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Rocket Lab spacecraft sends NASA’s CAPSTONE mission to the Moon
Rocket Lab has successfully sent a small NASA spacecraft on its way to the Moon, acing the complex interplanetary launch on its first try.
The public aerospace company’s (mostly) standard two-stage Electron rocket lifted from its New Zealand-based LC-1 pad on June 28th and inserted NASA’s tiny 25-kilogram (~55 lb) “Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment” (CAPSTONE) spacecraft into a low Earth parking orbit without issue. As is fairly typical for most modern Electron launches, a small ‘kick stage’ was included for orbital operations and payload deployment, but CAPSTONE’s kick stage and destination were anything but typical.
Instead of slightly and briefly tweaking a run-of-the-mill low Earth orbit, CAPSTONE’s kick stage was tasked with sending the spacecraft (and itself) all the way from LEO (~300 kilometers) to a lunar transfer orbit with an apoapsis 1.2 million kilometers (~750,000 mi) from Earth.
To accomplish that feat, Electron’s extensively upgraded Lunar Photon kick stage would need to perform more than half a dozen major burns spread out over almost a week, and survive hostile conditions while maintaining total control throughout. Generally speaking, Rocket Lab offers three kick stage variants: a standard low-thrust, low-longevity stage for small orbital adjustments shortly after launch; an upgraded Photon that can either serve as a long-lived satellite or kick stage; and an even more upgraded Photon with large propellant tanks and a more powerful ‘HyperCurie’ engine. With an impressive 3200+ meters per second of delta V, the latter variant could boost significant payloads into higher Earth orbits but is primarily designed for deep space missions – sending payloads beyond Earth orbit.
Rocket Lab wants to launch its own self-funded mission(s) to Venus, delivering one or several small atmospheric probes to help peel back the curtain on the chronically under-explored planet. It also won a 2021 contract to supply a pair of Mars-bound Photon spacecraft buses for NASA’s Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) in 2024, and has multiple orders for simpler Photons that will support slightly more ordinary missions back in Earth orbit.
Lunar Photon’s performance on CAPSTONE bodes extremely well for those ambitious future plans. Within hours of reaching orbit, Photon had begun the orbit-raising process. Over the course of five days, Photon performed six major burns, effectively taking larger and larger ‘steps’ towards the Moon. The spacecraft’s seventh and final burn boosted its apoapsis almost tenfold from ~70,000 to 1.2 million kilometers from Earth, officially placing CAPSTONE on a ballistic lunar trajectory (BLT). While highly efficient, CAPSTONE’s trajectory means it will have to wait until November 2022 to truly enter orbit around the Moon using its own small thrusters.
Once there, “CAPSTONE will help reduce risk for future spacecraft by validating innovative navigation technologies and verifying the dynamics of” lunar near-rectilinear halo orbits (NRHO). The story behind that strange lunar orbit – which will make exploring the Moon’s surface significantly less convenient – is far less glamorous, however. CAPSTONE is essentially a tiny precursor to NASA’s Artemis Program, which the agency claims will help “establish the first long-term presence on the Moon.”
In reality, NASA’s concrete plans currently include a series of short and temporary human landings in the 2020s. While the agency has contracted with SpaceX to develop a potentially revolutionary Starship Moon lander for a single uncrewed and crewed demonstration mission, NASA’s current plan involves using its own Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft as a sort of $4 billion lunar taxi to carry astronauts from Earth’s surface to a Starship lander waiting in lunar orbit. Starship will then carry those astronauts to the surface, spend about a week on the ground, launch them back into lunar orbit, and rendezvous with Orion, which will finally return them to Earth.
Orion’s service module delivers about half as much delta V as NASA’s 50-year-old Apollo Service Module, severely limiting its deep space utility and making safe crewed trips to and from low lunar orbits virtually impossible on its own. Instead of improving the spacecraft’s performance and flexibility by upgrading or replacing the European-built service module (ESM) over the last decade, NASA accepted that Orion would only ever be able to send astronauts to lunar orbits that would always be inconvenient for surface operations.
CAPSTONE’s ultimate purpose, then, is to make sure that spacecraft operate as expected in that compromise orbit – only necessary because Orion can’t reach the lower lunar orbits that are already thoroughly understood.
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Tesla gets a massive order for the Semi: 370 units and $100M
WattEV, a leading provider of electric freight operations and charging infrastructure in the United States, has announced one of the largest deployments of electric Class 8 trucks in California history: an order for 370 Tesla Semi vehicles.
Tesla just got a massive order for the Semi, and it is its largest by a long shot.
WattEV, a leading provider of electric freight operations and charging infrastructure in the United States, has announced one of the largest deployments of electric Class 8 trucks in California history: an order for 370 Tesla Semi vehicles.
Valued at approximately $100 million, this marks the state’s biggest single electric truck order to date and signals accelerating momentum for zero-emission long-haul freight.
Credit: Tesla
Deliveries are set to begin with the first 50 Tesla Semis in 2026, with the full fleet operational by the end of 2027. More than 300 of these trucks will support a joint program with the Port of Oakland, helping electrify drayage and regional freight routes. The initiative aligns with California’s ambitious goals to transition to carbon-neutral freight operations.
Salim Youssefzadeh, CEO of WattEV, said at the annual ACT Expo industry event that the Semi was the easiest choice:
“We selected the Tesla Semi based on cost, performance, and availability after issuing a public request for proposals…With the Tesla Semi now entering mass production and drawing strong reviews from fleet operators nationwide, WattEV’s vertically integrated model – combining vehicle deployment, megawatt-class charging infrastructure, and full-service leasing – offers a turn-key path for carriers without any capital risk.”
Critical to the rollout are new Megawatt Charging System (MCS) hubs in Oakland, Fresno, Stockton, and Sacramento. T
hese stations will deliver up to 300 miles of range in roughly 30 minutes—comparable to a traditional diesel fill-up. The Oakland depot, where WattEV recently broke ground, will serve as a cornerstone for northern and central California corridors, connecting ports to inland hubs and beyond.
This deployment builds on WattEV’s existing experience. The company has already logged millions of electric miles in Southern California, including early Tesla Semi deployments at the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles. By combining high-efficiency electric trucks with strategically placed fast-charging depots, WattEV aims to prove that battery-electric long-haul trucking can match—or exceed—diesel economics while slashing emissions.
The order arrives as Tesla ramps up Semi production at its Nevada factory, targeting higher volumes in 2026. Fleet operators nationwide have praised the Semi’s real-world performance, including strong torque, low operating costs, and advanced safety features. For California, the project supports air quality improvements around ports and highways while demonstrating scalable infrastructure for heavy-duty electrification.
Industry observers see this as a pivotal step toward broader adoption. With diesel trucks facing rising fuel and regulatory costs, turnkey electric solutions like WattEV’s could accelerate the shift. As the first 50 Semis hit the road in 2026, they will not only move freight but also help build the charging network that paves the way for even larger fleets.
This landmark order underscores Tesla’s growing footprint in commercial trucking and California’s leadership in sustainable transportation. For WattEV and its partners, it’s more than a vehicle purchase—it’s the foundation of a zero-emission freight network connecting Northern and Central California.
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Tesla begins factoring international designs in Full Self-Driving visualization
Tesla has begun incorporating region-specific vehicle designs into its Full Self-Driving (FSD) visualization system, marking a quiet but meaningful step toward global readiness. In software update 2026.14, released as part of the Spring Update, European Tesla owners are now seeing flat-fronted, cab-over European-style semi-trucks rendered accurately on their center displays.
Tesla has begun factoring international designs into its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) visualizations, marking a tremendous step in how the company plans to roll out its driver assistance tech in areas outside North America.
Tesla has begun incorporating region-specific vehicle designs into its Full Self-Driving (FSD) visualization system, marking a quiet but meaningful step toward global readiness. In software update 2026.14, released as part of the Spring Update, European Tesla owners are now seeing flat-fronted, cab-over European-style semi-trucks rendered accurately on their center displays.
The change, first spotted by Not a Tesla App, adds a second 3D model alongside the traditional North American long-nose semi-trucks that have been standard until now. Vehicles can detect and display both styles depending on what’s in front of them, and the feature requires no FSD subscription—every Tesla owner in Europe sees it immediately.
The European semi-truck visualization was actually added to the vehicle software back in October alongside roughly fifteen new visual assets.
Tesla held it in reserve, activating it only once fleet data confirmed the AI could recognize these trucks with high confidence. This mirrors recent rollouts for horses and golf carts, where Tesla similarly waited for reliable detection before enabling the graphics. The result is a more realistic on-screen representation tailored to local roads, where cab-over designs dominate heavy transport.
The significance of this update extends far beyond a simple graphics tweak, which is really what people need to be paying attention to. These small, incremental steps forward continue to show Tesla’s intent for global expansion.
For the first time, Tesla is explicitly factoring international vehicle designs into its visualization engine, signaling a deliberate push to make FSD feel native in international markets.
In Europe, where cab-over semis are commonplace, seeing an accurate rendering builds immediate driver trust—the critical bridge between the car’s AI perception and the human behind the wheel. Accurate visualizations reinforce that the system truly understands its surroundings, reducing range anxiety and skepticism that have slowed autonomous adoption abroad.
Regulators in the EU have repeatedly emphasized human-AI transparency; by customizing visuals to match local reality, Tesla strengthens its case for broader FSD approvals and smoother regulatory reviews.
This move also highlights Tesla’s data-driven engineering philosophy. Rather than rushing generic models worldwide, the company is leveraging its global fleet to learn regional nuances before flipping the switch.
It accelerates FSD’s international expansion while improving safety—misidentified vehicles could erode confidence or, in edge cases, affect decision-making. For a company aiming to deploy robotaxis and unsupervised FSD globally, tailoring visualizations to European, Asian, or other markets is no longer optional; it’s foundational.
Early European owners report the change feels more intuitive, making the car’s “mind” easier to read in daily traffic.
As Tesla continues enabling the remaining visual assets added last year, the pattern is clear: localization is now baked into the FSD roadmap. What began as a small graphics update in Europe could soon appear in other regions, turning the visualization display into a truly worldwide language of autonomy.
With this step, Tesla isn’t just showing trucks differently—it’s proving it’s serious about making FSD work everywhere, one culturally accurate pixel at a time.
Tesla has quietly rolled out one of its most practical software updates yet — and it could add real dollars to every used Model 3, Y, S, and X on the road.
Starting with the latest Tesla app version, owners now receive an official “Certification of Repaired HV Battery” whenever Tesla performs a major high-voltage battery repair or full replacement. The digital certificate appears directly in the vehicle’s Service History tab inside the Tesla app.
It’s permanent, verifiable, and downloadable as a PDF, so sellers can hand it over to buyers in seconds.
For years, the used EV market has suffered from one glaring problem: nobody could prove what happened to the battery.
Service invoices often vanish when a car changes hands. Third-party battery-health scans are expensive and inconsistent. Buyers, staring at a car with 80,000 miles and an 8-year warranty ticking down, would negotiate hard — or walk away entirely — because the battery is the single most expensive part of any Tesla.
That uncertainty routinely shaved thousands off resale values and slowed the entire secondhand market.
Now Tesla has eliminated the guesswork. The new certificate, which was spotted by Tesla App Updates, logs exactly what work was done, when, and by whom. It lives inside the car’s digital profile forever, exactly where any future owner will look. No more digging through old emails or hoping the previous owner kept paperwork.
— Tesla App Updates (iOS) (@Tesla_App_iOS) May 5, 2026
The outlet describes why the update is so important:
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Official Digital Certificates: The string “Certification of Repaired HV Battery” confirms that if your vehicle undergoes a major battery repair or replacement, Tesla will now issue an official, verifiable digital certificate documenting the work.
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Service History Integration: Strings such as viewRepairedBatteryCert and repairedBatteryCertId indicate that this document won’t be lost in an old email thread. It will be permanently anchored to your vehicle’s profile inside the app’s Service History tab.
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Easy Exporting: The service_history_repaired_battery_cert_download_fail error state indicates you will be able to download this certificate directly to your phone as a file (likely a PDF) to share with others.
Sellers who have already replaced packs under warranty are especially excited; they can now prove the vehicle received a fresh Tesla battery without any gray-area questions.
The timing couldn’t be better. As more Teslas roll off 8-year/100,000- or 120,000-mile battery warranties, the used market is exploding. Lenders, insurers, and even auction houses have quietly asked for better battery documentation for years. Tesla’s certificate hands it to them on a silver platter.
For current owners, the feature adds peace of mind and protects long-term value. For buyers, it removes the single biggest risk in any used EV purchase. And for Tesla itself, it quietly strengthens the entire ownership ecosystem — making vehicles more liquid, more desirable, and more valuable over time.
In an industry obsessed with range numbers and 0-60 times, Tesla just proved that sometimes the biggest innovation is a simple line in the Service History tab. One small certificate, one giant step for used-EV confidence.
Tesla gets a massive order for the Semi: 370 units and $100M
Tesla begins factoring international designs in Full Self-Driving visualization
