News
NASA’s Webb Telescope mirror crushes “most optimistic predictions” after final alignment
NASA says that the nascent James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) “optical performance…continues to be better than the…most optimistic predictions” after completing the alignment of its record-breaking mirror.
Between 7 and 14 years behind schedule and over budget by a factor of 2 to 10, an Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket sent the Webb Telescope on its way to deep space on December 25th, 2021. Weighing 6.2 tons (~13,600 lb), JWST was almost half as heavy at liftoff as NASA’s iconic Hubble Space Telescope despite packing an unprecedented origami-like mirror with more than six times Hubble’s total collecting area. The combination of extreme mass reduction and extraordinary complexity required to launch such a large mirror so far from Earth with a rocket like Ariane 5 helps to partially explain why the Webb Telescope took so long (~18 years) and cost so much (~$9.7 billion) to design, develop, and build.
Nonetheless, launch it finally did. Ariane 5 did most of the work, sending the telescope on a trajectory that – with some help from its onboard thrusters – would guide it to the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point located some 1.5 million kilometers (~950,000 miles) from Earth. In perhaps the largest relief in the history of space-based observatories, the Webb Telescope’s immensely complex deployment process was then completed without a single major issue. 30 days after liftoff, the telescope – fully deployed – reached its operational orbit.
For the past four months, in comparison, almost all JWST work has focused on the less visible and far smaller processes of alignment and calibration. Each of JWST’s 18 main mirror segments has slowly but surely inched micrometer by micrometer into position while large swaths of the telescope slowly cooled to ambient temperatures – essential for maximum performance. Simultaneously, all of Webb’s primary instruments have achieved first light and entered the early phases of calibration and commissioning. Only after the instruments are painstakingly calibrated, the mirror is perfectly aligned, and crucial hardware is chilled to temperatures as low as -449°F (-267°C) can Webb begin to observe the universe and revolutionize large subsets of space science.
The first and most important step – mirror alignment – is now complete. The alignment process began in February 2022, six weeks after liftoff. First, images were captured with the unaligned mirror to help determine exactly what condition it was in. One by one, each of Webb’s 18 mirror segments were individually moved to determine which image each mirror was responsible for, which then allowed ground controllers to properly focus each mirror’s view of a target star. In a process known as “coarse phasing,” once those 18 points of light well-resolved and linked to a specific mirror segment, the segments were gradually steered on top of each other to produce a single image.
“Coarse” heavily undersells the almost unfathomable precision required to complete the step. To reach its full potential, each of the Webb Telescope’s mirror segments must be aligned to within 50 nanometers of each other. According to NASA, “if the Webb primary mirror were the size of the United States, each segment would be the size of Texas, and the team would need to line the height of those Texas-sized segments up with each other to an accuracy of about 1.5 inches.”
Fine phasing followed, involving an even more esoteric set of processes designed to focus the mirror as perfectly as possible. The resulting image was then tweaked to properly align it over the field of view of each of the Webb Telescope’s four main scientific instruments. Finally, some steps of the seven-step alignment process were redone or refined to fully optimize the mirror to the liking of its Earthbound creators and prospective users.
Ultimately, Webb Telescope alignment was extraordinarily successful, producing an image sharper and cleaner than even the “most optimistic predictions” made by its engineers. NASA says that the image is so detailed that it has effectively reached the physical resolution limit for a mirror the size of the Webb Telescope’s, meaning that it would have to violate the known laws of physics to resolve any more detail.
With mirror alignment complete, JWST has just one main hurdle left before science operations can begin: instrument commissioning. Commissioning is a catch-all phrase that covers a wide range of calibration, analysis, experiments, and optimization required to verify that JWST’s four main instruments are behaving as expected and accomplishing the work they were designed to do as accurately and reliably as possible.
At some point, the use of extraordinarily complex scientific instruments becomes more akin to an art form, and some degree of trust must be built up between scientists and their hopeful tools of the trade before they can confidently set chisel to marble and begin delving into the universe at unprecedented breadth and detail. If commissioning proceeds as smoothly as deployment and alignment, the JWST team could be ready to capture and share the telescope’s first actionable observations of the cosmos as early as July 2022.
News
Tesla’s Cybercab fleet jumped 8x in a month, with Dallas up next
Tesla confirms its first official Cybercab fleet number as Austin scales fast and Dallas looms.
Tesla says more than 300 Cybercabs are now serving Austin, the first time the company has put an official number on its active Cybercab fleet. The figure came from the Robotaxi account on X on Saturday, which wrote that one month after launch the service had “scaled to 300+ Cybercabs serving Austin – an 8x increase in 30 days.”
Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s head of AI software, quoted the post with a line that carried the bigger news. “Two years since the 10/10 Cybercab WeRobot event, the cabs are everywhere in Austin now. Dallas soon,” he wrote. It is the first time Tesla has named the next city for public Cybercab rides.
One month after launch, we’ve scaled to 300+ Cybercabs serving Austin – an 8x increase in 30 days https://t.co/EagJy2JAsm
— Robotaxi (@robotaxi) October 10, 2026
Tesla opened Cybercab rides to the public in Austin on September 4, as Teslarati reported, a day after an invite only launch event. The ramp since then has been steep. Our September 28 report had the fleet at well over 100 units after availability jumped from 58 to 125 in a single week. On Thursday, Tesla added 150 Cybercabs to the Texas automated vehicle registry, lifting its registered count to 319 from 169. The first seven appeared on the registry on August 31.
RobotaxiTracker, a community site that counts vehicles from sightings and state records, listed 275 vehicles in unsupervised service in Austin on Saturday, 105 of them Cybercabs, which is well below Tesla’s figure. Tracker counts can lag official numbers, though Sawyer Merritt noted that Cybercab wait times in Austin stayed short on Saturday evening even with more than 2,000 fans in town for X Takeover.
Regulators are watching the rollout. NHTSA opened an audit query into Tesla’s certification that the Cybercab meets federal safety standards, and sworn answers are due October 30. Tesla reports third quarter earnings on October 21, which gives the company a natural venue to define its fleet numbers and put a date on Dallas.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk roasts India’s billionaire Mukesh Ambani as Starlink fight heats up
Elon Musk sarcastically calls Mukesh Ambani ‘Prime Minister’ as the Starlink India standoff escalates again.
Elon Musk escalated his public fight over Starlink’s launch in India on Friday, addressing Reliance chairman Mukesh Ambani as “Prime Minister Ambani” in a sarcastic post on X. “Please accept my humble apologies for not realizing that you are the real boss of India,” Musk wrote, before accusing Ambani of “monopolistic exploitation” and asking whether he would “consider allowing Starlink to compete.” In follow up posts, he said Starlink has proven essential during natural disasters and would help parts of India with no internet access.
The post came two days into a fight that Musk sparked up on Wednesday, when he said Starlink was “being blocked by certain oligarchs in order to maintain their monopolistic chokehold on the Indian people.” He called it “a crime against the people of India” and left the names out, adding only, “You can guess who they are.” Jio and Airtel together hold more than 80% of India’s telecom market. On Thursday, Musk asked whether Ambani is “the real boss of India” and said Starlink has spent five years complying with “every single law and requirement” of the Indian government.
Dear Prime Minister Ambani,
Please accept my humble apologies for not realizing that you are the real boss of India.
Naturally, you would prefer to maintain your monopolistic exploitation of the great people of India, but would you nonetheless consider allowing Starlink to compete?
There are many areas of India, as there are in all countries, with no Internet access, which denies children the opportunity for education and for small businesses the opportunity to sell their goods to a global market. Starlink would change their lives for the better.
Thank you 🙏
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 9, 2026
India’s government has pushed back each time. The Ministry of Communications called the suggestion that its framework is unfair or discriminatory “baseless and misconceived.” Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said Friday that three companies hold satcom licenses: Starlink, Jio Satellite Communications, and Bharti backed Eutelsat OneWeb. Amazon’s Kuiper, now Amazon Leo, is still going through the process. None can launch until regulators finalize satellite spectrum pricing and the Home Ministry signs off on each company’s security compliance. Scindia said the telecom regulator and the Department of Telecommunications are close to a decision on pricing, The Hindu reported. Bharti chairman Sunil Mittal also said OneWeb is still waiting on approvals.
Starlink received its operator license in 2025 after a three year wait, and the space regulator IN-SPACe granted what industry executives called the last approval needed in July. The holdup since then centers on security, particularly concern that foreign operators could bypass Indian gateways.
Musk and Ambani have been on opposite sides of this before. In late 2024, Ambani argued for auctioning satellite spectrum, which Musk criticized as out of step with the rest of the world, and India chose administrative allocation instead. By March 2025, the two sides had signed a deal to sell Starlink devices in Reliance stores, and Starlink secured its telecom license that June. That partner is now also a competitor. Jio is reportedly weighing a constellation of 1,600 to 1,650 satellites costing an estimated $10 billion to $15 billion, while Akash Ambani has told shareholders Jio plans to lease capacity from global providers to move quickly.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s surprise addition to the X Takeover lineup has fans talking
Elon Musk will join Saturday’s X Takeover at Giga Texas for a live virtual interview.
Elon Musk will join X Takeover at Giga Texas on Saturday for a live virtual interview, according to Sawyer Merritt, who shared the news late Thursday. Musk will not be on stage in Austin. The conversation is set to stream for free on the @teslaownersSV account on X.
Organizers had kept expectations in check. In a September update, Tesla Owners Silicon Valley said Musk had appeared at the event twice before but was not promising a third appearance, even as fans hoped he would walk the Giga Texas grounds in person. A virtual spot matches 2024, when Musk gave a surprise interview of about an hour to the crowd in San Luis Obispo, as Teslarati reported at the time.
Wasn’t expecting this 🫡
— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) October 9, 2026
This year’s edition is a first in several ways. It is the first X Takeover held outside California and the first at a Tesla facility, with tickets selling out in eight days. Tesla provides the venue, but the event is produced independently by Tesla Owners Silicon Valley. The main event runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. CT, followed by a drone and light show at 9 p.m. Maye Musk is the keynote speaker, Franz von Holzhausen is set for a virtual keynote, and Nicki Minaj is the special guest. Joe Tegtmeyer, whose drone footage Teslarati used to track the Optimus factory steel frame at Giga Texas, is also on the speaker list.
Musk’s interview topics have not been revealed, but the backdrop is busy. Tesla doubled its Cybercab fleet in Austin in late September, and last week Musk explained why Robotaxi hours only moved from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m.. Merritt also reported Thursday that Texas DMV records now show 319 registered Cybercabs, up from 169. NHTSA’s deadline for Tesla’s sworn answers on Cybercab certification is October 30, and Tesla reports third quarter earnings on October 21.
Fans who cannot make it to Austin can watch the livestream on X. Musk tends to say more in unscripted settings than he does in prepared remarks, which is the reason this one is worth having open on Saturday.
Tesla’s Cybercab fleet jumped 8x in a month, with Dallas up next
Elon Musk roasts India’s billionaire Mukesh Ambani as Starlink fight heats up
Elon Musk’s surprise addition to the X Takeover lineup has fans talking
The Pentagon taps Elon Musk to design the battlefield of the future
Tesla Roadster’s new patent preps white-knuckle speeds, keeping it grounded
