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Rocket Lab to build reusable Neutron rocket factory and launch pad in Virginia
Rocket Lab has selected Virginian island to host the first launch site, factory, and landing pad for its next-generation Neutron rocket.
In a move reminiscent of SpaceX’s Starbase Starship factory and launch sites, Rocket Lab plans to build and launch its Neutron rocket in more or less adjacent facilities within NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility and Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. Rocket Lab estimates that this new facility will bring over 250 jobs to the area, including engineers, technicians, and support staff that will be working at the complex.
The 250,000-square-foot facility will support Neutron production, assembly, and integration within spitting distance of its first orbital launch site. The site will be Rocket Lab’s third main rocket development and production facility, joining a small factory and headquarters in Huntington Beach, California, and a more substantial Auckland, New Zealand factory. Rocket Lab’s Auckland factory is dedicated to manufacturing the company’s smaller Electron rocket, which (for now) is exclusively launched out of pads located on the north island’s Māhia Peninsula. Neutron’s Virginia manufacturing complex will be in close proximity to Rocket Lab’s lone American Electron launch pad (LC-2), which is also located at Wallops.
However, Electron is merely Rocket Lab’s first step into orbital rocketry Neutron, Rocket Lab’s next rocket, will be capable of launching at least 8 tons (~17,600 lb) into low Earth orbit (LEO). Borrowing heavily from experience with Electron, Neutron will be the first medium-lift rocket made primarily of carbon fiber composites.
Unlike Electron, though, Neutron is being designed from the ground up for partial reusability. Powered by its reusable Archimedes engines, Rocket Lab believes the Neutron launch vehicle will be ideal for satellite constellation launches but also be sized right to support a range of other missions, including deep space exploration and, potentially, human spaceflight. In practice, even though Neutron’s design is substantially different, the rocket is effectively a half-scale Falcon 9 with some noteworthy modifications. Both are two-stage rockets with expendable upper stages and reusable boosters and fairings. With fairing and booster recovery, Falcon 9 is able to launch about 16 tons (~35,000 lb) to LEO – twice Neutron’s 8 tons.
Neutron stands at approximately 131 feet tall (39.9 meters) and between 5 and 7 meters (16-23 ft) wide – more than twice the height and 4-6 times the width of Electron. Because of its size and performance, Rocket Lab expects Neutron to be a strong competitor with other large launch providers, including SpaceX. As far as cost per launch, Beck has declined to provide an estimate beyond stating that “ it would be a pointless exercise [if Rocket Lab] didn’t think that it would be very cost-competitive with anything that’s currently in the market or being proposed.” Currently, the company’s Electron rocket is sold for about $7-8 million per launch. SpaceX, their largest prospective competitor, has sold Falcon 9s for as little as $50 million, while executives have indicated that the rocket costs the company just $28 million for a launch with a reused booster and fairing.
Rocket Lab has received strong support from the Commonwealth of Virginia and the Virginia Economic Development Partnership is working alongside Accomack County, the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority (Virginia Space), and the General Assembly’s Major Employment and Investment (MEI) Project Approval Commission to help expedite the process. That support is one of the primary reasons Rocket Lab selected Virginia of all places to build its first Neutron hub. According to Rocket Lab, as part of the Commonwealth’s proposal, “$30 million has been set aside for infrastructure and operational systems improvements to the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport where the Neutron launch site will be located, along with $15 million from the MEI Project Approval Commission in site improvements and building construction in support of Neutron.”
Shaun D’Mello, the company’s Vice President stated, “We’ve enjoyed a solid partnership with Virginia for years that will no doubt be strengthened with Neutron. We have a shared mission to develop Rocket Lab’s presence at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport into a strategic national asset that provides responsive, reliable, reusable space launch through Neutron and Electron, and breaking ground on the site soon is a significant and impelling step toward that future.”
A public target has not been set for the completion of the factory and launch site but Rocket Lab states that they “expect to begin construction promptly.” Neutron, scheduled to launch as earlier as 2024, has already generated some degree of demand, and the United States Space Force recently decided to invest $24 million in its development.
Rocket Lab revealed the news of Neutron’s first factory and launch site comes on the same day as the first orbital launch from Launch Complex 1’s new Pad B. To learn more about Pad B and Rocket Lab’s existing Electron launch facilities, click here.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s X will start using a Tesla-like software update strategy
The initiative seems designed to accelerate updates to the social media platform, while maintaining maximum transparency.
Elon Musk’s social media platform X will adopt a Tesla-esque approach to software updates for its algorithm.
The initiative seems designed to accelerate updates to the social media platform, while maintaining maximum transparency.
X’s updates to its updates
As per Musk in a post on X, the social media company will be making a new algorithm to determine what organic and advertising posts are recommended to users. These updates would then be repeated every four weeks.
“We will make the new 𝕏 algorithm, including all code used to determine what organic and advertising posts are recommended to users, open source in 7 days. This will be repeated every 4 weeks, with comprehensive developer notes, to help you understand what changed,” Musk wrote in his post.
The initiative somewhat mirrors Tesla’s over-the-air update model, where vehicle software is regularly refined and pushed to users with detailed release notes. This should allow users to better understand the details of X’s every update and foster a healthy feedback loop for the social media platform.
xAI and X
X, formerly Twitter, has been acquired by Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI last year. Since then, xAI has seen a rapid rise in valuation. Following the company’s the company’s upsized $20 billion Series E funding round, estimates now suggest that xAI is worth tens about $230 to $235 billion. That’s several times larger than Tesla when Elon Musk received his controversial 2018 CEO Performance Award.
As per xAI, the Series E funding round attracted a diverse group of investors, including Valor Equity Partners, Stepstone Group, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Qatar Investment Authority, MGX, and Baron Capital Group, among others. Strategic partners NVIDIA and Cisco Investments also continued support for building the world’s largest GPU clusters.
News
Tesla FSD Supervised wins MotorTrend’s Best Driver Assistance Award
The decision marks a notable reversal for the publication from prior years, with judges citing major real-world improvements that pushed Tesla’s latest FSD software ahead of every competing ADAS system.
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) system has been named the best driver-assistance technology on the market, earning top honors at the 2026 MotorTrend Best Tech Awards.
The decision marks a notable reversal for the publication from prior years, with judges citing major real-world improvements that pushed Tesla’s latest FSD software ahead of every competing ADAS system. And it wasn’t even close.
MotorTrend reverses course
MotorTrend awarded Tesla FSD (Supervised) its 2026 Best Tech Driver Assistance title after extensive testing of the latest v14 software. The publication acknowledged that it had previously criticized earlier versions of FSD for erratic behavior and near-miss incidents, ultimately favoring rivals such as GM’s Super Cruise in earlier evaluations.
According to MotorTrend, the newest iteration of FSD resolved many of those shortcomings. Testers said v14 showed far smoother behavior in complex urban scenarios, including unprotected left turns, traffic circles, emergency vehicles, and dense city streets. While the system still requires constant driver supervision, judges concluded that no other advanced driver-assistance system currently matches its breadth of capability.
Unlike rival systems that rely on combinations of cameras, radar, lidar, and mapped highways, Tesla’s FSD operates using a camera-only approach and is capable of driving on city streets, rural roads, and freeways. MotorTrend stated that pure utility, the ability to handle nearly all road types, ultimately separated FSD from competitors like Ford BlueCruise, GM Super Cruise, and BMW’s Highway Assistant.
High cost and high capability
MotorTrend also addressed FSD’s pricing, which remains significantly higher than rival systems. Tesla currently charges $8,000 for a one-time purchase or $99 per month for a subscription, compared with far lower upfront and subscription costs from other automakers. The publication noted that the premium is justified given FSD’s unmatched scope and continuous software evolution.
Safety remained a central focus of the evaluation. While testers reported collision-free operation over thousands of miles, they noted ongoing concerns around FSD’s configurable driving modes, including options that allow aggressive driving and speeds beyond posted limits. MotorTrend emphasized that, like all Level 2 systems, FSD still depends on a fully attentive human driver at all times.
Despite those caveats, the publication concluded that Tesla’s rapid software progress fundamentally reshaped the competitive landscape. For drivers seeking the most capable hands-on driver-assistance system available today, MotorTrend concluded Tesla FSD (Supervised) now stands alone at the top.
News
Elon Musk’s Grokipedia surges to 5.6M articles, almost 79% of English Wikipedia
The explosive growth marks a major milestone for the AI-powered online encyclopedia, which was launched by Elon Musk’s xAI just months ago.
Elon Musk’s Grokipedia has grown to an impressive 5,615,201 articles as of today, closing in on 79% of the English Wikipedia’s current total of 7,119,376 articles.
The explosive growth marks a major milestone for the AI-powered online encyclopedia, which was launched by Elon Musk’s xAI just months ago. Needless to say, it would only be a matter of time before Grokipedia exceeds English Wikipedia in sheer volume.
Grokipedia’s rapid growth
xAI’s vision for Grokipedia emphasizes neutrality, while Grok’s reasoning capabilities allow for fast drafting and fact-checking. When Elon Musk announced the initiative in late September 2025, he noted that Grokipedia would be an improvement to Wikipedia because it would be designed to avoid bias.
At the time, Musk noted that Grokipedia “is a necessary step towards the xAI goal of understanding the Universe.”
Grokipedia was launched in late October, and while xAI was careful to list it only as Version 0.1 at the time, the online encyclopedia immediately earned praise. Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger highlighted the project’s innovative approach, noting how it leverages AI to fill knowledge gaps and enable rapid updates. Netizens also observed how Grokipedia tends to present articles in a more objective manner compared to Wikipedia, which is edited by humans.
Elon Musk’s ambitious plans
With 5,615,201 total articles, Grokipedia has now grown to almost 79% of English Wikipedia’s article base. This is incredibly quick, though Grokipedia remains text-only for now. xAI, for its part, has now updated the online encyclopedia’s iteration to v0.2.
Elon Musk has shared bold ideas for Grokipedia, including sending a record of the entire knowledge base to space as part of xAI’s mission to preserve and expand human understanding. At some point, Musk stated that Grokipedia will be renamed to Encyclopedia Galactica, and it will be sent to the cosmos.
“When Grokipedia is good enough (long way to go), we will change the name to Encyclopedia Galactica. It will be an open source distillation of all knowledge, including audio, images and video. Join xAI to help build the sci-fi version of the Library of Alexandria!” Musk wrote, adding in a later post that “Copies will be etched in stone and sent to the Moon, Mars and beyond. This time, it will not be lost.”
Elon Musk’s X will start using a Tesla-like software update strategy
Tesla FSD Supervised wins MotorTrend’s Best Driver Assistance Award
