News
Rocket Lab’s NASA Moon launch to kick off new era of ultra-cheap deep space exploration
Rocket Lab will soon take its tiny Electron rocket further than any similarly-sized vehicle before it, sending a NASA satellite to the Moon and potentially kicking off a new era of unprecedentedly cheap space exploration.
On February 14th, the world-leading small satellite launch company announced – alongside NASA – that the space agency had awarded it a $9.95 million launch contract worth $9.95 million to send the $13.7 million Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) CubeSat to lunar orbit. In other words, NASA has contracted a full-up scientific mission to the Moon for less than $25M total – almost unfathomably cheap compared to all interplanetary exploration performed in the last half-century.
In the same way we opened access to LEO for smallsats, we're excited to become the dedicated ride to the Moon & beyond for smallsats.— Rocket Lab (@RocketLab) February 14, 2020
The mission announcement comes just four months after Rocket Lab announced at the International Astronautical Congress in Washington D.C., that it would utilize its small two-stage rocket, Electron, and proprietary satellite bus platform, Photon, to support lunar orbit missions. It also occurs just two months after the official opening of Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 2 located in Wallops, Virginia – a dedicated facility to specifically service NASA and the US government launch contracts.
According to Ana Rivera, LSP program integration manager for CAPSTONE, the launch will be Rocket Lab’s “inaugural NASA launch from their new launch site at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Virginia” and is expected to occur in the early part of 2021.
NASA’s CAPSTONE is a tiny spacecraft weighing around 55 lb (25 kg) – small enough for an equally tiny rocket to send it on an improbable journey. Rocket Lab’s two-stage Electron rocket will begin by launching CAPSTONE to LEO, where NASA says Photon – a Rocket Lab-built kick stage and satellite bus – will send CAPSTONE on its way to the Moon. CAPSTONE will then use its own propulsion system to enter a “Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit” (NRHO) around the Moon.
It is important to note that, under its own propulsion, CAPSTONE is expected to take nearly three months to reach its intended orbit around the moon. However, the CAPSTONE mission is an imperative one that could lead to better understandings about the journey to the moon and “can reduce navigation uncertainties ahead of our future missions using the same lunar orbit” according to Marshall Smith, director of human lunar exploration programs at NASA Headquarters.
Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck stated that Rocket Lab is “able to provide NASA with complete control over every aspect of launch and mission design for CAPSTONE, something typically only available to much larger spacecraft on larger launch vehicles. In the same way (Rocket Lab) opened access to low Earth orbit for small satellites, we’re proud to be bringing the Moon within reach to enable research and exploration.”
Photon – the all-in-one experience
Photon is a satellite bus platform designed with interplanetary delivery and deep space communication in mind. The small, but mighty, launch-to-orbit bus features downlink communication capability, radiation-tolerant avionics, and higher power generation. Photon is also able to precisely deploy multiple small payloads into various orbits enabling multiple mission launches supported by Rocket Lab’s proprietary Curie propulsion system.
In the era of NASA’s Artemis initiative to return astronauts to the moon, Beck explains that “small satellites will play a crucial role in science and exploration, as well as providing communications and navigation infrastructure to support returning humans to the Moon.” In this sense, small satellites will serve as pathfinders and build the necessary infrastructure prior to the arrival of more robust hardware such as NASA’s lunar spaceship Gateway and eventually human space travelers.
To date, Rocket Lab has successfully launched 11 missions and 48 satellites to low-Earth orbit. Eventually, Rocket Lab intends to use a recoverable and reusable Electron to loft Photon on interplanetary missions to lunar fly-by orbits, Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO), and low-Lunar Orbit by the end of 2020. The two most recent missions – Running Out Of Fingers and Birds of a Feather – featured an upgraded first-stage of Electron that survived re-entry in one piece. This will hopefully lead to a fully recoverable first-stage rivaling the current recovery efforts of SpaceX with its first stage of the Falcon 9 boosters.
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Elon Musk
How to use Grok Bot to block spam calls and texts
Musk told users to ask Grok Bot to scrub their phone numbers from spam lists.
Elon Musk has a new use case for Grok Bot, and it is the spam call. On Thursday he replied to an X user named Arash with a short instruction: “Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!” Arash had said he got tired of the calls, had an AI bot find his number on listing sites and file removal requests, and packaged the process as a free skill for others.
The skill is called Spam-Call Scrubber, which is described to find a phone number on people search sites and data brokers, submits the opt outs, completes the confirmation emails those sites send back, and rechecks on a schedule the user picks. Using it requires the Grok Bot app. The pitch is time saved, since most broker opt outs sit behind separate forms on separate sites.
Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 15, 2026
Musk said Grok Bot now gives each bot its own email address, and that it can detect scam emails. On Thursday he also said SpaceX would make users whole if the bot botches a purchase or leaks a card, then told users to shop away from Amazon after the retailer blocked the agent, as Teslarati reported. The terms of service we reviewed at the time put responsibility for what an agent does on the user.
For Tesla owners, Grok Bot is not just a phone app. Tesla brought Grok Bot into its vehicles on September 22, and we argued earlier this week that the Cybercab’s real advantage may be the errands it runs during a ride. Every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y Robotaxi fleet has it enabled. The more routine tasks like this one become, the more a rider has reason to hand over something personal in the back seat.
The new Spam-Call Scrubber skill can be downloaded for free and works on sites that honor removal requests, while noting that listings can reappear, and illegal robocallers do not check any registry. Whether Spam-Call Scrubber cuts anyone’s call volume is something the first wave of users will find out, and Musk’s endorsement guarantees that wave is coming.
Investor's Corner
Tesla’s flying Roadster just revealed something bigger than the car
Analysts say the Roadster demo puts a Tesla and SpaceX merger back on the table.
The Roadster unveiling near Waco ended Thursday night, and by Friday morning much of the investor reaction had less to do with the car than with who owns the rocket technology inside it.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said the event “puts the Tesla/SpaceX relationship on the table in a tangible way,” pointing to the propulsion, pressure vessel and control hardware sitting on a Tesla product. Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management called the demo “a ridiculous display of engineering” with “no commercial value” beyond embarrassing traditional automakers, though he said it showed Musk wants the two companies together.
The more specific forecast came a day earlier from Barclays. Analyst Dan Levy told clients a deal could be announced before Tesla’s annual meeting, which must happen by December 6, and that an announcement in late October or early November could make shareholder approval harder. Barclays expects SpaceX to be the buyer in an all stock deal, with Tesla holders receiving SpaceX shares at a premium, based on market values of roughly $2.1 trillion for SpaceX and $1.5 trillion for Tesla. If nothing lands around the meeting, the bank still sees an announcement within 6 to 12 months.
The Roadster demo just added more weight to merger speculations. Tesla’s demo used cold gas thrusters and pressure tanks of the kind SpaceX uses on Falcon 9, and Musk described the car as a collaboration between Tesla and SpaceX engineers, as we mentioned in our breakdown of the three Roadster configurations.
Musk has not publicly addressed a deal since the event, as far as we have seen. His most direct answer remains the one he gave at the All In Summit, when he said that with so much collaboration, “who can imagine what action one might take” without ruling anything out. Ives has held to a 2027 timeline since his March note, and Musk pushed back on the China piece of the speculation when ARK floated a year end announcement in August.
The next test is Tesla’s third quarter earnings call on October 21. However, we recall in July that Musk told analysts, “we can’t talk about combining companies and that kind of thing on an earnings call,” so a clear answer wouldn’t be expected.
News
How Tesla’s Roadster fan system and thrusters are built to dominate the corners
Tesla’s Roadster uses fans, active wings and cold gas thrusters to create grip at any speed.
Tesla’s new Roadster is best known for flipping through the air in Texas, but the technology that matters most for a race track is the stuff that keeps it on the ground. Tesla’s Roadster page describes a multi-mode fan and ground sealing system that acts as a downforce generator, pulling air out from beneath the car. Tesla says it provides enough suction to hold the vehicle upside down, even when stationary.
That is the key difference from the wings and diffusers on a normal supercar. Conventional aero only makes downforce when the car is moving, and it grows with speed, so a car has the least grip in the slow corners and under hard braking. A fan system makes downforce at any speed. Tesla’s patent, which we covered last year, describes fans and deployable skirts that create sealed or partially sealed regions under the car, with the fans extracting air to lower the pressure and increase grip and stability.
Still processing this … the most unreal thing I’ve seen. https://t.co/HtEuvnkZjY
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 16, 2026
Tesla pairs that with active wings, a next generation steer by wire system and a Track Mode that lowers the car and changes the suspension, with high downforce and low drag settings for the circuit. To keep weight down, Tesla points to magnesium, titanium and carbon fiber, manual controls and a fixed seat position, which it says lets the car respond to driver inputs almost instantly.
Tesla Roadster: Three configs, one can fly, 0-60 in 0.8 seconds
The cold gas thrusters are the other half. On the Thrust version they sit at the rear and Tesla says they take the car from 0 to 60 mph in under 0.9 seconds, while the Rocket version adds perimeter thrusters for forward, upward and lateral rotational movement. Tesla says the all electric actuators make micro adjustments within a fraction of a second.
Roadster transforms in Track Mode
These aero features aren’t just for looks: they provide the best passive downforce package of any road car (approaching F1 levels!) with wing actuation driven by the @Tesla_Optimus actuator system https://t.co/AqrC4qUga9
— Tesla (@Tesla) October 16, 2026
Musk has been talking about records for years. In June 2019 he said, “We’re going to do things with the new Roadster that are kind of unfair to other cars.” That September, when a follower asked whether the Roadster would beat the Nürburgring production car record, he replied with one word, “Absolutely,” as we reported at the time. In February 2024 he said Tesla had “radically increased the design goals” for the car and that its sub one second 0 to 60 time would be “the least interesting part.”
There are caveats. Tesla has not published a lap time or a verified cornering figure, so the record talk is still a promise rather than a result. Tesla also says the car is not approved for public road use, and the thruster features are limited to the Rocket trim, which is invite only. Fan cars have also been banned or withdrawn before, and getting a sealed underbody to work on a rough public road is a harder problem than on a smooth track. The first real test will be an official lap at a circuit.
How to use Grok Bot to block spam calls and texts
Tesla’s flying Roadster just revealed something bigger than the car
How Tesla’s Roadster fan system and thrusters are built to dominate the corners
SpaceX reveals how its 1 Million AI satellite network will work and prevent space collisions
Elon Musk’s Boring Company lands a new Middle East deal, and Nashville is about to get faster
