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SpaceX drone ship heads to sea for first 2022 Falcon launch

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SpaceX drone ship Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY) departed Port Canaveral on January 1st, heading to sea on the first day of the year for SpaceX’s first launch of 2022.

With a launch manifest that’s never been more jam-packed and seemingly achievable, it’s no surprise that SpaceX is wasting no time kicking off what could be its third record-breaking year in a row. Barring delays, drone ship ASOG will arrive about 640 km (400 mi) downrange at its recovery site – just northeast of the Bahamas – a day or two before Falcon 9’s first launch and landing attempt of the year. Known as Starlink 4-5 (Group 4 Launch 5) and scheduled to lift off no earlier than (NET) 4:49 pm EST (21:49 UTC), Thursday, January 6th, it will be SpaceX’s 34th dedicated Starlink launch since May 2019.

Perhaps more importantly, if the mission goes to plan and doesn’t have rideshare payloads, SpaceX will start 2022 having just launched its 1997th Starlink satellite, including two prototypes that came to be known as Tintin A and B and kicked off the constellation’s in-space hardware testing phase in February 2018. Excluding all prototypes, Starlink 4-5 will mark the launch of more than 1900 (1922) nominally operational Starlink satellites.

Assuming ~90% of Starlink 4-5 satellites reach orbit in good health, SpaceX will also have more than 1800 working Starlink satellites, a bit less than 1500 of which will be actively serving customers. Including 4-5, another ~270 will be in the midst of orbital phasing and raising, which can take months.

More generally, Starlink 4-5 is expected to be the first of anywhere from 40 to 60 SpaceX Falcon launches nominally scheduled in 2022. As previously discussed on Teslarati, SpaceX’s unofficial annual manifests have never been fuller heading into a new year. Simultaneously, in December 2021, the company demonstrated the ability to complete five Falcon launches in a single month but did so in less than three weeks. Following the last few years of trends, so long as SpaceX’s Starlink production continues supplying a steady flood of satellites to launch, the company could easily have enough commercial and internal (Starlink) payloads for 60+ launches in 2022.

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The real question is how many launches the company can feasibly support. A conservative appraisal of SpaceX’s recent history would suggest ~36 – continuing the series of 21 launches in 2018, 26 launches in 2020, and 31 launches in 2021. At the high end, demonstrating the ability to launch five times in three weeks implies a proven ceiling of up to 60 launches. In the middle, SpaceX successfully launched 30 times in 7 months (Oct 2020-May 2021), 8 times in 2 months (May-June 2021), and 26 times in 6 months (Jan-June 2021) – repeatedly proving its ability to launch around 50 times per year under the right circumstances.

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.

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Elon Musk explains why Tesla stepped back from Project Dojo

The update was initially reported by Bloomberg News, which cited people reportedly familiar with the matter.

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(Credit: Tesla)

Elon Musk has confirmed that Tesla is stepping back from its Dojo supercomputer initiative and focusing instead on the company’s in-house AI5 and AI6 chips. 

The update was initially reported by Bloomberg News, which cited people reportedly familiar with the matter.

Project Dojo Ends

As per Bloomberg, Peter Bannon, who led Project Dojo, will be departing Tesla following Elon Musk’s decision to shut down the initiative. The publication claimed that Tesla’s Project Dojo team has lost about 20 members recently, and the remaining members of the initiative would be reassigned to other data center and compute projects within Tesla. 

Dojo was expected to help Tesla train its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving systems. With this change, Tesla will reportedly be increasing its reliance on external partners for its training hardware. These partners reportedly include Nvidia, AMD, and Samsung, among other companies.

Credit: Elon Musk/X

Musk Explains Dojo Shutdown

In a series of posts on X, Elon Musk explained that it doesn’t make much sense for Tesla to divide its resources to scale two different chip designs. And since the company is putting in a lot of effort in its AI5 and AI6 chips–which would be used not for training but in actual products like Optimus and the Cybercab–it was time for Project Dojo to take a bow.

“It doesn’t make sense for Tesla to divide its resources and scale two quite different AI chip designs. The Tesla AI5, AI6 and subsequent chips will be excellent for inference and at least pretty good for training. All effort is focused on that.

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“In a supercomputer cluster, it would make sense to put many AI5/AI6 chips on a board, whether for inference or training, simply to reduce network cabling complexity & cost by a few orders of magnitude. One could call that Dojo 3, I suppose. The difference in real-world performance between AI4 and AI5 is far more than any chip version I’ve ever heard of by a lot. It’s real good,” Musk wrote in his post.

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Tesla creates clever solution to simplify and improve its Service

Raj Jegannathan, a Vice President of IT/AI-Infra, Apps, Infosec, and Vehicle Service Operations, revealed that Tesla has started a small pilot program at a few service locations to combat this issue.

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla has created a clever solution to simplify and improve its Service. Tesla performs most of the services that are needed on its vehicles at its company-owned Service Centers.

However, service has been a weak point of the company, as some regions have fewer Service Centers than others. This can cause long wait times for Tesla owners in some parts of the country.

There are also instances where customers do not agree with what Tesla is saying about their vehicle. In fact, one instance that revealed this new change Tesla is making to its Service was precisely that.

One owner posted on X that his vehicle’s battery seal had failed after a recall was issued. Tesla insurance and Tesla Service both did not assist, and it took CEO Elon Musk stepping in to get the issue resolved:

Another owner suggested there should be a more streamlined communications process between the customer and the Service Center, a solution that has been missing.

Raj Jegannathan, a Vice President of IT/AI-Infra, Apps, Infosec, and Vehicle Service Operations, revealed that Tesla has started a small pilot program at a few service locations to combat this issue.

Elon Musk wants Tesla Service to fix two-thirds of cars in the same day

Jegannathan said that Tesla has started to share local and regional leader contact information so customers have the ability to reach out when they have complaints or disagree with warranty claims, changes in estimates, or initial diagnostics.

It is available in a handful of locations already, and Jegannathan said that once abuse guardrails are built, this will expand to all locations:

This would be a major improvement in the Service portion of Tesla’s business. There are common disagreements between Service and customers, specifically when Service’s suggestions don’t align with the customer’s beliefs.

When it comes to things like a warranty claim, these issues are not really up for interpretation. Instead, the repairs should be made. If there is a misunderstanding on Service’s side, a simple message from the customer could have resolved the issue. That’s basically what happened here.

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Investor's Corner

Tesla gets its best analysis from Morgan Stanley as ‘it’s all about to change’

He maintained its ‘Overweight’ rating and the $410 price target Morgan Stanley had on the stock.

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(Credit: Tesla)

Tesla has gotten perhaps its best analysis from Morgan Stanley in quite some time, as the Wall Street firm claims that “it’s all about to change.”

That phrase could be used for both the company’s status and the world in general.

Analyst Adam Jonas said in a new note on Thursday to investors that Tesla could be one of the major winners in terms of the global transition from what it is now to what it will be.

He describes the global shift that will occur over the next few years:

“Have you interacted with a robot today? Have you even seen a robot today? No? Well, take a mental picture because it’s all about to change. When we meet someone who has never been in a Waymo or a Tesla Cybercab (which is most people), we frequently see a wince and a response such as ‘I’m not sure I’d feel comfortable getting in a car without a driver.’ We imagine going back in time to 1903 and asking people if they’d feel comfortable in an airplane.'”

The same technological revolutions that have occurred over the past 150 years will continue to occur again and again. We are on the verge of another, Jonas believes, as companies like Tesla are working on artificial intelligence tech, which includes changing the way we look at things like transportation and labor.

Jonas includes an interesting tidbit in his note about how humanoid robots could change wages, and how it could work into the advantage of Tesla, especially as it is developing its own Optimus robot:

“We estimate 1 humanoid robot at $5/hour can do the work of 2 humans at $25/hour, generating an NPV of approximately $200k/humanoid. 1 robot shaped car can potentially drive down cost/mile of a ride share vehicle to <$0.20 mile (1/10th human-driven ride-share).”

Jonas sees Tesla as a key player in how AI will impact things like manufacturing and various automotive industries, and he believes there is long-term potential for AI, robomobility, and even autonomous eVTOL platforms.

Tesla stock: Morgan Stanley says eVTOL is calling Elon Musk for new chapter

He maintained its ‘Overweight’ rating and the $410 price target Morgan Stanley had on the stock.

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