News
NASA confirms SpaceX will become the first private company to send astronauts to the space station
NASA has unambiguously confirmed that SpaceX – with its Crew Dragon spacecraft – will soon become the first private company in history to launch astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), both an unexpected twist from the usually tight-lipped space agency and a major upset for Boeing.
Shortly after revealing that the first astronaut-rated Crew Dragon capsule had been completed and shipped eastward, SpaceX and NASA confirmed that the historic spacecraft arrived at SpaceX’s Florida processing facilities on Thursday, February 13th. With that milestone out of the way, it’s now believed that all the hardware needed for SpaceX’s ‘Demo-2’ astronaut launch debut – Falcon 9 booster B1058, a Falcon 9 upper stage, Crew Dragon capsule C206, and a Crew Dragon trunk – is finished, acceptance-tested, and preparing for flight in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Extremely out of character for NASA given that Crew Dragon Demo-2 is expected to launch no earlier than two or three months from now, the space agency’s public statement that SpaceX will launch astronauts first simultaneously implies bad news for Boeing and its Starliner spacecraft. Contracted under the Commercial Crew Program in 2014, Boeing – awarded $5.1B – and SpaceX – awarded $3.1B – have been working to build two separate crew launch vehicles (Starliner and Crew Dragon) with the intention of ferrying NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS). While both providers have had their own challenges, Boeing has been beset by numerous software failures born out during Starliner’s December 2019 orbital launch debut.
The Commercial Crew account has since deleted its tweet and NASA’s accompanying blog post – linked in said tweet – was tweaked to reflect a slightly different interpretation, but the original text unequivocally stated that “the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft [assigned to] the first crew launch from American soil since 2011 has arrived at the launch site.” Given that both the tweet and blog post contained that exact same phrase, the fact that NASA retroactively censored and corrected itself strongly suggests that SpaceX will, in fact, become the first private company in history to launch astronauts into orbit.
NASA has a fairly notorious and years-long history of going well out of its way to avoid saying or implying anything that could be perceived as even slightly critical of Boeing. A prime contractor dating back to the first stage of the Saturn V rocket, Boeing has effectively secured billions of dollars of NASA’s annual budget and possesses deep political sway thanks in large part to the revolving doors between industry and government and the hundreds of millions of dollars it has spent on lobbying over the last two decades.
More recently, Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft suffered several major software-related failures during its December 2019 Orbital Flight Test, narrowly avoiding a second “catastrophic” failure mode solely because a separate software failure 48 hours prior forced the company to reexamine its code. In simple terms, both software failures probably should and could have been caught and fixed before launch if even a semblance of routine digital simulations and integrated vehicle testing had been performed by Boeing.
Unsurprisingly, NASA – at least after the fact – is now extremely concerned by the lack of such a basic and commonsense level of quality control in Boeing’s Starliner software pipeline. Even NASA, arguably, could and should have been attentive enough to catch some of Boeing’s shortcomings before Starliner’s launch debut. Adding to the embarrassment, NASA performed a “pretty invasive” $5M review of SpaceX’s safety practices and general engineering culture last year, triggered (not a joke) after CEO Elon Musk was seen very briefly smoking on a recorded interview. As part of regulations for the Commercial Crew Program, NASA was obligated to perform a similar review of Boeing’s safety culture, but the contractor demanded that NASA pay five times more – $25M – for the same thing.
NASA unsurprisingly balked at Boeing’s demands and wound up performing a more or less symbolic “paper” review that typically involves ‘auditing’ paperwork supplied by the company itself. Despite the fact that Boeing would soon find itself mired in two fatal 737 Max crashes, killing 346 people as a result of shoddy software, an unreliable design, and bad internal communication, NASA still never pursued a similar safety review with Boeing. Now, only after a nearly-catastrophic in-space failure, NASA has finally decided that that safety review is necessary, while both NASA and Boeing will also have to extensively review all Starliner software and fix the flawed practices used to create and qualify it.
Perhaps most importantly, NASA and Boeing need to determine whether Starliner’s software failures were a one-off fluke or something symptomatic of deeper problems. Due to that uncertainty and the massive amount of work that will be required to answer those questions, it’s almost certain that Boeing will have to perform a second uncrewed Starliner test flight for NASA to verify that its problems have been rectified. A second OFT would almost certainly delay Boeing’s astronaut launch debut by 6-12 months. SpaceX’s astronaut launch debut, for example, was delayed at least 9 months after a Crew Dragon capsule exploded during thruster testing after a flawless orbital launch and recovery.
As a result, even though SpaceX’s Crew Dragon ‘Demo-2’ astronaut launch debut is likely more than two months away, even some part of NASA – famous for incredibly neutral and conservative public statements – appears to be all but certain that SpaceX will launch astronauts first. As of February 13th, 2020, all Demo-2 Falcon 9 and Dragon hardware is likely finished and awaiting integration in Florida. If things go as planned over the next several weeks, Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon could launch astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley as early as late-April or May 2020.
Check out Teslarati’s Marketplace! We offer Tesla accessories, including for the Tesla Cybertruck and Tesla Model 3.
The Tesla Semi is entering a new Pilot Program with Paper Transport, LLC (PTI), a Wisconsin-based transportation provider. The company will test the Semi’s Long Range configuration through “dedicated operations within the Chicago market.”
Chicago presents an interesting challenge for the Semi, as it will be a colder-weather climate that will test the Semi’s ability to operate in lower temperatures and in potentially large accumulations of snow. This is something Tesla has been testing with the Semi in Alaska and even in Northern California during the colder months, but Chicago will present a truly tough midwestern winter.
Tesla Semi spotted on journey home after winter performance testing
PTI says it is using the Semi to evaluate its strategy of reducing transportation emissions while maintaining performance, reliability, and cost efficiency. These are major arguments for the Semi being introduced into new fleets.
CEO of PTI Tyler Ellison said:
“PTI has been a leader in sustainable transportation solutions for over 15 years. We take a consultative approach to helping customers identify and implement the right transportation solution for their network. Our partnership with Tesla expands our portfolio alongside renewable natural gas and intermodal, giving customers more ways to reduce Scope 3 emissions without compromising service or economics.”
PTI is far from the first company to adopt the Semi within a fleet, as Tesla entered strategic agreements with PepsiCo. and its subsidiary Frito-Lay for a Pilot Program that extended throughout the California region.
Tesla has let companies like those utilize the Semi to determine whether it would be suitable for their operations. Additionally, Tesla gets valuable information regarding the Semi’s performance, knowing what to improve and what is ideal for companies that will utilize the all-electric truck for regional and nationwide logistics.
PTI plans to utilize the Long Range configuration, which is priced at $290,000 and features a range of approximately 500 miles, a three-motor powertrain, up to 800 kW of drive power, and consumption of just 1.7 kWh per mile.
Tesla Semi pricing revealed after company uncovers trim levels
VP of Maintenance at PTI, Bryan Ellen, added:
“We are excited to partner with Tesla, leveraging their ever-evolving technology. We are bullish in our estimation of the parallels available between our dedicated model and the efficiency of their fully electric Class 8 tractor. We anticipate a growing synergy between our businesses as we work to facilitate this sustainable solution for our customers.”
PTI has logged more than 87 million miles using sources like compressed and renewable gas, but now is looking to take it a step further with fully electric operations.
Tesla revealed on Monday that it is building a new autonomous vehicle at Gigafactory Texas, its plant just outside of the City of Austin. This particular vehicle will be geared toward those who are in need of a wheelchair-accessible car that would require no human driver for operation.
According to a new report from Wired, Tesla’s Senior Policy Advisor, India Herdman, told members of the Washington D.C. City Council on Monday:
“We are in development for a purpose-built, wheelchair-accessible autonomous vehicle. We know that paratransit can be very difficult, and people who are confined to wheelchairs permanently should still be able to move around freely, so that is an active product being built by Tesla in Texas.”
This builds upon what CEO Elon Musk said last year on X, which confirmed the company was working on accessible rides within its Robotaxi platform, which currently is confined to the Model Y.
Absolutely
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 19, 2025
Tesla is also developing the Cybercab, which started employee rides last week. However, this vehicle is not necessarily geared toward wheelchair accessibility.
That leaves a major gap in the autonomous ride-sharing program that Tesla is attempting to build; the company has been pretty clear that it does not want to complicate its manufacturing lines by bringing in a wide array of body styles.
However, it seems necessary to have something larger that could help transport people to appointments when they cannot drive. For wheelchair accessibility, the Robovan, which was unveiled at the “We, Robot” event in October 2024, seems to be the most ideal solution:
Herdman did not indicate whether she was referring to the Robovan or if Tesla is building yet another body style that is geared toward full autonomy but also caters to the handicapped.
Tesla might need to develop something specifically for the handicapped in order to align with the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prevents discrimination against people with disabilities in transportation services. Uber was hit with a lawsuit late last year for “refusing to reasonably modify its policies, practices, or procedures where necessary to avoid discriminating against riders with disabilities.”
Tesla would obviously like to avoid this.
It will be interesting to see what Tesla will do with this project, and whether it will introduce something new to the market or just continue with the Robovan.
Tesla weirdly confirmed that its steering wheel-less and pedal-less Cybercab vehicle is now in the process of giving employees rides, a huge milestone for the vehicle program.
But the entire thing was super strange. On Friday, Tesla released a video stating that there was “Cool news from Giga Texas” and that employees were now taking rides in Cybercabs that have no manual controls. The units seen on public roads are engineering vehicles that have manual controls inside, a necessity as Tesla moved through the testing phase.
However, Tesla removed the video and reposted it shortly after with a more vague title. It seems like the employee rides are still going, but the video was adjusted slightly. The initial upload showed employees doing things like watching movies and adjusting the climate, but these snippets were removed in the second upload.
Cool news from Giga Texas pic.twitter.com/gvbG456Tzw
— Tesla Robotaxi (@robotaxi) July 11, 2026
Both images below were uploaded with the first video, but were removed after Tesla re-uploaded the announcement. These are not available in the second upload
Credit: Tesla
Credit: Tesla
Nevertheless, the announcement from Tesla is that the Cybercab is operating with employees inside who can control the vehicle’s audio, video, climate, and destination settings through their smartphone app.
Tesla has already been testing Cybercab engineering units, but last month, it was able to self-certify for SAE Level 4, which would enable unsupervised self-driving in Texas. The company is moving toward that, and the plans have always been to launch Cybercab rides this year.
The Cybercab is potentially looked at as the next generation of Tesla’s mobility leg. For the past 15 years, the company has been known as somewhat of an automaker, among many other things. However, these passenger vehicles that Tesla has manufactured are now moving into a new realm, as they will eventually drive themselves with no supervision thanks to the Full Self-Driving suite.
The Cybercab is just the next step of that: a true vehicle developed for the sole purpose of ride-hailing. It has no human controls, it has only two seats, and it will get passengers from Point A to Point B with no awkward driver, no need for manual inputs, and with no stress.
Tesla is moving forward with other developments related to the Cybercab project as well. However, the big announcement will come when Tesla finally announces that it is launching Cybercab rides to the general public, something that it plans to launch either late this year or early 2027.
Tesla Semi enters new Pilot Program with interesting challenge
Tesla is building a wheelchair-accessible Robotaxi
