News
India launches the Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander
Launching at 09:05 UTC July 14th from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India, the Launch Vehicle Mark-3 (LVM3) sending the Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander on its way to the Moon’s Southern hemisphere.
LVM3 M4/Chandrayaan-3:
Lift-off, tracking and onboard views pic.twitter.com/eUAFShS1jA— ISRO (@isro) July 14, 2023
The LVM3 is a three-stage launch vehicle designed by the Indian Space Research Organisation. The fully stacked rocket stands 43.4 meters tall and is 4 meters in diameter. In comparison, the SpaceX Falcon 9 stands 70 meters tall and is 3.7 meters in diameter. The LVM3 is capable of launching up to 10,000 kg to low Earth orbit, the fully integrated propulsion module and lander weigh in at 3,900 kg.
The Chandrayaan-3 mission is a follow-up to the Chandrayaan-2 mission which failed during its final descent to the Moon’s surface. The current mission will take approximately 40 days to enter orbit around the Moon. The reason for the long trip to the Moon is the lander was inserted into a highly elliptical orbit and is making smaller more fuel-efficient burns instead of a shorter trip using a trans lunar injection burn.
The path to the Moon for Chandrayaan-3 (Credit ISRO)
The Vikram lander could make its attempt at a landing on the Moon’s surface as early as August 23. This lander has a few differences from its predecessor, switching from 5 engines to 4, strengthened landing legs, and a laser doppler velocimeter along with other redundant systems to avoid the issues that plagued the Chandrayaan-2 mission.
There are 3 scientific payloads on the lander, the Chandra Surface Thermophysical Experiment that will measure thermal conductivity and temperature on the surface of the Moon, the Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity to measure for Moonquakes, and the Langmuir Probe to measure plasma density.
Riding along with the lander is the Pragyan rover which is designed to last at least 14 Earth days which is equal to one lunar day. The solar-powered six-wheeled rover weighs in at 26 kg and has an expected range of 500 meters. The rover has 2 payloads that will each measure the Moon’s composition.
If the landing is successful, India will join the United States, Russia, and China as the only countries to have made a soft landing on the Moon.
Questions or comments? Shoot me an email at rangle@teslarati.com, or Tweet me @RDAnglePhoto.
Investor's Corner
Tesla gets its latest short from Michael Burry: ‘Happy it jumped back to this level’
Tesla short seller Michael Burry, the subject of the film “The Big Short,” where he was portrayed by Steve Carell, has revealed he has opened a new bet against the stock.
In a new update to his Substack newsletter in a post titled “Trading Post June 30, 2026,” Burry revealed a new set of bets against Tesla, Caterpillar, NVIDIA, Applied Materials Inc., and the iShares Semiconductor ETF.
In regard to Tesla, Burry wrote:
“And finally I shorted Tesla at 416.22. Happy it jumped back to this level.”
This means Burry likely opened his new short position after the company’s recent rally on Wall Street, which saw Tesla shares sink in mid-May, only to recover to well over the $400 mark. Currently, shares trade at around $427.
The company saw a big Tuesday as shares climbed considerably, over 10 percent. The size of the Tesla short was not provided, nor did Burry give any information on the position’s structure, the number of shares, dollar value, or whether options were used in the short.
The Tesla and SpaceX merger everyone is talking about is quietly building
Over the years, Burry has been one of the more vocal critics of Tesla, calling its share price “media inflated,” and saying it was “ridiculously overvalued” as recently as December.
The company has largely transitioned away from being known as an automotive company and instead is much more widely regarded as an AI play, mostly due to its Full Self-Driving efforts, Optimus robot development, and data collection related to both.
This has not pulled those skeptics away from being vocal about their distaste for how Tesla is valued, but there’s no denying that the company is a global force in many things, including sustainable energy, automotive, and AI.
Investor's Corner
SpaceX gets initial stock coverage from Tesla’s biggest bull
Wedbush Securities is initiating stock coverage on SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX), marking the first comments on the company since it went public several weeks ago. Wedbush and its analyst handling coverage, Dan Ives, are widely bullish on fellow Musk company Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA).
Ives wrote his first note initiating coverage of SpaceX shares on Wednesday with a $190 price target and an ‘Outperform’ rating. The firm believes the company is well positioned off of its IPO because of its wide array of projects, including AI compute power and infrastructure, connectivity projects, and launches.
“We view SpaceX as one of the most differentiated assets within the tech market with a strong footprint across its three core markets, with Starlink driving success with connectivity,” Ives wrote, “Starship launches leading to a demand flywheel and increasing deal flow for its Colossus clusters.”
Elon Musk called it Epic: The full story of SpaceX’s Starship Flight 12
Wedbush leans heavily on Starlink, which they say is the “profitability driver given the strength of its recurring revenue base of ~12 million subscribers as of June 5th.” Ives believes Starlink is still in the “early innings” of penetrating the global telecommunications and broadband market, as it only holds less than a 1 percent share. However, this number is sure to increase over time.
It also highlights the importance of Starship, which it says is an “essential layer” of SpaceX’s overall success. SpaceX developing and displaying the ability to reuse rockets is a major cost and reliability advantage “as it reduces the necessary hardware launch costs while generating a feedback loop for future flights to improve their launch flight rate without accelerating capex spend.”
Finally, SpaceX’s recent AI/Compute projects are also very elementary, Ives writes. It is worth mentioning Wedbush said its $190 price target is derived from a valuation forecast that sees the company yielding roughly $2.48 trillion of implied enterprise value.
There are also some factors that Wedbush did not take into account with its initial coverage. The firm wrote in the note:
“We note that there is optional value coming from Starship’s accelerating scale towards sub-$200/kg unit economics, orbital data centers, and enterprise AI monetization as these factors could drive meaningful upside but these face major hurdles, so we do not take that into account with our valuation.”
SpaceX shares are down just over 2 percent today, trading at around $167 at the time of publication.
News
Tesla expands massive safety feature worldwide in latest update
Tesla has expanded the footprint of a massive safety feature worldwide with a recent Software Update labeled as 2026.20.6. The expansion of the “Blind Spot Warning While Parked” feature represents the more widespread availability of the feature, which aims to prevent “dooring.”
Dooring is when a driver or passenger opens a car door into the path of an oncoming road user, usually a cyclist or motorcyclist. It is among the most common types of cycling accidents, the League of American Bicyclists says.
For this reason, Tesla created a feature that warns occupants not to open the door because an object is approaching. The feature will sound a chime, and it will also delay the opening of the door to prevent an incident.
The release notes state (via Not a Tesla App):
“If you attempt to open a door while an approaching object is detected in your blind spot (for example, a bicyclist approaching from behind) a chime sounds, and your door will not open upon initial button press. Wait a short time and press the button a second time to override the warning.”
Tesla initially rolled out this feature back in 2024 with the Model 3 “Highland.” However, it remained with the Model 3 exclusively for over a year; that was until Tesla added it to the Cybertruck this past Spring.
Now, it is making its way to the new Model Y, 2021 and newer Model S, and 2021 or newer Model X.
The prevention of dooring incidents could eliminate many injuries to cyclists, especially in an urban setting. Dooring accounts for 10-20 percent of bike-related crashes in major cities, and over 17,000 dooring-related incidents were treated in the U.S. over the course of a decade. These usually involve fractures, contusions, and head trauma.