News
SpaceX scrubs Falcon 9’s seventh-flight debut for more “mission assurance”
Update: SpaceX has scrubbed Falcon 9’s seventh-flight debut and the 14th Starlink launch this year to allow more time for “data reviews” and “additional mission assurance” and is now scheduled to launch Starlink-15 no earlier than (NET) 9:34 pm EST (02:34 UTC) Monday, November 23rd.
In a tweet shortly after the decision was made, SpaceX said that both the Falcon 9 rocket and Starlink payload were still healthy, adding a bit of mystery to the decision. On SpaceX’s official mission control audio stream, the Starlink-15 launch director (LD) – most likely Ricky Lim – announced the scrub around T-35 minutes, effectively the deadline for the start of Falcon 9 propellant loading. For whatever reason, SpaceX was not confident enough to commit to launch and LD stated that the scrub had been called to allow for “additional mission assurance” – the second time in recent memory that the company has used that particular industry euphemism.
Regardless of the reason, the first seventh flight (sixth reuse) of a Falcon 9 booster is certainly cause enough for caution, as it means that SpaceX is very literally pushing the envelope of orbital-class rocket reusability. Thus far, the company’s record of success during similar first-flight reuse milestones remains flawless – the preservation of which will likely go far to salve the anxieties of more conservative customers like NASA and the US military.
SpaceX says that Starlink-15’s November 23rd backup date may not hold per the threat of bad weather at Falcon 9 B1049’s Atlantic Ocean landing zone several hundred miles downrange. Stay tuned for updates as the company tracks towards what could be its first four-launch month ever.
SpaceX has static fired a record-breaking Falcon 9 booster and says it’s ready to launch its 14th Starlink mission this year just a day and a half after sailing past the company’s previous annual launch record.
Set in 2018, SpaceX’s previous annual launch record stood at 21 missions – 20 Falcon 9s and one Falcon Heavy. Now, a little over halfway through November, SpaceX has easily bested itself, launching for the 22nd time to deliver oceanographic satellite Sentinel 6A to a polar orbit on November 21st.
Back on the East Coast, SpaceX fired up six-flight Falcon 9 booster B1049 just five hours after Sentinel 6A’s successful launch, setting the rocket up for its seventh flight – a first for SpaceX and reusable rocketry – in support of Starlink v1.0 Flight 15 (Starlink-15).
Following an apparent November 20th static fire abort and a brief 24-hour delay, B1049 is now scheduled to lift off no earlier than 9:56 pm EST (02:56 UTC), November 22nd with some 16 metric tons (~35,000 lb) of Starlink communications satellites in tow. Designed to ultimately blanket the Earth in affordable high-quality broadband internet, SpaceX has already begun to roll out a public beta test to what looks like one or several thousand users across the northern US and southern Canada.
Speaking on a November 21st Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) thread, one of the SpaceX Starlink engineers participating revealed that the company is targeting a “wider beta” rollout as early as late-January 2021. Despite having some 820 functioning Starlink satellites in orbit, approximately a third were recently launched and are still raising their orbits or waiting in phasing orbits to properly orient themselves and maximize Starlink internet coverage.
While it’s effectively impossible to predict which orbital ‘plane’ a given batch of Starlink satellites is targeting, it’s likely that the ~300 spacecraft still making their way to operational orbits will complete their journeys within the next 60 days. In general, it takes roughly 2-3 months from any given Starlink launch for all ~60 satellites to reach their operational 550 km (~340 mi) orbits, a process usually performed in batches of 22 – each essentially representing one evenly-space ring of internet coverage a few hundred miles wide.
Despite SpaceX tracking towards a truly record-breaking year of ~25+ launches, CEO Elon Musk revealed that the company is pushing to achieve as many as 48 launches in 2021, more than half of which would likely be Starlink missions.
Tune in below to catch SpaceX’s Sunday Starlink launch live later tonight.
Investor's Corner
Elon Musk drops a Thanksgiving hint about Starship’s biggest test yet
Elon Musk says Starship Flight 15 will try to catch the ship itself, a first.
Elon Musk says SpaceX’s next Starship flight will try something nobody has done before, by catching the ship itself. Speaking to roughly 2,000 people at the X Takeover event at Giga Texas on Saturday, Musk said Flight 15 is about four to six weeks away and “probably launches a little bit before Thanksgiving, is my guess.”
That is a slip from earlier reporting, which had pointed to a launch as early as October 19. Musk explained why the date keeps moving. “We’re making a bunch of improvements to the rocket between every flight,” he said, adding that there are often hundreds, sometimes thousands, of small changes. This time the list is short, “but some of them take a fair bit of work and we’ve got to go inside the tank to make some of these changes.”
“We’re going to try to catch the ship, which is a super big deal,” Musk said. “If we do so, that’ll be the first time that there’s been full recovery of an orbital class rocket.” SpaceX has already caught the Super Heavy booster with the tower’s mechanical arms, and has talked about catching the ship since late 2025, but the upper stage has never been caught.
Musk also laid out what comes after. “The next big milestone would be to refly both the booster and the ship,” he said, describing a Flight 16 where “all parts of an orbital rocket are reflown.”
The reason SpaceX wants this comes down to cost and cadence. Every Starship ship so far has ended its flight in the ocean, and SpaceX expects most of those water landings to end in fireballs. A ship that returns to Starbase intact can be inspected and flown again. SpaceX’s IPO filing, says Starship V3 is designed to deliver 100 metric tons to orbit in a fully reusable configuration, that SpaceX aims to cut the cost to reach orbit by 99% or more versus the historical average, and that tower catches should allow “multiple launches per day.”
The payoff goes beyond cheaper launches. The next generation Starlink V3 satellites are too large for Falcon 9 and can only fly on Starship, which can carry up to 60 per flight. Flight 14 on September 28 deployed the first 26 of them after Starship reached orbit despite an early engine shutdown, as Teslarati reported. Musk blamed engine computer software, and said the heat shield “was extremely robust,” which he claimed in August had solved Starship’s biggest challenge.
NASA’s Moon plans depend on the same capability. NASA’s inspector general has described a lander mission that needs a propellant depot in low Earth orbit and more than 10 tanker flights, with SpaceX targeting one tanker launch every six days. That schedule only works if ships and boosters come back fast and fly again. Also, ship to ship propellant transfer has not been attempted yet.
One interesting hurdle yet to be explored is bringing the ship back to the launch site, with reentry over land, which will undoubtedly come with a lot of aviation safety reviews.
Lifestyle
Tesla’s mirrorless Cybercab will give riders a visibility upgrade
Tesla engineer confirms Cybercab update letting riders pull up rear and repeater cameras on demand.
Tesla is working on a Cybercab update that would let passengers pull up the vehicle’s rear and side cameras on demand, and the request came straight from a rider.
The exchange played out on X late Friday. Cybercab rider Dan Burkland shared photos of the two-seater’s cabin screen after an evening ride, praised the UI team’s work, and left one request: let riders open the rear and repeater cameras whenever they want, “especially for peace of mind.” Tesla UI software engineer Evan (@CarCoder) answered with two words: “In development.”
The Tesla UI team absolutely crushed it with the infotainment software. Nicely done @CarCoder!
One feature request: Allow folks to pull up the rear & repeater cameras on demand. This would be great especially for peace of mind. https://t.co/mNAOSLx6pE
— Dan Burkland (@DBurkland) October 10, 2026
The idea fits a pattern Teslarati has tracked since public rides began. Days after paid Cybercab service opened in Austin, Tesla sent riders a survey that asked them to rate the touchscreen, the app and the cabin, and to pick the features they wanted most. We reported on that survey in September, and a camera view is the kind of small software change Tesla can push quickly if riders keep asking.
It also speaks to something unique about the vehicle. With no steering wheel, no pedals and no driver, passengers have no mirror to check and no way to see behind them. The hardware is clearly built for camera awareness, from the repeater cameras to the rear camera. Letting a passenger look through those same cameras would give a nervous first time rider a way to confirm what is around the car.
The timing matters because the fleet is growing fast. Tesla’s Robotaxi account said on Saturday that more than 300 Cybercabs are now serving Austin, an eightfold increase in 30 days, and Tesla AI chief Ashok Elluswamy named Dallas as the next city. More cars and more cities mean more people riding in a driverless vehicle for the first time, which is exactly when small trust features carry weight.
For now, the feature is confirmed only as in development. If Tesla follows its usual pattern with Cybercab software, riders could see it appear in a point release without any announcement, and Teslarati will watch for it.
News
Tesla’s Cybercab fleet jumped 8x in a month, with Dallas up next
Tesla confirms its first official Cybercab fleet number as Austin scales fast and Dallas looms.
Tesla says more than 300 Cybercabs are now serving Austin, the first time the company has put an official number on its active Cybercab fleet. The figure came from the Robotaxi account on X on Saturday, which wrote that one month after launch the service had “scaled to 300+ Cybercabs serving Austin – an 8x increase in 30 days.”
Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s head of AI software, quoted the post with a line that carried the bigger news. “Two years since the 10/10 Cybercab WeRobot event, the cabs are everywhere in Austin now. Dallas soon,” he wrote. It is the first time Tesla has named the next city for public Cybercab rides.
One month after launch, we’ve scaled to 300+ Cybercabs serving Austin – an 8x increase in 30 days https://t.co/EagJy2JAsm
— Robotaxi (@robotaxi) October 10, 2026
Tesla opened Cybercab rides to the public in Austin on September 4, as Teslarati reported, a day after an invite only launch event. The ramp since then has been steep. Our September 28 report had the fleet at well over 100 units after availability jumped from 58 to 125 in a single week. On Thursday, Tesla added 150 Cybercabs to the Texas automated vehicle registry, lifting its registered count to 319 from 169. The first seven appeared on the registry on August 31.
RobotaxiTracker, a community site that counts vehicles from sightings and state records, listed 275 vehicles in unsupervised service in Austin on Saturday, 105 of them Cybercabs, which is well below Tesla’s figure. Tracker counts can lag official numbers, though Sawyer Merritt noted that Cybercab wait times in Austin stayed short on Saturday evening even with more than 2,000 fans in town for X Takeover.
Regulators are watching the rollout. NHTSA opened an audit query into Tesla’s certification that the Cybercab meets federal safety standards, and sworn answers are due October 30. Tesla reports third quarter earnings on October 21, which gives the company a natural venue to define its fleet numbers and put a date on Dallas.
Elon Musk drops a Thanksgiving hint about Starship’s biggest test yet
Tesla’s mirrorless Cybercab will give riders a visibility upgrade
Tesla’s Cybercab fleet jumped 8x in a month, with Dallas up next
The Pentagon taps Elon Musk to design the battlefield of the future
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