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Northrup Grumman’s Antares set for its swan song launch
Later this evening at 8:31 p.m. ET (00:31 UTC on the 2nd), the Northrup Grumman Antares 230+ rocket is scheduled to launch its final resupply mission to the International Space Station.
The rocket will lift off from Launch Pad 0 at the Mid Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island in Virginia, carrying the Cygnus cargo vehicle. Cygnus will be loaded with 8,200 lbs (3,719 kg) of supplies and experiments for the orbiting outpost.
The Ukrainian-built Antares launch vehicle has only been used to launch resupply missions to the ISS since its debut launch in April 2013, then owned by Orbital Sciences. Since its debut, it has had one failure and, as a result, underwent its first upgrade.
The first version of the rocket used NK-33 engines built by the Soviet Union in the 1970s, the engines were then bought by Aerojet-Rocketdyne and modified for use on the Antares rocket. The engines were renamed the AJ-26.
Antares explodes shortly after lift-off on 5th flight (Credit: NASA)
On the rocket’s 5th mission, one of those engines failed in spectacular fashion when a liquid oxygen turbopump with manufacturing defects failed 6 seconds after liftoff, causing Antares to fall back down onto the launch pad and explode.
This set off a chain of events for U.S. launch providers as the United States banned further purchasing of Russian-made engines in December 2014, a decision that was altered just a year later to accommodate United Launch Alliance, whose Atlas V rocket uses Russian-made RD-180 engines.
-->Following the failure, Antares was switched over to using the RD-181 engines and thus creating the next Antares variant, the 230 series of the rocket. This version would go on to launch 12 more times before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the resulting sanctions against Russia forced Northrup Grumman to end its reliability on the Ukrainian-built first stage and Russian engines.
In August 2022, Northrup Grumman announced they had contracted Firefly Aerospace to produce a new medium-lift rocket for the company that will be called the Antares 330. The 330 series will use 7 Miranda engines from the company. The 330 series upper stage will be the Castor 30XL solid-fueled rocket motor, with later versions using a vacuum-optimized Miranda engine to provide extra performance.
Miranda rocket engine test (Credit Firefly Aerospace)
While the Antares 330 rocket is being designed and built, Northrup Grumman has contracted SpaceX to launch 3 Cygnus resupply missions in order to fulfill their contract with NASA.
Northrup Grumman has said they expect to be able to launch the Antares 330 by Summer 2025.
The current weather outlook shows an 80% chance of acceptable conditions at lift-off. NASA will host a live stream of the launch on its YouTube page.
Questions or comments? Shoot me an email at rangle@teslarati.com, or Tweet me @RDAnglePhoto.
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News
Tesla Semi factory looks almost complete during Thanksgiving weekend
Based on recent drone videos, the Tesla Semi factory looks practically ready to start operations.
It appears that the Tesla Semi factory near Giga Nevada is already hard at work preparing for the initial production of the Class 8 all-electric truck. This was, at least, hinted at in a recent drone flyover of the facility from a longtime watcher.
The Tesla Semi factory after Thanksgiving
Drone operator and Tesla Semi advocate @HinrichsZane recently shared some footage he captured of the upcoming facility during the Thanksgiving weekend. Based on his video, it appears that Tesla gave its employees in the area the weekend off. One thing is evident from the video, however, and that is the fact that the Tesla Semi factory looks practically ready to start operations.
The Tesla Semi watcher did point out that the electric vehicle maker is still busy bringing in production equipment into the facility itself. Once these are installed, it would not be surprising if initial production of the Tesla Semi begins.
A new Tesla Semi
The upcoming completion of the Tesla Semi factory near Gigafactory Nevada seems all but inevitable in the coming months. What would be especially interesting, however, would be the vehicles that would be produced on the site. During Elon Musk’s presentation at the 2025 Annual Shareholder Meeting, a glimpse of the production Tesla Semi was shown, and it looks quite a bit different than the Class 8 all-electric truck’s classic appearance.
As could be seen in the graphic from the CEO’s presentation, the updated Tesla Semi will feature slim lightbar headlights similar to the new Tesla Model Y, Cybertruck, and the Cybercab. Tesla also teased a number of aerodynamic improvements that increased the truck’s efficiency to 1.7 kWh per mile. Extended camera units, seemingly for FSD, could also be seen in the graphic.
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Tesla scores major hire as Apple scientist moves to Optimus team
Chen, who advanced from individual contributor to technical lead during his time at Apple, noted that he was blown away by Tesla’s efforts and synergy.
Former Apple research scientist Yilun Chen has left the tech giant to join Tesla’s Optimus AI team. Chen, who advanced from individual contributor to technical lead during his time at Apple, noted that he was blown away by Tesla’s efforts and synergy.
Apple veteran closes a major chapter
In a farewell note, Yilun Chen reflected on his tenure at Apple as a period defined by rapid growth and exposure to notable internal projects, some of which remain unreleased. His roles spanned engineering, research, early product incubation, and hands-on prototyping, allowing him to build expertise across both mature and emerging teams.
Chen credited mentors, colleagues, and cross-functional collaborators for shaping his trajectory, calling the experience unforgettable and emphasizing how each team taught him different lessons about scaling technology, guiding product vision, and navigating fast-moving research environments. “Each role has offered me invaluable unique lessons… My deepest gratitude goes to my colleagues, mentors and friends,” he wrote.
Tesla’s Optimus lab secured the hire
Chen said the move to Tesla was driven by the momentum surrounding Optimus, a humanoid robot powered by LLM-driven reasoning and Physical AI. After visiting Tesla’s Optimus lab, he admitted that he was “totally blown away by the scale and sophistication of the Optimus lab and deep dedication of people when I got to visit the office.”
His first week at Tesla, he noted, involved spontaneous deep-tech discussions, a flat team structure, rapid prototyping cycles, and what he called a “crazy ideas with super-fast iterations” culture. Chen emphasized that the team’s ambition, as well as its belief that humanoid robots are now within reach, creates an energy level that feels aimed at changing the world.
-->“You can feel the energy to change the world here,” he wrote in a post on social media.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk gives nod to SpaceX’s massive, previously impossible feat
It was the booster’s 30th flight, a scenario that seemed impossible before SpaceX became a dominant force in spaceflight.
Elon Musk gave a nod to one of SpaceX’s most underrated feats today. Following the successful launch of the Transporter-15 mission, SpaceX seamlessly landed another Falcon 9 booster on a droneship in the middle of the ocean.
It was the booster’s 30th flight, a scenario that seemed impossible before SpaceX became a dominant force in spaceflight.
Elon Musk celebrates a veteran Falcon 9 booster’s feat
SpaceX completed another major milestone for its Smallsat Rideshare program on Friday, successfully launching and deploying 140 spacecraft aboard a Falcon 9 from Vandenberg Space Force Base. The mission, known as Transporter-15, lifted off two days later than planned after a scrub attributed to a ground systems issue, according to SpaceFlight Now. SpaceX confirmed that all payloads designed to separate from the rocket were deployed as planned.
The Falcon 9 used for this flight was booster B1071, one of SpaceX’s most heavily flown rockets. With its 30th mission completed, it becomes the second booster in SpaceX’s fleet to reach that milestone. B1071’s manifest includes five National Reconnaissance Office missions, NASA’s SWOT satellite, and several previous rideshare deployments, among others. Elon Musk celebrated the milestone on X, writing “30 flights of the same rocket!” in his post.
Skeptics once dismissed reusability as unfeasible
While rocket landings are routine for SpaceX today, that was not always the case. Industry veterans previously questioned whether reusable rockets could ever achieve meaningful cost savings or operational reliability, often citing the Space Shuttle’s partial reusability as evidence of failure.
-->In 2016, Orbital ATK’s Ben Goldberg argued during a panel that even if rockets could be reusable, they do not make a lot of sense. He took issue with Elon Musk’s claims at the time, Ars Technica reported, particularly when the SpaceX founder stated that fuel costs account for just a fraction of launch costs.
Goldberg noted that at most, studies showed only a 30% cost reduction for low-Earth orbit missions by using a reusable rocket. “You’re not going to get 100-fold. These numbers aren’t going to change by an order of magnitude. They’re just not. That’s the state of where we are today,” he said.
Former NASA official Dan Dumbacher, who oversaw the Space Launch System, expressed similar doubts in 2014, implying that if NASA couldn’t make full reusability viable, private firms like SpaceX faced steep odds.
Tesla Semi factory looks almost complete during Thanksgiving weekend
Tesla scores major hire as Apple scientist moves to Optimus team
