News
Rocket Lab’s first step towards SpaceX-style rocket reuse set for next Electron launch
Just over a year ago, Rocket Lab announced intentions to recover the first-stage of its small Electron launch vehicle, potentially making it the second private company on Earth – after SpaceX – to attempt to recover and reuse an orbital-class rocket.
In a media call earlier this week, Rocket Lab founder and CEO, Peter Beck, revealed that the first recovery attempt has been expedited to mid-November and will occur following the next flight of Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket.
Like competitor SpaceX, Rocket Lab aims to recover its first stage Electron booster to decrease production time and increase launch cadence. Rocket Lab now has three launchpads to launch from and is licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration to carry out up to 130 launches per calendar year. In order to increase the launch cadence of the Electron, production times need to decrease. This can effectively be accomplished with the recovery, refurbishment, and reuse of the small, carbon composite rocket booster.
Recovery Doesn’t Happen Overnight
Initially, the first step of recovering an expended first stage – a guided and controlled soft water landing under a parachute and retrieval by sea-vessel – was intended for the seventeenth launch of the Electron prior to the end of this calendar year. However, Rocket Lab is now targeting the sixteenth launch for the first recovery attempt, a mission appropriately nicknamed “Return to Sender.” When asked what prompted the move to an earlier launch, Beck stated to reporters, “the guys got it done in time. With a new development like this, it’s always very dependent on how the program runs and the program ran very successfully.”
Rocket Lab has been working toward this recovery attempt for quite some time. In late 2018, Rocket Lab began collecting data during launches to inform future recovery efforts and determine whether or not it would even be feasible with a small-class rocket. The first major block upgrade of the Electron booster debuted on the tenth flight, “Running Out of Fingers,” in December 2019.
The first recovery milestone, a task Beck called getting through “the wall,” was achieved following the tenth flight. And again in January 2020 following a successful eleventh flight of Electron. The “wall” Beck refers to is the Earth’s atmosphere. Returning a booster through the atmosphere intact requires extreme precision in terms of re-entry orientation and how efficient the heat shield is.
Because the Electron is a small-class rocket, Rocket Lab was able to collect enough data from previous flights to determine that the carbon composite frame could withstand a fall through the atmosphere given a precise enough angle of attack to sufficiently distribute thermal loads. According to Beck, the process is referred to as an “aero thermal decelerator.”
Small Rocket Following in Big Footsteps
SpaceX, Elon Musk’s space exploration company pioneered booster landing, recovery, and reuse efforts when the first Falcon 9 booster to successfully land returned to Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on December 21, 2015. SpaceX approaches the process of booster re-entry in a different way than what Rocket Lab has decided to attempt with Electron.
The Falcon 9 boosters perform a re-orientation flip and use the engines to perform what is known as a boost-back burn to set the rocket on the path to return to the Earth’s surface. The rocket then autonomously deploys titanium grid-fins that essentially steer, and slow the booster down as it falls through the atmosphere. Finally, the engines are re-ignited during a series of burns, and landing legs are deployed to propulsively land either at sea aboard an autonomous spaceport droneship or back on land at a landing zone.
The booster of Rocket Lab’s tenth mission in 2019 was outfitted with guidance and navigation hardware and cold gas attitude control thrusters used to flip and orient the booster to withstand the stresses of re-entry. Otherwise, no other hardware was incorporated to reduce the stresses of re-entry or slow the vehicle as it fell through the atmosphere. The booster made it through “the wall” intact and eventually slowed to a rate less than 900km per hour by the time it reached sea-level for an expected impact.
Eventually, Rocket Lab imagines its small Electron booster to be caught during a controlled descent under parachute canopy with a specially equipped helicopter and grappling hook. Beck and his team spent weeks outfitting a test article with prototype parachutes that were manufactured in-house.
A low-altitude drop test of a test article to simulate an Electron first stage was performed and a helicopter was able to snag the test article mid-air and deliver it one piece. Essentially, this proved that the concept was at least feasible and the small-class rocket could in fact be fully recovered to eventually be refurbished and reused. Since the completion of this drop test in April of 2020, the parachute design has been reevaluated and many more drop tests have been conducted. The final drop test with a more traditional system of a drogue parachute and an 18m ringsail type main parachute occurred in August of 2020 with a first stage simulator.
Next up, Rocket Lab plans to use the finalized design of the parachute system to bring Electron home safely for a soft landing in the Pacific Ocean. After which the booster will be collected by a recovery vessel, similar to the process that SpaceX uses to scoop its payload fairings from the water.
“Bringing a whole first stage back intact is the ultimate goal, but success for this mission is really about gaining more data, particularly on the drogue and parachute deployment system,” said Beck. With the parachute system verified the teams should be able to make any further iterations for a full capture and recovery effort on a future mission relatively quickly.
Rocket Lab will try to fully recover the “Return to Sender” expended first-stage booster once it separates approximately two and a half minutes after liftoff from Launch Complex 1 on the Mahia Penninsula of New Zealand. Electron will support a rideshare payload of thirty smallsats. The window to launch the sixteenth Electron mission opens on November 16 UTC (November 15 PT / ET). A hosted live webcast of the launch and recovery attempt will be provided on the company website approximately fifteen minutes prior to liftoff.
News
Tesla says its Texas lithium refinery is now operational and unlike anything in North America
Elon Musk separately described the site as both the most advanced and the largest lithium refinery in the United States.
Tesla has confirmed that its Texas lithium refinery is now operational, marking a major milestone for the company’s U.S. battery supply chain. In a newly released video, Tesla staff detailed how the facility converts raw spodumene ore directly into battery-grade lithium hydroxide, making it the first refinery of its kind in North America.
Elon Musk separately described the site as both the most advanced and the largest lithium refinery in the United States.
A first-of-its-kind lithium refining process
In the video, Tesla staff at the Texas lithium refinery near Corpus Christi explained that the facility processes spodumene, a lithium-rich hard-rock ore, directly into battery-grade lithium hydroxide on site. The approach bypasses intermediate refining steps commonly used elsewhere in the industry.
According to the staff, spodumene is processed through kilns and cooling systems before undergoing alkaline leaching, purification, and crystallization. The resulting lithium hydroxide is suitable for use in batteries for energy storage and electric vehicles. Tesla employees noted that the process is simpler and less expensive than traditional refining methods.
Staff at the facility added that the process eliminates hazardous byproducts typically associated with lithium refining. “Our process is more sustainable than traditional methods and eliminates hazardous byproducts, and instead produces a co-product named anhydrite, used in concrete mixes,” an employee noted.
Musk calls the facility the largest lithium refinery in America
The refinery’s development timeline has been very impressive. The project moved from breaking ground in 2023 to integrated plant startup in 2025 by running feasibility studies, design, and construction in parallel. This compressed schedule enabled the fastest time-to-market for a refinery using this type of technology. This 2026, the facility has become operational.
Elon Musk echoed the significance of the project in posts on X, stating that “the largest Lithium refinery in America is now operational.” In a separate comment, Musk described the site as “the most advanced lithium refinery in the world” and emphasized that the facility is “very clean.”
By bringing large-scale lithium hydroxide production online in Texas, Tesla is positioning itself to reduce reliance on foreign refining capacity while supporting its growth in battery and vehicle production. The refinery also complements Tesla’s nascent domestic battery manufacturing efforts, which could very well be a difference maker in the market.
News
Tesla Optimus V3 gets early third-party feedback, and it’s eye-opening
Jason Calacanis’ remarks, which were shared during a discussion at CES 2026, offered one of the first third-party impressions of the yet-to-be-unveiled robot
Angel investor and entrepreneur Jason Calacanis shared some insights after he got an early look at Tesla’s upcoming Optimus V3. His remarks, which were shared during a discussion at CES 2026, offered one of the first third-party impressions of the yet-to-be-unveiled robot.
Calacanis’ comments were shared publicly on X, and they were quite noteworthy.
The angel investor stated that he visited Tesla’s Optimus lab on a Sunday morning and observed that the place was buzzing with energy. The investor then shared a rare, shocking insight. As per Calacanis, Optimus V3 will be so revolutionary that people will probably not even remember that Tesla used to make cars in the future.
“I don’t want to name drop, but two Sundays ago, I went to Tesla with Elon and I went and visited the Optimus lab. There were a large number of people working on a Sunday at 10 a.m. and I saw Optimus 3. I can tell you now, nobody will remember that Tesla ever made a car,” he noted.
The angel investor also reiterated the primary advantage of Optimus, and how it could effectively change the world.
“They will only remember the Optimus and that he is going to make a billion of those, and it is going to be the most transformative technology product ever made in the history of humanity, because what LLMs are gonna enable those products to do is understand the world and then do things in the world that we don’t want to do. I believe there will be a 1:1 ratio of humans to Optimus, and I think he’s already won,” he said.
While Calacanis’ comments were clearly opinion-driven, they stood out as among the first from a non-Tesla employee about Optimus V3. Considering his reaction to the humanoid robot, perhaps Elon Musk’s predictions for Optimus V3 might not be too far-fetched at all.
Tesla has been careful with its public messaging around Optimus V3’s development stage. Musk has previously stated on X that Optimus V3 has not yet been revealed publicly, clarifying that images and videos of the robot online still show Optimus V2 and V2.5, not the next-generation unit. As for Calacanis’ recent comments, however, Musk responded with a simple “Probably true” in a post on X.
News
Tesla taps Samsung for 5G modems amid plans of Robotaxi ramp: report
The move signals Tesla’s growing focus on supply-chain diversification and next-generation communications as it prepares to scale its autonomous driving and robotaxi operations.
A report from South Korea has suggested that Samsung Electronics is set to begin supplying 5G automotive modems to Tesla. If accurate, this would mark a major expansion of the two companies’ partnership beyond AI chips and into vehicle connectivity.
The move signals Tesla’s growing focus on supply-chain diversification and next-generation communications as it prepares to scale its autonomous driving and Robotaxi operations.
Samsung’s 5G modem
As per industry sources cited by TheElec, Samsung’s System LSI division has completed development of a dedicated automotive-grade 5G modem for Tesla. The 5G modem is reportedly in its testing phase. Initial supply is expected to begin in the first half of this year, with the first deployments planned for Tesla’s Robotaxi fleet in Texas. A wider rollout to consumer vehicles is expected to follow.
Development of the modem began in early 2024 and it required a separate engineering process from Samsung’s smartphone modems. Automotive modems must meet stricter durability standards, including resistance to extreme temperatures and vibration, along with reliability over a service life exceeding 10 years. Samsung will handle chip design internally, while a partner company would reportedly manage module integration.
The deal represents the first time Samsung has supplied Tesla with a 5G vehicle modem. Tesla has historically relied on Qualcomm for automotive connectivity, but the new agreement suggests that the electric vehicle maker may be putting in some serious effort into diversifying its suppliers as connectivity becomes more critical to autonomous driving.
Deepening Tesla–Samsung ties
The modem supply builds on a rapidly expanding relationship between the two companies. Tesla previously selected Samsung’s foundry business to manufacture its next-generation AI6 chips, a deal valued at more than 22.7 trillion won and announced in mid-2025. Together, the AI chip and 5G modem agreements position Samsung as a key semiconductor partner for Tesla’s future vehicle platforms.
Industry observers have stated that the collaboration aligns with Tesla’s broader effort to reduce reliance on Chinese and Taiwanese suppliers. Geopolitical risk and long-term supply stability are believed to be driving the shift in no small part, particularly as Tesla prepares for large-scale Robotaxi deployment.
Stable, high-speed connectivity is essential for Tesla’s Full Self-Driving system, supporting real-time mapping, fleet management, and continuous software updates. By pairing in-vehicle AI computing with a new 5G modem supplier, Tesla appears to be tightening control over both its hardware stack and its global supply chain.
Tesla says its Texas lithium refinery is now operational and unlike anything in North America
Tesla Optimus V3 gets early third-party feedback, and it’s eye-opening
