help bolster a potential merger between SpaceX and Tesla.
Musk immediately denied the rumor not once but twice, initially calling it “fake news,” and then calling it “absurdly fake news” in a separate post just a few moments later:
This is fake news
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 31, 2026
The original poster of the Wall Street Journal article that Musk saw deleted the initial post sharing the headline and the rumored sale of Tesla’s China business.
This has never even come up in a discussion ever.
Absurdly fake news.
-People should assume news is fake until proven otherwise.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 31, 2026
The report seemed absolutely and unequivocally false to begin with; Tesla’s business in China is among the most important pieces of the company’s business. Not only does the factory supply vehicles for the domestic market, but also for various other markets in Asia and Europe.
China is also one of the largest automotive markets in the world, and Tesla has performed well there despite the robust competition.
The speculation regarding a Tesla and SpaceX merger has started to gain steam this year as the space exploration company went public just a month ago. There has been speculation that Musk will bridge all of his companies under one “umbrella company,” and analysts believe this could happen before the end of the decade.
The Tesla and SpaceX merger everyone is talking about is quietly building
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This is the latest iteration of Musk’s very evident war on mainstream media. Reports regarding any of Musk’s companies are quick to get the dreaded “false” or “fake news” response from the CEO when they are unfounded.
Elon Musk
Tesla AI boss reveals how big Optimus is going to get
Tesla’s Optimus chief corrected himself on X, confirming a staggering 10 million robot production target.
![Tesla Optimus Gen 3 [Credit: Tesla]](https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/tesla-optimus-gen3-diner.jpg)
Tesla’s Optimus program has a new number attached to it, after Ashok Elluswamy, the executive who has run the humanoid robot program since June 2025, posted a three word correction on X Thursday, “Correction, 10 million robots.”
The line clarifies the long term annual capacity Tesla is building toward its planned second Optimus production line at Gigafactory Texas, a figure Musk has cited repeatedly since last year’s shareholder meeting.
The scale is worth noting, because ten million robots a year would mean Tesla building more units annually than most countries sell in new cars. Tesla has framed this as a second line, not the first. The buildout is happening in two phases: a roughly one million unit per year line inside Tesla’s Fremont factory, installed on the floor space vacated when Model S and Model X production ended earlier this year, and a much larger dedicated facility under construction at Giga Texas that broke ground on its first steel structure in May. That Texas facility is the one Elluswamy’s correction refers to, and is expected to reach volume production sometime in 2027.
Correction, 10 million robots https://t.co/0z4nyQNTzp
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) July 30, 2026
Tesla Optimus project fires up as Musk sees production line progress
Elluswamy took over Optimus from Milan Kovac last summer and has spent the months since talking up the program’s trajectory. Elon Musk has also floated the ten million figure at Tesla’s 2025 shareholder meeting.
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Ending Model S and Model X production to make room for the first Optimus line was one of the more consequential manufacturing decisions in the company’s recent history, retiring two flagship vehicles in favor of a robot that has yet to enter mass production. Musk has previously estimated per unit production costs at $20,000 to $25,000 once Tesla reaches a million units a year, though he hasn’t said what that cost looks like at ten times the volume.
Tesla Model Y L’s new features flexed at unveiling event at Diner
Tesla CEO Elon Musk denies ridiculous Gigafactory Shanghai rumor
![Tesla Optimus Gen 3 [Credit: Tesla]](https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/tesla-optimus-gen3-diner-80x80.jpg)
