Connect with us

News

SpaceX launches 200th Falcon 9 rocket

Falcon 9 lifts off for the 200th time. (SpaceX)

Published

on

SpaceX has launched its Falcon 9 rocket for the 200th time.

Measuring 70 meters (230 ft) tall and 3.7 meters (12 ft) wide, the 200th Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from SpaceX’s Vandenberg Space Force Base SLC-4E pad on January 31st, 2023. Beyond the statistical milestone, the Starlink 2-6 mission was a mostly ordinary launch of SpaceX’s own internet satellites.

However, SpaceX removed a pair of 310-kilogram (~680 lb) Starlink V1.5 satellites to make room for an ION orbital transfer vehicle (space tug) built by Italian space logistics company D-Orbit. ION SCV009 was fitted with four hosted payloads [PDF]: a solar sail designed to speed up satellite deorbiting, a prototype of a satellite deployment mechanism, a computer developed by Swiss students, and a memorial payload carrying cremated human remains.

About an hour after liftoff, Falcon 9 deployed ION SCV009. A batch of 49 Starlink satellites followed twenty minutes later, successfully completing Falcon 9’s 200th launch.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket debuted in June 2010, twelve and a half years ago. Considering that the company’s only prior experience was with a highly unreliable rocket about a magnitude smaller, Falcon 9 got off to an impressive start, suffering just one partial failure in its first five years of operation. A two-year period of pain followed when Falcon 9 suffered its one and only in-flight failure in June 2015 and a catastrophic explosion on the ground in September 2016.

Advertisement

However, since SpaceX returned its workhorse rocket to flight in January 2017, it hasn’t failed once. Starlink 2-6 was Falcon 9’s 177th consecutively successful launch – the most of any rocket in history. Against all odds, Falcon 9 has achieved that unprecedented reliability while simultaneously being the only partially-reusable orbital-class rocket in operation. Starlink 2-6 also marked SpaceX’s 93rd consecutively successful Falcon booster landing and 138th launch of a reused Falcon booster. Few rockets in history can claim to have launched 93 times without failure.

Fewer still have launched 200 times total or 199 times successfully. Depending on how one classifies similar variants, perhaps just half a dozen of the 100+ orbital rockets developed in the history of spaceflight have launched 200 times or more. It’s unlikely that SpaceX’s Falcon rocket family will ever come close to variants of certain Soviet-era rockets, one of which has flown almost 800 times, but it’s likely also true that it will be decades before another modern rocket comes close to matching Falcon.

SpaceX executives have made it clear that the company eventually wants to replace its partially-reusable Falcon rockets with Starship, a more capable fully-reusable rocket still in development, but Falcon is far from done. Falcon 9 took ten and a half years to complete its first 100 launches. The next 100 took a little over two years. SpaceX’s launch cadence continues to accelerate in the meantime. If the company gets its way, Falcon 9 could launch for the 300th time in the first half of 2024.

For the second time in a row, Starlink 2-6 was SpaceX’s seventh launch in one month. February could be even busier. SpaceX is set to kick off the second month of the year with another Starlink launch as early as the 2nd.

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.

Elon Musk

Tesla analysts believe Musk and Trump feud will pass

Tesla CEO Elon Musk and U.S. President Donald Trump’s feud shall pass, several bulls say.

Published

on

The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
President Donald J. Trump purchases a Tesla on the South Lawn, Tuesday, March 11, 2025. (Official White House Photo by Molly Riley)

Tesla analysts are breaking down the current feud between CEO Elon Musk and U.S. President Donald Trump, as the two continue to disagree on the “Big Beautiful Bill” and its impact on the country’s national debt.

Musk, who headed the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under the Trump Administration, left his post in May. Soon thereafter, he and President Trump entered a very public and verbal disagreement, where things turned sour. They reconciled to an extent, and things seemed to be in the past.

However, the second disagreement between the two started on Monday, as Musk continued to push back on the “Big Beautiful Bill” that the Trump administration is attempting to sign into law. It would, by Musk’s estimation, increase spending and reverse the work DOGE did to trim the deficit.

President Trump has hinted that DOGE could be “the monster” that “eats Elon,” threatening to end the subsidies that SpaceX and Tesla receive. Musk has not been opposed to ending government subsidies for companies, including his own, as long as they are all abolished.

How Tesla could benefit from the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ that axes EV subsidies

Despite this contentious back-and-forth between the two, analysts are sharing their opinions now, and a few of the more bullish Tesla observers are convinced that this feud will pass, Trump and Musk will resolve their differences as they have before, and things will return to normal.

ARK Invest’s Cathie Wood said this morning that the feud between Musk and Trump is another example of “this too shall pass:”

Additionally, Wedbush’s Dan Ives, in a note to investors this morning, said that the situation “will settle:”

“We believe this situation will settle and at the end of the day Musk needs Trump and Trump needs Musk given the AI Arms Race going on between the US and China. The jabs between Musk and Trump will continue as the Budget rolls through Congress but Tesla investors want Musk to focus on driving Tesla and stop this political angle…which has turned into a life of its own in a roller coaster ride since the November elections.”

Tesla shares are down about 5 percent at 3:10 p.m. on the East Coast.

Continue Reading

Elon Musk

Tesla scrambles after Musk sidekick exit, CEO takes over sales

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is reportedly overseeing sales in North America and Europe, Bloomberg reports.

Published

on

Credit: Tesla

Tesla scrambled its executives around following the exit of CEO Elon Musk’s sidekick last week, Omead Afshar. Afshar was relieved of his duties as Head of Sales for both North America and Europe.

Bloomberg is reporting that Musk is now overseeing both regions for sales, according to sources familiar with the matter. Afshar left the company last week, likely due to slow sales in both markets, ending a seven-year term with the electric automaker.

Tesla’s Omead Afshar, known as Elon Musk’s right-hand man, leaves company: reports

Afshar was promoted to the role late last year as Musk was becoming more involved in the road to the White House with President Donald Trump.

Afshar, whose LinkedIn account stated he was working within the “Office of the CEO,” was known as Musk’s right-hand man for years.

Additionally, Tom Zhu, currently the Senior Vice President of Automotive at Tesla, will oversee sales in Asia, according to the report.

It is a scramble by Tesla to get the company’s proven executives over the pain points the automaker has found halfway through the year. Sales are looking to be close to the 1.8 million vehicles the company delivered in both of the past two years.

Tesla is pivoting to pay more attention to the struggling automotive sales that it has felt over the past six months. Although it is still performing well and is the best-selling EV maker by a long way, it is struggling to find growth despite redesigning its vehicles and launching new tech and improvements within them.

The company is also looking to focus more on its deployment of autonomous tech, especially as it recently launched its Robotaxi platform in Austin just over a week ago.

Tesla officially launches Robotaxi service with no driver

However, while this is the long-term catalyst for Tesla, sales still need some work, and it appears the company’s strategy is to put its biggest guns on its biggest problems.

Continue Reading

News

Tesla upgrades Model 3 and Model Y in China, hikes price for long-range sedan

Tesla’s long-range Model 3 now comes with a higher CLTC-rated range of 753 km (468 miles).

Published

on

Credit: Tesla China

Tesla has rolled out a series of quiet upgrades to its Model 3 and Model Y in China, enhancing range and performance for long-range variants. The updates come with a price hike for the Model 3 Long Range All-Wheel Drive, which now costs RMB 285,500 (about $39,300), up RMB 10,000 ($1,400) from the previous price.

Model 3 gets acceleration boost, extended range

Tesla’s long-range Model 3 now comes with a higher CLTC-rated range of 753 km (468 miles), up from 713 km (443 miles), and a faster 0–100 km/h acceleration time of 3.8 seconds, down from 4.4 seconds. These changes suggest that Tesla has bundled the previously optional Acceleration Boost for the Model 3, once priced at RMB 14,100 ($1,968), as a standard feature.

Delivery wait times for the long-range Model 3 have also been shortened, from 3–5 weeks to just 1–3 weeks, as per CNEV Post. No changes were made to the entry-level RWD or Performance versions, which retain their RMB 235,500 and RMB 339,500 price points, respectively. Wait times for those trims also remain at 1–3 weeks and 8–10 weeks.

Model Y range increases, pricing holds steady

The Model Y Long Range has also seen its CLTC-rated range increase from 719 km (447 miles) to 750 km (466 miles), though its price remains unchanged at RMB 313,500 ($43,759). The model maintains a 0–100 km/h time of 4.3 seconds.

Tesla also updated delivery times for the Model Y lineup. The Long Range variant now shows a wait time of 1–3 weeks, an improvement from the previous 3–5 weeks. The entry-level RWD version maintained its starting price of RMB 263,500, though its delivery window is now shorter at 2–4 weeks.

Advertisement

Tesla continues to offer several purchase incentives in China, including an RMB 8,000 discount for select paint options, an RMB 8,000 insurance subsidy, and five years of interest-free financing for eligible variants.

Continue Reading

Trending