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NASA says “nothing has changed” as US astronaut prepares to ride Russian spacecraft
An official Russian video posted on Twitter has fueled rampant speculation that the country’s beleaguered space agency intends to abandon NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei on the International Space Station.
On March 5th, a Russian state news outlet “RIA Novosti” shared a video on Twitter that depicted Mark Vande Hei being left on the Internation Space Station, rather than departing on board the Russian Soyuz spacecraft as planned. The video was just the latest example of growing tension between Russia and the rest of the world as sanctions for the illegal invasion of Ukraine and some of the country’s own responses to those sanctions have rapidly severed many of its ties to the international space industry. So far, Russia has terminated commercial Soyuz launch operations at the European Space Agency’s launch site in Kourou, French Guiana, effectively stolen several rockets already purchased by satellite internet company OneWeb, and cut-off sales and support for Russian rocket engines used in two US rockets.
As a result, the future of the International Space Station (ISS) has never felt less certain. In recent days, these concerns have grown exponentially as many news outlets began to report on purported concerns that Vande Hei would be abandoned on the ISS.
Dmitry Rogozin, the director-general of the Russian federal space agency Roscosmos, has also been posting a number of increasingly chaotic tweets claiming that Western sanctions will “destroy their International Space Station partnership” and making threats about potential catastrophes that could unfold on the ISS without Russian contributions.
Despite these claims, NASA has reassured the public that “operations have not changed at all”.
Vande Hei is scheduled to depart from the ISS later this month aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft with cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Petr Dubrov, ultimately touching down in Kazakhstan. However, even if Russia were to decide to leave Van Hei aboard the space station, he would not be “stranded”. Three American astronauts – Raja Chari, Kayla Barron, and Thomas Marshburn remain aboard the ISS along with German ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer. Additionally, thanks entirely to SpaceX, NASA has its own domestic transportation to and from the ISS in the form of Crew Dragon. In theory, it’s possible that NASA’s current ISS crew could somehow modify Crew Dragon to return five – not four – astronauts to Earth, allowing Vande Hei to extract himself from a tense political conundrum.
However, that may not be possible in such a short time frame, as SpaceX would need to find a way to add a fifth seat to Dragon and figure out how to accommodate Vande Hei’s Russian spacesuit. That work could easily take weeks or months to safely complete, potentially forcing Mark to stay in space for at least another half a year to return to Earth with Crew-4 instead of Crew-3. Even then, Crew-4 is scheduled to launch just one month from now, so even that alternative may not be a viable.
Regardless, given the unprovoked, irrational, and increasingly brutal nature of Russia’s second invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s international spaceflight partnerships have never been more unstable. While unlikely, it’s possible that Rogozin or Putin himself could choose to end the ISS partnership altogether, though there is a great deal of ambiguity as to whether either ISS ‘segment’ could survive on its own. Thankfully, NASA has partial alternatives to some of the services the Russian ISS segment has provided. Northrup Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft intends to perform the first Western ISS reboost maneuver later this year. Russia has been almost exclusively responsible for ISS reboosting and maneuvering over the two-decade life of the station.
Meanwhile, in spite of the circumstances, Vande Hei is still on track to break the American record for the longest continuous stay in space, beating out NASA astronaut Scott Kelly’s 340-day streak by about two weeks. NASA associate space operations administrator Kathy Lueders stated in a press conference that NASA “[is] getting ready for Mark to return, and all of the normal operations are in place for that for us to be able to do that”.
Once on the ground in Kazakhstan, Vande Hei will be met by a team of NASA personnel tasked with bringing the astronaut back to Houston, Texas. He will then start the recovery process after living in microgravity for almost a full year.
SpaceX has achieved an incredible milestone by launching its 11,000th Starlink satellite into orbit.
This accomplishment occurred during the Starlink Group 17-50 mission, which lifted off on August 19 at 04:01 UTC from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
Falcon 9 launches 24 @Starlink satellites from California pic.twitter.com/UscpmAxDls
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 19, 2026
A Falcon 9 rocket carried 24 Starlink V2 Mini satellites on this flight, successfully deploying them into low Earth orbit approximately one hour after liftoff. The first stage booster, identified as B1097 on its twelfth flight, landed successfully on the droneship Of Course I Still Love You in the Pacific Ocean.
According to tracking data compiled around that date, this deployment brought the total number of Starlink satellites in orbit to just over 11,000.
The Starlink program began with test satellites known as Tintin A and B, launched on February 22, 2018. The first operational batch of 60 Starlink satellites followed on May 24, 2019, when a Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral. Those initial satellites marked the start of a rapid expansion that has continued for more than seven years.
SpaceX has conducted hundreds of dedicated Starlink missions since then, routinely launching batches of 20 to 30 satellites at a time using reusable Falcon 9 rockets. By mid-2026, the company had already surpassed 12,000 total satellites launched across all versions, with continuous replacements for units that deorbit as designed to manage space debris.
Looking ahead, SpaceX continues to expand the Starlink constellation to enhance global broadband coverage, capacity, and speed. The network already serves millions of users across more than 160 countries and supports applications ranging from residential internet to maritime, aviation, and emergency services.
Future plans center on next-generation hardware, including larger V3 satellites capable of delivering substantially higher throughput, which require the increased payload capacity of the Starship vehicle currently under development and testing.
In July, SpaceX submitted an application to the Federal Communications Commission seeking authority for a Gen3 constellation of up to 100,000 satellites. These spacecraft would operate in very low Earth orbit shells at altitudes near 325 kilometers and 475 kilometers. The filing requests use of existing Ku, Ka, V, and E band spectrum along with new greenfield W and D band frequencies between 92 and 275 GHz.
SpaceX states that the expanded system aims to deliver multi-gigabit symmetrical broadband to consumers, enterprises, governments, and billions of AI-powered devices worldwide while handling a majority of global internet traffic. Approval and subsequent deployment would depend on regulatory review and the operational readiness of Starship for high-volume launches.
This ambitious scale reflects SpaceX’s ongoing commitment to providing ubiquitous high-speed connectivity from space.
Tesla has opened a new sweepstakes to allow the public to be among the first to take an initial ride in a Cybercab. This all-electric, steering-wheel-less, pedal-less vehicle is the centerpiece of the company’s autonomous ride-hailing platform, Robotaxi.
There are two ways Tesla fans can get to Austin to take part in the first public rides of the Cybercab: by riding on the Robotaxi platform by August 23, or by mailing a very specific entry to their Headquarters at Gigafactory Texas.
Tesla announced the latter portion of the sweepstakes last night:
🚨 Want to win a trip to Austin to ride in one of the first Cybercab rides ever?
Here’s how:
Tesla has opened up a new sweepstakes to ride in a Cybercab upon its public launch. Here’s the details.
There are two methods of entry into the sweepstakes, and they are as follows:… pic.twitter.com/iJRd4evuWo
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 19, 2026
Tesla will give one entry into the sweepstakes if you mail a 3″ by 5″ piece of paper with your full name, mailing address, telephone number, email address, and date of birth to their address:
Tesla, Robotaxi Sweeps Event
1 Tesla Road,
Austin, TX 78725
There is a limit of one entry per stamped envelope. You can send as many as you’d like, but they must be in separate envelopes.
The company’s unique strategy to give people the opportunity to ride in a Cybercab before pretty much anyone else outside of the company is a hilarious but spot-on representation of how Tesla operates. In classic fashion, they had the perfect response to the event:
— Tesla (@Tesla) August 19, 2026
Cybercab will launch later this month, it appears, especially as it plans to announce the winners of the sweepstakes on August 25. The car has already been operating internally, as employees have been able to utilize the Cybercab for rides in some capacity, something it announced earlier this month.
Tesla weirdly confirms Cybercab employee rides, a huge milestone
Moving forward, the big goal is to get Cybercab out on the roads and integrated into the public Robotaxi fleet, one that will pick up real-world ride-hailers and give them a ride from Point A to Point B.
No matter which way you cut it, it appears Tesla is close to putting a vehicle with no steering wheel and no pedals on the road to help people travel autonomously.
You can ride along with us in our first Cybercab ride from the We, Robot event in October 2024. The video is embedded below:
🎥: Our FULL first ride in the @Tesla Cybercab pic.twitter.com/6gR7OgKRCz
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 11, 2024
Tesla has revealed plans through permit submissions for a massive Robotaxi charging hub in Austin, Texas.
Tesla plans to build the Supercharger hub in multiple phases, with the second phase potentially introducing wireless induction charging, something the company has been developing for the Robotaxi fleet.
Initially, 48 Tesla Robotaxi-geared Superchargers will be built on a lot just across from the St. Elmo, Texas, Service Center. There are about 80 additional spots that will not be impacted by phase 1 of the construction process.
Filings show that the second phase of the project will turn those 80 additional spots into wireless charging for Robotaxi, but it might be an error. The Key Notes state that item 3 is listed as “V4 Charging Cabinet to Support 80 Wireless Chargers in Phase 2. However, the drawings point to V3 Cabinets that are already tied to Superchargers:
There are roughly 128 total spots in the lot, but it is unclear if they will all be used for charging based on what appears to be some sort of typo in the blueprint.
A new Robotaxi fleet charging hub is coming soon to Austin, Texas!!
Permits have been filed for the installation of 48 (V3) stalls in a vehicle storage lot across the road from Tesla’s St Elmo service center. pic.twitter.com/xwRgSWDqht
— MarcoRP (@MarcoRPi1) August 18, 2026
This is among the first Robotaxi charging hubs Tesla has started to develop, as it currently has four others planned throughout various areas: one in Phoenix, one in San Antonio, another in Irving, which will serve the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and another in Las Vegas.
These projects are necessary as Tesla expands its Robotaxi program. Now that preparations have started for the public launch of Cybercab, Robotaxi will likely be expanding aggressively, especially over the next two to three years.
Last night, The Information reported that Tesla was planning to launch Cybercab as soon as the end of August. Hours later, Tesla then announced it was launching a competition for fans to potentially ride in Cybercab during its first public rides.
Tesla’s plan to expand its charging infrastructure in the regions where Robotaxi will initially operate is great preparation for the expanding service. There is still a lot to do, including launching the Cybercab on time.
SpaceX achieves incredible milestone with Starlink program
Tesla is opening Cybercab rides to a select few
