News
Rocket Lab aces first Electron rocket launch from US soil
After many delays, Rocket Lab has successfully launched an Electron rocket from US soil for the first time.
The company’s small Electron rocket lifted off at 6 pm EST (23:00 UTC), January 24th, from a pad built at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility. About nine minutes later, the Electron upper stage reached low Earth orbit (LEO) and shut down its Rutherford Vacuum engine. 90 minutes after liftoff, the rocket finished deploying three new Hawkeye 360 Earth observation satellites, marking the successful completion of Rocket Lab’s first American launch.
Rocket Lab’s workhorse rocket is relatively unique. Electron is the only rocket in the world to successfully reach orbit with structures built almost entirely out of carbon fiber composites. It’s also the only orbital-class rocket in the world that uses engines with battery-powered pumps. Electron measures 18 meters (59 ft) tall, 1.2 meters (4 ft) wide, and weighs about 13 tons (~28,500 lbs) at liftoff, making it one of the smallest orbital rockets ever. It sells for about $7.5 million and can launch up to 200 kilograms (440 lb) to a sun-synchronous orbit or 300 kilograms (660 lb) to LEO.
The update that's rolling out to the fleet makes full use of the front and rear steering travel to minimize turning circle. In this case a reduction of 1.6 feet just over the air— Wes (@wmorrill3) April 16, 2024
Electron is by far the cheapest widely-available option for a dedicated rocket launch. Although a fully-utilized Electron costs more than $25,000 per kilogram, Rocket Lab has found a decent number of customers that find the benefits worth the cost premium. SpaceX currently offers rideshare launch services for just $5,500 per kilogram. But a dedicated Electron launch buys customers white-glove service and control over the exact timing and target orbit, among other perks.
Many companies are developing orbital transfer vehicles (space tugs) to combine the affordable cost of rideshare launches with customized orbits and deployment timing, but rideshare payloads will always have to grapple with inflexible launch timing. SpaceX will not delay a launch carrying 50-100+ other payloads because one satellite is running behind schedule.
Rocket Lab’s history shows that plenty of companies are willing to pay far more for the convenience of a direct launch. Electron’s first launch from US soil was the rocket’s 30th successful launch and 33rd launch since its May 2017 debut. In 2022, Rocket Lab managed to launch eight times in eight months and nine times overall. Had bad winter weather not conspired to delay its first US launch, the company would have broken into the double digits for the first time and likely kept its monthly launch streak alive.
Sisyphean delays
Rocket Lab’s first American launch is no stranger to delays. The company announced plans to build a US launch site in October 2018. At the time, Rocket Lab hoped to launch its first Electron out of Virginia’s NASA Wallops Flight Facility as early as Q3 2019. For a number of reasons, many of which were outside of Rocket Lab’s control, that didn’t happen.
Rocket Lab began constructing its Launch Complex 2 (LC-2) pad in Virginia in February 2019 and finished construction by the start of 2020. At that point, the then-private company stated that LC-2 was on track to host its first Electron rocket launch as early as Q2 2020. In Q2, Rocket Lab even shipped an Electron to Virginia and completed a range of pad shakedown tests, including a wet dress rehearsal (WDR) and static fire test.
Rocket Lab isn’t entirely free of fault. However, nearly all of the blame for that delay appears to lie with NASA, who required that Rocket Lab use the agency’s own software for a new kind of “flight termination system.” Rocket Lab had already successfully developed and repeatedly flown its own autonomous flight termination system for use at its New Zealand launch site. AFTS replaces a human-in-the-loop with software that monitors a rocket and decides if it needs to protect populated areas by triggering explosive charges that will destroy the vehicle.
NASA’s software was plagued by years of delays, causing the payload assigned to Electron’s US launch debut to change repeatedly. In 2019, it was supposed to be a Space Test Program (STP) mission for the US Air Force. From 2020 to 2021, it was supposed to be NASA’s CAPSTONE mission to the Moon. Both missions were ultimately launched at Rocket Lab’s primary launch site in New Zealand.
Only in January 2023, almost three years after Rocket Lab was first ready to go, did Electron finally lift off from US soil with a trio of Hawkeye 360 radio surveillance satellites in tow. The mission was the first of Electron launches purchased by Hawkeye 360 to launch 15 satellites. Rocket Lab intends to launch again from LC-2 in the near future and has already shipped a second Electron rocket to Virginia.
Elon Musk
SpaceX (SPCX) IPO is live today at $135: Here’s exactly what you need to know
SpaceX priced its historic IPO at $135 per share today, raising a record $75 billion.
SpaceX officially priced its initial public offering at $135 per share, offering 555,555,555 shares of Class A common stock and raising $75 billion in what is the largest IPO in stock market history. Shares are set to begin trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on Friday, June 12, under the ticker symbol SPCX. The previous record holder was Saudi Aramco’s 2019 offering at $29 billion, followed by Alibaba’s $22 billion offering in 2014.
At $135 per share and roughly 555.6 million shares, the implied valuation sits near $1.75 trillion, which would make SpaceX roughly the seventh largest company in the United States, just above Tesla’s current market cap. Regular investors can request shares at the IPO price through Robinhood, Fidelity, Charles Schwab, SoFi, and E*TRADE, though the deal is heavily oversubscribed and most retail allocations will be partial or unfilled. Once trading opens June 12, anyone with a brokerage account can buy SPCX on the open market.
SpaceX’s amended S-1 is sparking a major Tesla merger conversation
The valuation is anchored primarily by Starlink. Starlink crossed 10 million subscribers as of February 2026 and is adding 750,000 to 1.5 million new users per month, with the connectivity segment already posting a $1.19 billion profit last quarter. The offering also bundles in xAI following SpaceX’s all-stock merger earlier this year, adding Grok and the Colossus supercomputer to the investment thesis. As Teslarati reported, Starlink ended 2025 with $10 billion in revenue, a figure analysts project could reach $24 billion by end of 2026.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives has been vocal in his support. “I think the time is right,” Ives said, adding that the offering expands the Elon Musk ecosystem rather than competing with Tesla. An average 12-month price target of $165 per share represents roughly 22% upside from the IPO price. Not everyone agrees – Motley Fool noted xAI is spending $1 billion per month playing catch-up to OpenAI and Anthropic.
Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 with a single stated purpose. “Elon founded SpaceX with a goal to change humanity, to make us a multi-planet species,” CFO Bret Johnsen said in the company’s retail roadshow video this week. Musk himself has been more direct: “We are building the systems and technologies necessary to provide global connectivity on Earth and beyond, to understand the true nature of the universe, and to extend the light of consciousness to the stars.”
Investor's Corner
Tesla unfolded its first European “folding Supercharger”
Tesla’s folding Supercharger just arrived in Europe and it changes how fast charging expands.
Tesla’s Folding Unit Supercharger has officially landed in Europe, with the company teasing a new installation in its effort for a broader rollout targeting major motorway rest stops across the European continent in Q3 2026. The arrival marks a notable shift in how Tesla is thinking about network expansion, moving from hardware performance alone to engineering the logistics chain itself.
While Tesla did not reveal the exact location for the new folding Supercharger in Europe, the photo shared on X heavily suggests that this maybe somewhere in Norway. Historically, whenever Tesla rolls out an entirely new infrastructure architecture in Europe, whether it was the original Supercharger stalls years ago or these brand-new modular V4 “Folding Units”, Norway is almost always the designated launch pad because of its unmatched EV adoption rate and supportive infrastructure
The Folding Unit, introduced in March 2026, is a factory pre-assembled V4 charging station built on an industrial hinge system mounted to a heavy-duty concrete base. The entire assembly arrives on site ready to unfold and connect. Tesla confirmed the units feature telescopic light poles specifically designed for easy transportation and fast on-site deployment, a detail that signals how carefully the logistics chain has been engineered alongside the hardware itself. The design allows 33% more stalls per delivery truck, cuts installation time roughly in half, and reduces overall deployment costs by more than 20% compared to traditional installations.
Tesla’s newest “Folding V4 Superchargers” are key to its most aggressive expansion yet
Tesla also noted telescopic light poles which provide benefits over traditional Supercharger installations that require fixed-height poles that are awkward to ship, slow to position on site, and often require separate crews and equipment to erect before charging hardware can even be staged. By engineering poles that compress for transit and extend on arrival, Tesla has removed one of the quieter bottlenecks in the physical deployment process. Every hour saved on a light pole installation is an hour redirected toward getting stalls energized. At scale, across dozens of new sites per quarter, those hours add up to a meaningful acceleration in how quickly a location goes from approved permit to serving its first customer.
Each Folding Unit pairs a single V4 power cabinet with eight charging posts. The V4 cabinet delivers up to 500 kW per stall for passenger vehicles and up to 1.2 MW for the Tesla Semi, supporting twice the stalls per cabinet at three times the power density of its predecessor. Longer cables make every new station immediately usable by non-Tesla vehicles, a priority as Tesla continues opening its network to Ford, GM, Rivian, Hyundai, Stellantis, and others.
As Teslarati reported when the Folding Unit was first unveiled, Tesla’s Gigafactory New York produced its final V3 Supercharger cabinet in March 2026 after more than seven years and 15,000 units, completing a full pivot to V4 production. The European arrival of the folding design is the next chapter in that transition.
Faster and cheaper deployment means Tesla can justify building in markets and corridors that were previously too expensive to serve, filling the coverage gaps that have slowed EV adoption outside major urban centers.
First Folding Unit Superchargers in Europe 🇪🇺 https://t.co/KNfYWJukkL pic.twitter.com/YR1udIpH1i
— Tesla Charging (@TeslaCharging) June 10, 2026
Tesla has stunned by gaining yet another approval for its Full Self-Driving suite in Europe, its second in two days and its fifth overall.
Belgium will be the latest country to allow Tesla owners to utilize FSD on public roads in Europe, joining a quickly growing list that started with the Netherlands, Lithuania, and Estonia.
On Tuesday, Denmark announced its approval of the FSD suite, which has now been followed by Belgium just one day later.
The country’s Minister of Mobility, Annick De Ridder, announced the approval on her X account, stating that she had just signed the approval of Tesla FSD. It now goes to the country’s homologation department for the last step of the approval process.
De @Tesla community houdt hier al geruime tijd de vinger aan de pols over de toelating voor de FSD-technologie op onze Vlaamse en Belgische wegen.
Uit waardering voor jullie niet-aflatende interesse (en aanmoediging 😉), krijgen jullie hierbij de primeur: ik heb net de toelating… pic.twitter.com/Yrps4OHTj8— Annick De Ridder (@AnnickDeRidder) June 10, 2026
The Belgian approval is one of mighty importance because it truly shows how quickly countries in Europe could greenlight the FSD suite consecutively. Approvals are already coming in relatively quickly, which is a great sign.
Perhaps the next big development that could come from FSD approvals in Europe is an approval from a country like England, Italy, France, Spain, or Germany. It would be something to see how FSD would perform in a major European metro, such as London, Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Rome, or Berlin.
Getting Full Self-Driving in Spain and England will be such huge milestones for Tesla. I am so excited to see how FSD performs in Madrid, Barcelona, and London, specifically.
The ultimate test will always be Mumbai or New Delhi. Excited for India’s eventual approval! https://t.co/paw9Ch1qmL pic.twitter.com/9RdDERVSSJ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 9, 2026
Full Self-Driving does an excellent job of roaming around major U.S. cities like New York and Los Angeles, but other high-profile international cities of significance would truly mark a line in the sand for Tesla, which can simply enable any vehicle in its customer-owned fleet to run FSD with the correct approvals.
SpaceX (SPCX) IPO is live today at $135: Here’s exactly what you need to know
Tesla unfolded its first European “folding Supercharger”
