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DeepSpace: Rocket Lab nails third Electron launch of 2019 as next rocket heads to launch pad

Rocket Lab's Electron rocket lifts off from Mahia Peninsula on June 29th for the company's third launch of 2019. (Rocket Lab)

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Welcome to the latest edition of DeepSpace! Each week, I’ll hand-craft this newsletter to give you a breakdown of what’s happening in the space industry and tell you what you need to know. 

On June 29th, startup Rocket Lab completed its third successful Electron rocket launch this year, placing roughly half a dozen small(ish) satellites in orbit as part of a dedicated mission for Seattle-based startup Spaceflight Industries.

Technically speaking, with three launches under its belt, Rocket Lab has now reached orbit more times this year than the United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Atlas V and Delta IV rockets combined, despite the fact that the company conducted its first commercial launch just seven months ago. In other words, Rocket Lab is finding its stride with Electron at an unprecedented speed and may be able to complete its tenth successful orbital launch less than two years after the company first reached orbit (January 2018). June 29th’s launch is just the latest in a string of impressive successes for Rocket Lab and the company doesn’t appear to be slowing down any time soon.



Electron Flight 7: “Make It Rain”

  • A tongue-in-cheek reference to the stereotype that it rains constantly in Seattle, home of launch contractor Spaceflight Industries, Electron Flight 7 was a commercial rideshare mission that included six publicly manifested satellites and at least one classified payload.
    • Altogether, the payload mass was reported by Rocket Lab to be roughly 80 kg (175 lb). Aside from marking the orbital debut of Australia’s Melbourne Space Program, Flight 7’s main passenger – manifested via SpaceX – was BlackSky’s ~56 kg (125 lb), dishwasher-sized Global 3 satellite, the third of its kind to reach orbit.
    • BlackSky’s ultimate goal is to build a full constellation of at least 60 Global satellites, each capable of delivering >1000 images with an impressive resolution of ~1m/pixel. The first four (including Global 3) were actually built by Spaceflight itself, but the 60-satellite constellation is to be produced at LeoStella’s recently-inaugurated Seattle factory and replaced every few years.
 

Attached above black, rectangular cubesat dispensers is BlackSky’s minifridge-sized Global 3 satellite (top), encapsulated inside Electron’s carbon fiber fairing soon after (left). Electron lifted off (right) on June 28th (June 29th local time) and was greeted by a spectacular sunset-lit view of its launch site, located on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula. (Rocket Lab)

  • It can be all but guaranteed that BlackSky (or LeoStella) will return to Rocket Lab for future Global satellite launch contracts, perhaps flying 2-3 spacecraft at a time to expedite constellation completion and lower the overall cost of getting it into orbit.
  • Carrying a price tag of roughly $6M, Electron is capable of placing 150 kg (330 lb) into a 500 km (310 mi) sun-synchronous orbit (SSO). 3 Global satellites would likely push Electron to its limits, while 2 would leave plenty of space for additional copassenger spacecraft and thus opportunities to lower the overall cost to BlackSky.
  • Some 50 minutes after lifting off from New Zealand, Electron’s third stage – a “kick stage” powered by a custom-built Curie engine – ignited and burned for about 45 seconds, circularizing its orbit. A few minutes later, all 6-7+ spacecraft were successfully deployed, leaving the kick stage to once again lower its orbit to facilitate a quick and controlled reentry, minimizing space debris.

Onto the next one

  • Pictured at the bottom of the gallery above, Rocket Lab – much like SpaceX – completed a full static fire test of Flight 8’s Electron upper stage, the last major test milestone standing in the way of Electron’s next launch. Located in Auckland, NZ, the upper stage will now be shipped around 300 mi (500 km) south to Rocket Lab’s Mahia Peninsula-based Launch Complex 1 (LC-1).
  • According to Rocket Lab’s website, Electron Flight 8 is scheduled no earlier than (NET) August 2019, although the company’s Flight 7 webcast host indicated that it could happen as early as July.
    • Either way, it appears that Rocket Lab is well on its way to achieving a bimonthly average launch cadence this year.
    • The company’s goal is to reach a monthly launch cadence by the end of the year, roughly halving its current 2019 average of ~50 days between launches.
  • Ultimately, Rocket Lab’s future continues to look brighter month by month. As the only commercial smallsat launch operator currently serving customers, the company is essentially early to the party and has the market cornered by simply being first. Every launch will provide experience and get the company closer to profitability and even greater launch cadences, perhaps as high as 2-3x per month by the end of 2020.
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– Eric

Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

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Tesla Cybercab gets a for sale date at last

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla Cybercab units finally got a definitive date for when they will be able to be purchased by consumers, ending speculation regarding whether the fully autonomous vehicle would be available in the near term.

During Tesla’s third-quarter 2026 earnings call on October 21, Vice President of Engineering Lars Moravy said the company is aiming to begin delivering its purpose-built Cybercab robotaxi to customers before year-end.

“We’re trying to get Cybercabs to customers by the end of this year, 2026,” Moravy said. He added that production is underway on the line at Gigafactory Texas, but “all of those are currently going to our own internal Robotaxi fleet.”

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Moravy explained that as operations scale, Tesla will “mainly deliver fully designed autonomous vehicles to our customers,” with the Cybercab as the first such vehicle. Initial customer deliveries will start small while the company gains experience with delivery logistics, ownership models, fleet management, and operating autonomous vehicles outside its direct control.

CEO Elon Musk reinforced the limited nature of private sales, describing the Cybercab primarily as a “transport-as-a-service” offering rather than a personal ownership vehicle like the Model 3, Model Y, or upcoming Roadster. “The vast majority of the Cybercab stuff will be Tesla-owned and transport-as-a-service,” Musk said.

The Cybercab is a two-seater vehicle developed by Tesla without a steering wheel or pedals. It relies completely on Tesla’s Full Self-Driving suite and has been in production since February. Early units have been put in Tesla’s Robotaxi service as of early September, when the company launched rides to the public. Tesla previously indicated it would aim to sell Cybercabs for about $30,000.

Unsupervised Full Self-Driving is expected to ship to consumer cars during Q2 2027, Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s Head of AI, indicated during the call. Early buyers or fleet operators may receive vehicles whose autonomous operation remains geographically restricted due to lagging regulatory agencies. There are some hurdles that remain ahead of Cybercab deliveries.

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Elon Musk

Tesla Q3 2026 Earnings results: in-line revenues, slight beat on EPS

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Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) reported its earnings for the third quarter of 2026, marking a reasonable performance on the various financial metrics. Tesla still plans to hold a call that will field investor questions at 5:30 p.m. ET, 4:30 p.m. CT.

Here’s where Earnings came in:

  • Total Revenues: $28.046 reported vs. $28.34B expected
  • Non-GAAP EPS: $0.48 reported vs. $0.45 expected
  • Operating Margin: 2.6 % reported vs. 2.5% expected
  • Operating Income: $718M reported vs. $721M expected
  • Free Cash Flow: $1.531B reported vs. ~-$4.51B expected

Major Takeaways

Full Self-Driving (Supervised)

“FSD (Supervised)⁴ attach rate continued to grow, reaching over 75% of new vehicle deliveries in North America – our most mature market – a nearly twenty percentage point sequential increase. We believe that FSD is driving demand in markets where it is available, and we continue to work with regulators to get it approved in other markets.”

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Tesla Semi

“We began volume production of Tesla Semi, our Class 8 heavy-duty truck. The top variant can go 500 miles at full 82,000 lbs gross combination weight while achieving an efficiency of 1.7 kWh/mile. That efficiency allows the Tesla Semi to use a third of the energy used by a comparable diesel truck to haul the same payload. In a transportation market where energy is one of the largest components of total cost per mile, this will provide a meaningful advantage to Tesla Semi operators.”

SI Compute

“We plan to reach 400 MW of SI training compute by the end of the year, supporting the development of both vehicle and humanoid robot autonomy software. Additionally, we continued construction for the Austin Fab, where we plan to start commissioning equipment in 2027.”

Robotaxi

“We began deployment of Cybercab into our Robotaxi fleet in Austin. We reached nearly two million cumulative unsupervised miles for our Robotaxi service as of the end of the quarter. Operating hours in Austin are now 6am to midnight, and we expect to reduce wait times via increased fleet supply and improvement of Robotaxi orchestration algorithms. Grok is available in Cybercab with access to Grok Bot and Connectors, which allows users to manage their inbox, calendars, files, chats and tasks – all hands free via voice command – making Cybercab a mode of transport, a productivity space and, with our entertainment options, a second living room.”

Interested in ordering a Tesla? Use my referral code for three free months of Full Self-Driving (Supervised) here.

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Investor's Corner

Tesla reports Q3 Earnings today: here’s what to expect

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Credit: TechOperator | X

Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) reports its earnings for Q3 today. Here’s what to expect, as the company will reveal its balance sheet after the market closes on Wednesday.

Tesla already reported deliveries just after Q3 ended, and it demolished Wall Street consensus estimates of roughly 462,000 vehicles. Tesla delivered 486,532 cars in the third quarter, which was a big beat, but was down 2.1 percent from the same quarter last year. Energy storage deployments were 13.7 GWh, up year-over-year.

Tesla showrooms picked clean ahead of Q3 end as demand looks strong

For the quarter, analysts have already compiled their predictions for what Tesla will report this afternoon:

  • Total Revenues: $28.34B
  • Non-GAAP EPS: $0.43
  • Operating Margin: 2.5%
  • Operating Income: $721M
  • Free Cash Flow: ~-$4.51B

Here are a few things we are looking forward to hearing about on the call:

Automotive Gross Margin and Overall Profitability

This was 16.3 percent in Q2, down from 19.2 percent in Q1, and was impacted by warranty charges and some fading regulatory credits. Consensus implies overall gross margin near 18 percent, but a miss here would potentially reinforce concerns about pricing pressure on its vehicles.

Pay attention to energy storage margins as well, especially since Tesla missed GWh expectations, although it was still a strong quarter.

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Robotaxi/Cybercab, Unsupervised FSD, and Optimus Progress

The Say questions from retail investors usually focus on these types of projects, and this quarter is no different. Scaling the Cybercab fleet beyond Austin amid the open NHTSA safety review, timeline for Unsupervised FSD in customer cars, Robotaxi unit economics, and Optimus cost per unit plus when it could start generating revenue, are all things to be looking for.

Any concrete timelines or regulatory path details will likely move the stock more than the near-term numbers. SpaceX merger speculation, which was detailed during SpaceX’s earnings call last night, may also surface, although the key details were shared last night.

Elon Musk just confirmed the Tesla and SpaceX merger step everyone was waiting for

Say Investor Questions

  1. How does the Cybercab fleet scale past Austin, and what’s the regulatory path outside Texas given NHTSA’s open safety review?
  2. When can we anticipate FSD unsupervised in customer cars?
  3. When will the CyberCab be available for customer purchase/ownership?
  4. What’s the unit economics per paid robotaxi mile, and how does it compare to the thirty-cent target?
  5. Tesla has acknowledged that HW3 vehicles cannot support unsupervised FSD. When will owners know whether they can upgrade their hardware for free, and when will Tesla provide a clear plan?

The full Earnings Call will be streamed this evening after market close around 5 p.m. this evening.

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