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NASA says SpaceX's Crew Dragon abort test is go for launch on doomed Falcon 9 rocket
NASA has formally given SpaceX permission for Crew Dragon’s second launch – a crucial test flight that should be the last before SpaceX launches NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) for the first time ever.
Known as its In-Flight Abort (IFA) test, Crew Dragon will attempt to escape a Falcon 9 rocket while airborne, a feat that CEO Elon Musk says will almost certainly destroy the rocket in the process. Technically speaking, NASA and SpaceX completed what is known as a Launch Readiness Review (LRR) sometime on Thursday, allowing SpaceX to proceed with launch preparations. By all accounts, Crew Dragon’s IFA test will likely be one of the most spectacular SpaceX launches ever, given that it is all but guaranteed to result in the intentional in-flight failure of a massive Falcon 9 rocket – “destroyed in Dragon fire” according to Musk.
Thanks to a much smoother launch flow compared to Crew Dragon’s Demo-1 orbital launch debut on Falcon 9, SpaceX’s newest Crew Dragon capsule is scheduled to lift off from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A (KSC LC-39A) as early as 8 am EST (13:00 UTC), Saturday, January 18th. The In-Flight Abort test will likely be one of Crew Dragon’s most challenging hurdles yet but success would be a major boon for the spacecraft’s demonstrated safety. While both Boeing and SpaceX will ultimately ferry NASA astronauts to and from the ISS, only SpaceX chose to prove Crew Dragon’s in-flight abort capabilities in the real world.
Effectively condemned to destruction to support a greater cause after a productive life, Falcon 9 Block 5 booster B1046 rolled out to Pad 39A – Crew Dragon mounted atop it – on January 16th after successfully performing its last routine static fire on the 11th. As previously discussed on Teslarati, B1046 is the first Falcon 9 Block 5 booster completed by SpaceX and is thus also the oldest flightworthy rocket in the company’s substantial fleet.
“After becoming the first SpaceX booster to launch three times in December 2018, B1046 spent several months at SpaceX’s Hawthorne, CA factory undergoing inspections and refurbishment. At some point, SpaceX assigned the thrice-flown booster to support Crew Dragon’s In-Flight Abort (IFA) test – effectively a death sentence – and shipped the booster to Florida, where it publicly appeared for the first time in months on October 3rd, 2019. Given that four more Falcon 9 boosters have now successfully performed three (or even four) orbital-class launches each, B1046’s now-imminent demise is certainly disappointing but remains extremely pragmatic.”
Teslarati.com — January 15th, 2020
As such, there is arguably no better booster for SpaceX to expend even if its loss is still less satisfying than a successful post-launch landing. In fact, aside from NASA’s prematurely-retired Space Shuttle, the entire history of orbital-class rocketry has effectively operated on the assumption that it’s both normal and necessary for rockets to be almost entirely expendable.
Only by sheer force of will has SpaceX turned that assumption on its head, making the act of expending Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy boosters feel suddenly morose. Even then, the practice of propulsively landing orbital-class boosters is scarcely four years old, while reusing those boosters has been ongoing for less than three years. As such, B1046’s demise should be enjoyed for what it ultimately is: the spectacular retirement of a rocket that has already helped launch three separate payloads to orbit.
Perhaps even more importantly, B1046’s sacrifice should – if things go as planned – also pave the way for Crew Dragon to launch its first NASA astronauts into orbit just a few months from now. For the test to be successful, however, Crew Dragon will have to perform an extremely precise string of maneuvers – the failure of any one of which could potentially lead to the spacecraft’s destruction.
“Traveling as fast as Mach 2.5 (860 m/s) at an altitude of 28 kilometers (17 mi), Crew Dragon will ignite its abort thrusters and attempt to escape, the very act of which will likely hammer the spacecraft’s windward surfaces with an extra dozen or so metric tons (~25,000 lb) of aerodynamic pressure. Crew Dragon C205 could thus find itself traveling almost Mach 3 (more than a kilometer per second) moments after separating from Falcon 9, eventually reaching an apogee of almost 75 km (45 mi), after which it will reenter the bulk of Earth’s atmosphere and have to deploy an array of parachutes to ensure a gentle Atlantic Ocean splashdown.”
Teslarati.com — January 13th, 2020
Unfortunately, Crew Dragon escaping a supersonic Falcon 9 also means that that same Falcon 9 – basically a thin, flexible tube designed to be as light as possible – will meet a supersonic blast of air the moment Dragon’s SuperDraco abort thrusters ignite. A bit like if a hurricane on all kinds of meteorological steroids just sort of punched a soda can for fun, that airstream will almost certainly obliterate Falcon 9’s sacrificial upper stage into a sort of aluminum snow, quickly revealing – and likely then destroying – B1046’s carbon fiber interstage.
The rest of the thrice-flown Falcon 9 booster is also liable to break up after that supersonic punch. In fact, SpaceX engineers are so confident in B1046’s imminent demise that the booster will have neither landing legs or grid fins come launch. In a best-case scenario, if, against all odds, B1046 survives Dragon’s escape, the intact booster will subsequently impact the Atlantic Ocean at terminal velocity and become a nice, artificial reef off the coast of Florida. Stay tuned for updates from Teslarati and photographers Jamie Groh and Richard Angle as Falcon 9 B1046’s demise inches ever closer.
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Tesla’s AI Chief just hinted at something big for FSD v14 lite owners
Tesla’s AI chief suggests the newest FSD v14 Lite build may finally go wide release.
Tesla’s head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, noted on Sunday that the newest FSD v14 Lite build rolling out to Hardware 3 cars is likely the version that goes to wide release, the strongest signal yet that Tesla is near to closing out an early access phase that Hardware 3 owners have waited more than a year for.
Elluswamy made the comment in response to an extensive review from Tesla owner Zack, known on X as @BLKMDL3, who tested software version 2026.20.6.10 and detailed the changes in a lengthy post. “FSD v14 Lite (for Tesla AI3 hardware vehicles) review.
The update restarts a rollout that had stalled after its initial release. Tesla began pushing FSD v14 Lite to Hardware 3 early access drivers on June 29, bringing driving behavior learned on the newer Hardware 4 computer down to the more limited chip that has powered Tesla vehicles built between 2019 and early 2023. That release, as we covered in detail, gave roughly 4 million HW3 vehicles their first meaningful update since being frozen on version 12.6 in early 2025.
Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ Release Notes: new capabilities and features
The latest build adds features that bring Hardware 3 closer in line with what Hardware 4 owners already have. FSD can now start directly from park without a brake pedal confirmation, a change Zack called a small but meaningful quality of life improvement. The interface also picks up the blue “P” park icon, approaching destination alerts, and a dedicated Self-Driving app with streak tracking, all details previously exclusive to the AI4 branch of v14, as outlined in Tesla’s original release notes.
The stakes around Hardware 3 go beyond software polish. Tesla sold the Full Self-Driving package for years on the promise that every vehicle equipped with it had the hardware needed to eventually drive itself without supervision. That promise broke down during Tesla’s Q1 2026 earnings call, when Musk acknowledged HW3 cars could not run unsupervised FSD, prompting Tesla to offer trade-in discounts and hardware retrofits alongside the Lite software track.
Tesla confirmed HW3 can’t do Unsupervised FSD but there’s more to the story
Tesla has continued to frame v14 Lite as the primary path forward for the HW3 fleet, telling owners in April that international markets would follow the U.S. rollout once regulatory approvals came through. For now, HW3 owners in the early access group are the only ones running the new build. A broader rollout would mark the second major software delivery to the legacy fleet since Tesla first released FSD v14 to Hardware 4 vehicles, and the first sign since June that the Lite program is still moving rather than stuck in early access limbo.
In a pointed message on X, Elon Musk warned that firms maintaining significant short positions in SpaceX over time face “very low” survival probability.
The statement comes amid post-IPO volatility for the rocket company, now trading under the ticker $SPCX.
The survival probability of firms who maintain a significant short position in SpaceX over time is very low
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 17, 2026
Five weeks after what was described as the largest IPO in history, the stock had fallen roughly 30% from its peak above $2.6 trillion, briefly surpassing Microsoft and Amazon in market value. Short sellers celebrated gains of about $8.7 billion, but Musk’s reply underscores his long-term conviction.
The warning directly echoes a detailed bullish analysis arguing that Starship’s cost reductions could unlock a multi-trillion-dollar space economy. Projects ranging from solar power beamed from orbit and asteroid mining to orbital data centers and Mars terraforming were projected to create over $100 trillion in new market capitalization.
In this vision, SpaceX acts as the essential infrastructure provider, akin to AWS for cloud computing, capturing monopoly-like revenues from launches, crew transport, and data traffic across a rapidly expanding frontier.
This is far from the first time Musk has targeted short sellers. With Tesla, he has repeatedly framed persistent bears as destined for major losses. In July 2024, Musk declared that once Tesla achieves full autonomy and volume production of Optimus robots, “anyone still holding a short position will be obliterated. Even Gates,” referencing Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates’ reported short bets.
Elon Musk reveals what Tesla stock surge could do to Bill Gates
Earlier, in 2018, he taunted shorts that they had “about three weeks before their short position explodes,” a remark followed by sharp stock gains. Musk has also called short selling “value destroying” and once suggested it “should be illegal,” viewing it as betting against innovation and progress.
Critics often dismiss Musk’s optimism as hype, especially when near-term metrics like quarterly deliveries or stock fluctuations disappoint.
Yet his pattern remains consistent: framing short positions against his companies as fundamentally misjudging exponential technological leaps. For SpaceX shorts, the message is clear: betting against multi-planetary ambitions and the infrastructure monopoly they enable carries existential risk for the firms involved.
As Musk and supporters see it, the space economy’s upside dwarfs Earth-bound valuation models, making today’s dips temporary in a decades-long ascent.
Tesla has evidently revealed which of its vehicle models will be the first to receive Starlink integration: the Cybercab.
Tesla’s Santana Row showroom now has a full-fledged display of the Cybercab, with an extensive bit of information hung around an exhibit that seems to reveal the vehicle’s newest feature: an integrated Starlink antenna that will enable secure and reliable internet access during trips.
Credit: @Starscream_SJC | X
Cybercab is geared toward autonomous ride-hailing for one or two passengers. The production units rolling off the lines at Gigafactory Texas are built without steering wheels or pedals, meaning when public rides begin, passengers will not need to interact with a human being or control the vehicle in any way outside of what appears on the center screen for their entertainment during the ride.
Tesla Santana Row will be reopening tomorrow with a full focus on self-driving. Everything in the showroom is about Robotaxi and Cybercab with stats and information about the technology. The Cybercab on display is the production model. pic.twitter.com/yIUYdOGFOp
— Shaun Cassidy (@Starscream_SJC) July 20, 2026
Along the display, Tesla wrote this message about Cybercab:
“Cybercab is built for autonomy. It has no steering wheel, no side mirrors, and no pedals. It goes where you tell it to go and how you want it to, so you can relax along the way. It is hyper aware and responsive to your surroundings, monitoring other drivers, responding to emergency vehicles, utilizing its expertise in the rarest scenarios to help keep you safe.”
Tesla has been teasing a potential Starlink integration for quite some time now. In December, the company hinted at potential Starlink internet terminal integration within its vehicles in a patent that described a vehicle roof assembly with integrated radio frequency (RF) transparency.
The company wrote in its patent application that a new roof design built with materials that differ from the standard metallic or glass elements used in today’s cars would allow it to integrate modern vehicular technologies, in particular, ones that require radio frequency transmission and reception.
Tesla suggested high-strength polymer blends, like Polycarbonate, Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene, or Acrylonitrile Styrene Acrylate.
This is the first time we’ve seen Tesla officially confirm the Starlink integration into the Cybercab. It’s not much of a surprise considering the company’s intention behind the Cybercab, which is to make travel autonomous.
Productivity will now be at a maximum during a work-related commute, while the center screen could be utilized for Netflix or potentially even live TV for those who are heading to dinner or to a fun activity.
Tesla’s AI Chief just hinted at something big for FSD v14 lite owners
Elon Musk sends first warning to SpaceX short sellers
