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NASA human spaceflight chief resigns in surprise move before historic astronaut launch
SpaceX and NASA are eight days away from the first astronaut launch on U.S. soil in nearly a decade. There’s one big hurdle left to clear before the launch can get the go-ahead: it has to pass a flight readiness review. Typically that is led by the person in charge of NASA’s human exploration program.
However, that person — Doug Loverro — has resigned from NASA, effective May 18. According to an agency memo, Loverro resigned just six months after he took on the role. This marks the second time that such a big change in NASA leadership has occurred under the Trump administration. In July 2019, William Gerstenmaier was demoted from his position as NASA’s associate administrator from human exploration. Loverro took over his position several months later.
The space agency addressed the sudden departure of Loverro to its employees via a company-wide email. In the memo, it states, Loverro made significant progress in his time at NASA. “His leadership of [human exploration] has moved us closer to accomplishing our goal of landing the first woman and the next man on the Moon in 2024,” the memo reads. “Loverro has dedicated more than four decades of his life in service to our country, and we thank him for his service and contributions to the agency.”
Ken Bowersox, a five-time shuttle flier and former commander of the International Space Station, will take over for Loverro. Bowersox assumed the role after Gerstenmaier was demoted last year. He is the current deputy associate administrator for human exploration and is familiar with the commercial crew program and the upcoming SpaceX Crew Dragon flight.
The Loverro resignation is not related to Crew Dragon or any animosity between Doug and the NASA administrator. However the timing of this is devastating to the space agency.
— Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) May 19, 2020
That flight is scheduled for May 27 but first has to pass a series of readiness reviews. The first of which is scheduled for Thursday, May 21. Loverro was supposed to lead the flight readiness review, and with his departure, Steve Jurczyk, NASA’s associate administrator will lead the charge. If the Crew Dragon and its Falcon 9 launcher are cleared for flight, the launch will proceed as planned.
What effect will this change in leadership have on the upcoming launch? According to NASA, not much. “We have full confidence in the work [that commercial crew program manager] Kathy Lueders, and her entire Commercial Crew team have done to bring us here,” the memo states. “This test flight will be a historic and momentous occasion that will see the return of human spaceflight to our country, and the incredible dedication by the men and women of NASA is what has made this mission possible.”
In addition to the commercial crew program, Loverro was also head of the agency’s burgeoning Artemis program. NASA has plans to go back to the moon and do it sustainably, with the ultimate goal of sending the next man and the first woman to the moon by 2024. A lofty goal for sure.
In a memo to agency staff, Loverro explained that his departure had nothing to do with the work NASA was accomplishing. “I want to be clear that the fact that I am taking this step has nothing to do with your performance as an organization nor with the plans we have placed in motion to fulfill our mission,” Loverro wrote. “If anything, your performance and those plans make everything we have worked for over the past six months more attainable and more certain than ever before. My leaving is because of my personal actions, not anything we have accomplished together.”
He also explained that his abrupt departure had to do with a decision he made and a risk he took earlier in the year. “The risks we take, whether technical, political, or personal, all have potential consequences if we judge them incorrectly. I took such a risk earlier in the year because I judged it necessary to fulfill our mission,” he wrote. “Now, over the balance of time, it is clear that I made a mistake in that choice for which I alone must bear the consequences.”
Only time will tell how much this will or will not affect the upcoming crew launch, but as of now, it’s full-steam ahead.
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is heading to Czechia after the Czech Ministry of Transport recognised the Dutch RDW’s provisional type approval, making the country the seventh EU member state to clear the system for public roads. Tesla Europe announced on 21 September 2026 that “FSD Supervised is now approved in Czechia” and that rollout “will begin soon.”
The decision marks a notable reversal. Earlier in 2026, Prague had declined to automatically recognise the Netherlands’ April approval, citing concerns over speed-limit compliance, traffic-sign recognition and driver-attention monitoring, and arguing that a coordinated EU approach was preferable. Officials said months of expert review, talks with Tesla and other member states, and real-world data from countries already using the system resolved those issues.
🚨 Tesla FSD heading to Czechia 🇨🇿 pic.twitter.com/mkzlM9QjrB
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) September 21, 2026
“Safety remains the top priority,” the ministry stated.
FSD Supervised remains a Level 2 driver-assistance system: the driver must stay engaged and is legally responsible. Eligible vehicles need AI4, the company’s most up-to-date hardware version. Tesla is expected to push the feature over the air in the coming days, following the pattern seen after earlier national approvals.
Europe’s rollout began when Dutch regulator RDW issued a provisional EU type approval on 10 April 2026 after extensive testing. Mutual recognition then produced a rapid cascade: Lithuania (20 May), Estonia (29 May), Denmark (9 June), Belgium (10 June) and Slovenia (7 September). Czechia now completes that list of seven.
The approvals cover only a modest share of the EU population, but they add political weight ahead of a 6 October vote by the Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles. A qualified majority, at least 15 of 27 member states representing 65 percent of the EU population, could open the remaining markets, including large ones such as Germany, France, Italy and Spain that have so far preferred to wait for a bloc-wide decision.
For Czech Tesla owners, the immediate prize is access to the same supervised highway and city driving already available in the other six countries. For Tesla, each new market generates additional European driving data and strengthens the case that FSD Supervised can operate safely under the continent’s varied road rules. The Czech approval is therefore both a local milestone and another incremental step toward a wider European launch.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has established a Temporary Flight Restriction over SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas, rocket development and test facility, a move widely viewed as preparation for Tesla’s October 1 Roadster reveal. The restriction took effect September 18 and runs through October 2.
NOTAM FDC 6/3825 covers a 1.5-nautical-mile radius around the site near Waco and extends from the surface to 10,000 feet above ground level. The FAA cited hazards under 14 CFR 91.137(a)(3) and barred aircraft and drones from the zone. Tesla’s invitation to reservation holders already placed the event in Waco, about 20 minutes from McGregor, making the timing and location more than coincidental.
A TFR has appeared around SpaceX’s McGregor Testing Site up to 10,000ft and runs through until the 2nd of October 👀 pic.twitter.com/rcZ4p4JkLm
— Niall Anderson (@INiallAnderson) September 18, 2026
What stands out is the altitude. Typical recent TFRs at McGregor for engine static fires and component tests have used far lower ceilings, often around 2,000 feet. Raising the limit to 10,000 feet is unusually high even compared with some Starbase restrictions and signals operations that go beyond a standard ground-level engine test.
That extra airspace has fueled speculation about the long-promised SpaceX Package for the Roadster. Elon Musk has described cold-gas thrusters that could deliver sub-one-second 0-60 times and, more dramatically, brief lift-off. Reports earlier this year indicated Tesla planned a remote-controlled demonstration at McGregor in which the car would leave the ground with no one inside; spectators kept hundreds of yards away because of the noise.
The 10,000-foot envelope would give operators a large safety buffer even if the vehicle only hovers a short distance.
Tesla has not confirmed a flight demo. The company has only used the phrase “Go for launch” and posted a teaser image of the car on what looks like a launch pad. The TFR itself mentions only hazards. Still, closing airspace this high and this close to the reveal date strongly suggests the event will include more than a static display.
Whether the Roadster actually hovers on October 1 remains to be seen. What is certain is that the FAA has cleared a large vertical slice of Texas sky for whatever Tesla and SpaceX intend to show. Reservation holders heading to Waco will be among the first to find out if the car can do more than drive.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk drops a surprise update on Boring Company’s next big dig
Musk says Boring Company could shrink the Austin to San Antonio drive to just minutes.
Elon Musk says The Boring Company is working on what he called “a simple, precursor Hyperloop” tunnel connecting Austin and San Antonio, targeting speeds above 200 mph and cutting a drive that can take up to two and a half hours down to a consistent under 30 minutes. Musk posted the idea on X Sunday, in a reply to a repost of an AI generated video imagining a science fiction future with human colonies on other worlds, which he shared with the line “This is the future we shall bring into being.”
This is the future we shall bring into being pic.twitter.com/8aD0w8MDVc
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 20, 2026
The Boring Company’s own account picked up the idea in the same thread, adding a detail about how the trip would actually work: “Because Loop/Hyperloop is express (i.e. no intermediate stops), one could travel from an Austin parking lot to a favorite San Antonio restaurant in about 30 minutes. As long as they both have Loop stations.” That framing ties the proposed intercity link to the same station model the company already runs in Las Vegas, where riders enter the tunnel network through small, garage style stops rather than one central terminal.
This is not the company’s first run at the Austin to San Antonio corridor. Boring Company floated tunnels between the two cities as far back as 2021, and later competed for a separate San Antonio Loop project tied to the airport before that specific bid stalled. Pitches for tunnels in Chicago, Los Angeles, and a New York to Washington corridor have followed a similar pattern of big announcement without a shovel in the ground.
What is different this time is the balance sheet, especially since The Boring Company closed a 3 billion dollar funding round led by investors in the United Arab Emirates earlier this month at a valuation near 23 billion dollars, giving the tunneling company more capital to chase speculative projects than it had during its earlier Texas pitches. The company is also mid-build on two other intercity systems it has actually broken ground on, inc;luding a Nashville tunnel linking downtown to the airport, where a second boring machine finished commissioning in June, and its Las Vegas network, where the station count keeps climbing on paper faster than tunnels get dug.
That gap between announcement and execution is the reason to treat Sunday’s post as an opening bid rather than a project. A tunnel spanning roughly 80 miles between two metro areas, running at speeds Boring Company has not demonstrated over any real distance, would dwarf anything the company has built. For now, the Austin to San Antonio Hyperloop exists as a caption under an AI generated space video.
Tesla Full Self-Driving expands to another European country
Tesla Roadster event requires restricted airspace, and the FAA obliges
