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SpaceX had a big year: 2016 year in review
On December 21, 2016, SpaceX celebrated the one-year anniversary of Falcon 9’s first ever successful stage one landing, leaving their mark on history with the first rocket to ever do so after delivering a payload into orbit. The mission delivered 11 ORBCOMM satellites into low-Earth orbit to complete a 17-satellite constellation network.
Several videos were published with footage of the event last year, but National Geographic gave us a behind-the-scenes look at Elon Musk’s emotional ride while it was happening as an anniversary treat.
The first landing anniversary wasn’t the only thing to come out of 2016, however, and what a year it was!
MORE HISTORIC SPACEX LANDINGS
On April 8, 2016, SpaceX made history again, that time by landing Falcon 9’s first stage booster onto the “Of Course I Still Love You” autonomous droneship in the Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast. The mission’s payload was a Dragon capsule cargo shipment to the International Space Station (“ISS”) named CRS-8, itself containing an important space technology demonstration for expandable habitats. The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (“BEAM”) carried in the Dragon capsule was later successfully docked to the ISS and inflated as planned.
On May 5, 2016, SpaceX landed yet another first stage booster on drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You”, but the destination of its payload was geostationary transfer orbit (“GTO”), about 36,000 kilometers above the Earth vs. the 160 to 2000 kilometer height of low-Earth orbit previously achieved before a landing. The higher GTO orbit brought the first stage of Falcon 9 to a much faster speed and higher reentry heating than the previous missions, making the successful landing yet another one for the history books. Its payload was the JCSAT-14 commercial communications satellite.
Falcon 9 on the droneship after launching JCSAT-14 | Credit: SpaceX
Another successful GTO mission with a droneship landing was completed on May 27, 2016, and its THAICOM-8 payload was then delivered to a supersynchronous transfer orbit of 91,000 kilometers high. The third time broke the charm, however, and on June 15, 2016, after a successful insertion of Eutelsat 117 West B and ABS-2A satellites into GTO, the Falcon 9 first stage was lost due to early engine shutdown from lack of fuel.
Looks like early liquid oxygen depletion caused engine shutdown just above the deck pic.twitter.com/Sa6uCkpknY
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 17, 2016
Undeterred, SpaceX successfully landed one more booster on August 16, 2016 during its JCSAT-16 mission to GTO. “Of Course I Still Love You” was the droneship used once again.
First stage landing confirmed on the droneship. Second stage & JCSAT-16 continuing to orbit https://t.co/tdni5406Hi pic.twitter.com/h6llIXSVu7
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 14, 2016
A FEW SETBACKS FOR SPACEX
September 1, 2016 is a day that will potentially live in both conspiratorial and procedural dispute infamy due to SpaceX’s launch pad anomaly during its fueling process. Whether the description of choice of the event is “fast fire”, “explosion”, or “fireball”, the result was the same: a complete loss of the Falcon 9 rocket, its payload, and the ability to use Space Launch Complex 40 in the near future.
Still working on the Falcon fireball investigation. Turning out to be the most difficult and complex failure we have ever had in 14 years.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 9, 2016
The AMOS-6 satellite aboard the rocket was owned by Israel-based Spacecom Ltd. and had been part of a $95 million dollar leasing deal between Facebook and Eutelsat to provide internet access to the non-connected parts of the world.
Per SpaceX’s last update, the investigation and FAA report on the anomaly are still pending and have focused on a breach in the loading of the cryogenic helium system of the 2nd stage liquid oxygen (“LOX”) tank.
Loss of Falcon vehicle today during propellant fill operation. Originated around upper stage oxygen tank. Cause still unknown. More soon.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 1, 2016
Falcon 9 isn’t expected to return to flight until January 2017 now that the launch with the Iridium-1 satellite payload was delayed from the tentative December 16th date. The FAA report must be completed prior to further launch approvals. The chain reaction of delayed launches has only cost the loss of one SpaceX customer to another launch provider thus far.
Due to extensive damage to Space Launch Complex 40 from the anomaly, future launches from the east coast will take place from historic Apollo-era Launch Complex 39A. SpaceX has been renovating the pad for Falcon Heavy launches. Also resulting from the anomaly was a delay in the first Falcon Heavy launch to early 2017.
SPACEX PUSHES ONWARD
Throughout 2016, SpaceX continued to work on its Crew Dragon capsule as part of its competition with Boeing to provide human flight capabilities from American soil via NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. The tentative test launch date for the capsule was set for late 2017, but unfortunately, it was pushed back into May of 2018. Earlier in the year, Boeing also delayed its launch date to August 2018.
Crew Dragon during launch abort test | Credit: SpaceX
ELON MUSK REVEALS SPACEX’S MARS PLAN
Finally, at the end of September, Elon announced SpaceX’s plan to put a million people on Mars by the 2060s via its Interplanetary Transport System, also affectionately named BFR (“Big F*ing Rocket”).
Full Interplanetary Tranport System presentation in ~30 mins. Simulation preview: https://t.co/lKAxabzfKX
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 27, 2016
A video was released prior to the September 27th, 2016 International Astronautical Conference announcement in Guadalajara, Mexico illustrating the full system concept. The animation was based on the actual CAD renderings in development, per Elon’s talk.
SpaceX ITS Stage 1 landing graphic | Credit: SpaceX
Plenty of goodies were revealed about SpaceX’s plans including the passenger habitat, entertainment intentions for travelers, and technical specifications surrounding the system’s size, engines, and fuel systems. While the presentation itself was exciting, many questions were still left unanswered such as more specifics on radiation dangers and the long-term effects of microgravity.
SUMMARY
Overall, 2016 brought a rollercoaster of successes and setbacks for SpaceX, but the business of rocket launching wasn’t expected to be an easy one. The phrase, “Rockets are hard” isn’t a simple excuse to explain away failures, but rather an accepted cost of being in the field.
Throughout the year, SpaceX has managed to maintain public and government faith in its mission to advance human space exploration despite any setbacks. In July, NASA ordered a second commercial crew mission from the company, and then they followed up in November with a contract to launch an Earth surface-water-analyzing satellite in 2021.
SpaceX also received a number of recognitions for its work environment and achievements, including making Glassdoor’s Top 50 Places to Work and being awarded the 2016 World Technology Award for space.
Oh, and if it seems all that isn’t enough for SpaceX to have on its plate, in November the company filed a request with the FCC to launch over 4,000 communication satellites as part of their goal of building a hi-speed satellite internet constellation.
There’s a lot to look forward to in 2017 and beyond. Onwards!
Elon Musk
Starlink passes 9 million active customers just weeks after hitting 8 million
The milestone highlights the accelerating growth of Starlink, which has now been adding over 20,000 new users per day.
SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service has continued its rapid global expansion, surpassing 9 million active customers just weeks after crossing the 8 million mark.
The milestone highlights the accelerating growth of Starlink, which has now been adding over 20,000 new users per day.
9 million customers
In a post on X, SpaceX stated that Starlink now serves over 9 million active users across 155 countries, territories, and markets. The company reached 8 million customers in early November, meaning it added roughly 1 million subscribers in under seven weeks, or about 21,275 new users on average per day.
“Starlink is connecting more than 9M active customers with high-speed internet across 155 countries, territories, and many other markets,” Starlink wrote in a post on its official X account. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell also celebrated the milestone on X. “A huge thank you to all of our customers and congrats to the Starlink team for such an incredible product,” she wrote.
That growth rate reflects both rising demand for broadband in underserved regions and Starlink’s expanding satellite constellation, which now includes more than 9,000 low-Earth-orbit satellites designed to deliver high-speed, low-latency internet worldwide.
Starlink’s momentum
Starlink’s momentum has been building up. SpaceX reported 4.6 million Starlink customers in December 2024, followed by 7 million by August 2025, and 8 million customers in November. Independent data also suggests Starlink usage is rising sharply, with Cloudflare reporting that global web traffic from Starlink users more than doubled in 2025, as noted in an Insider report.
Starlink’s momentum is increasingly tied to SpaceX’s broader financial outlook. Elon Musk has said the satellite network is “by far” the company’s largest revenue driver, and reports suggest SpaceX may be positioning itself for an initial public offering as soon as next year, with valuations estimated as high as $1.5 trillion. Musk has also suggested in the past that Starlink could have its own IPO in the future.
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NVIDIA Director of Robotics: Tesla FSD v14 is the first AI to pass the “Physical Turing Test”
After testing FSD v14, Fan stated that his experience with FSD felt magical at first, but it soon started to feel like a routine.
NVIDIA Director of Robotics Jim Fan has praised Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14 as the first AI to pass what he described as a “Physical Turing Test.”
After testing FSD v14, Fan stated that his experience with FSD felt magical at first, but it soon started to feel like a routine. And just like smartphones today, removing it now would “actively hurt.”
Jim Fan’s hands-on FSD v14 impressions
Fan, a leading researcher in embodied AI who is currently solving Physical AI at NVIDIA and spearheading the company’s Project GR00T initiative, noted that he actually was late to the Tesla game. He was, however, one of the first to try out FSD v14.
“I was very late to own a Tesla but among the earliest to try out FSD v14. It’s perhaps the first time I experience an AI that passes the Physical Turing Test: after a long day at work, you press a button, lay back, and couldn’t tell if a neural net or a human drove you home,” Fan wrote in a post on X.
Fan added: “Despite knowing exactly how robot learning works, I still find it magical watching the steering wheel turn by itself. First it feels surreal, next it becomes routine. Then, like the smartphone, taking it away actively hurts. This is how humanity gets rewired and glued to god-like technologies.”
The Physical Turing Test
The original Turing Test was conceived by Alan Turing in 1950, and it was aimed at determining if a machine could exhibit behavior that is equivalent to or indistinguishable from a human. By focusing on text-based conversations, the original Turing Test set a high bar for natural language processing and machine learning.
This test has been passed by today’s large language models. However, the capability to converse in a humanlike manner is a completely different challenge from performing real-world problem-solving or physical interactions. Thus, Fan introduced the Physical Turing Test, which challenges AI systems to demonstrate intelligence through physical actions.
Based on Fan’s comments, Tesla has demonstrated these intelligent physical actions with FSD v14. Elon Musk agreed with the NVIDIA executive, stating in a post on X that with FSD v14, “you can sense the sentience maturing.” Musk also praised Tesla AI, calling it the best “real-world AI” today.
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Tesla AI team burns the Christmas midnight oil by releasing FSD v14.2.2.1
The update was released just a day after FSD v14.2.2 started rolling out to customers.
Tesla is burning the midnight oil this Christmas, with the Tesla AI team quietly rolling out Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14.2.2.1 just a day after FSD v14.2.2 started rolling out to customers.
Tesla owner shares insights on FSD v14.2.2.1
Longtime Tesla owner and FSD tester @BLKMDL3 shared some insights following several drives with FSD v14.2.2.1 in rainy Los Angeles conditions with standing water and faded lane lines. He reported zero steering hesitation or stutter, confident lane changes, and maneuvers executed with precision that evoked the performance of Tesla’s driverless Robotaxis in Austin.
Parking performance impressed, with most spots nailed perfectly, including tight, sharp turns, in single attempts without shaky steering. One minor offset happened only due to another vehicle that was parked over the line, which FSD accommodated by a few extra inches. In rain that typically erases road markings, FSD visualized lanes and turn lines better than humans, positioning itself flawlessly when entering new streets as well.
“Took it up a dark, wet, and twisty canyon road up and down the hill tonight and it went very well as to be expected. Stayed centered in the lane, kept speed well and gives a confidence inspiring steering feel where it handles these curvy roads better than the majority of human drivers,” the Tesla owner wrote in a post on X.
Tesla’s FSD v14.2.2 update
Just a day before FSD v14.2.2.1’s release, Tesla rolled out FSD v14.2.2, which was focused on smoother real-world performance, better obstacle awareness, and precise end-of-trip routing. According to the update’s release notes, FSD v14.2.2 upgrades the vision encoder neural network with higher resolution features, enhancing detection of emergency vehicles, road obstacles, and human gestures.
New Arrival Options also allowed users to select preferred drop-off styles, such as Parking Lot, Street, Driveway, Parking Garage, or Curbside, with the navigation pin automatically adjusting to the ideal spot. Other refinements include pulling over for emergency vehicles, real-time vision-based detours for blocked roads, improved gate and debris handling, and Speed Profiles for customized driving styles.
Starlink passes 9 million active customers just weeks after hitting 8 million
NVIDIA Director of Robotics: Tesla FSD v14 is the first AI to pass the “Physical Turing Test”
