News
US Air Force awards SpaceX $20m contract to support its biggest spy satellites
Slipping beneath the watchful eye of many skilled defense journalists, the government contracting database FPDS.gov indicates that the US Air Force awarded SpaceX more than $20 million in November 2017 to conduct a design study of vertical integration capabilities (VIC). Describing what exactly this means first requires some background.
Vertical whaaaat?
The flood of acronyms and technical terminology that often follow activities of the Federal government should not detract from the significance of this contract award. First and foremost, what exactly is “vertical integration” and why is significant for SpaceX? Not to be confused with more abstract descriptions of corporate organization (vertical integration describes one such style), integration here describes the literal process of attaching satellite and spacecraft payloads to the rockets tasked with ferrying them to orbit.
Likely as a result of its relative simplicity, SpaceX has used a system of horizontal integration for as long as they have been in the business of launching rockets, be it Falcon 1, Falcon 9, or Falcon Heavy. In order to integrate payloads to the rocket horizontally, SpaceX has a number of horizontal integration facilities (HIF) directly beside each of their three launch pads – two in Florida, one in California. After being transported from the company’s Hawthorne, CA rocket factory, Falcon 9 and Heavy boosters, second stages, payload fairings, and other miscellaneous components are all brought into a HIF, where they are craned off of their transporters (a semi-trailer in most cases) and placed on horizontal stands inside the building.
- The large, white crawler underneath Falcon 9 is one of several methods of transportation SpaceX uses. (Instagram /u/robhubar)
- Falcon Heavy is composed of a Falcon 9 upper stage and three Falcon 9-class boosters. (SpaceX)
- The fully-integrated Falcon Heavy rolls out to Pad 39A. For vertical integration, think of this… but vertical. (SpaceX)
While in the HIF, all three main components are eventually attached together (integrated). The booster or first stage (S1) has its landing legs and grid fins installed soon after arrival at the launch site, followed by the mating of the first and second stages. Once these two primary components of the rocket are attached, the entire stack – as the mated vehicle is called – is once again lifted up by cranes inside the facility and placed atop what SpaceX calls the strongback (also known as the Transporter/Launcher/Erector, or TEL). A truly massive steel structure, the TEL is tasked with carrying the rocket to the launch pad, typically a short quarter mile trek from the integration facility. Once it reaches the pad, the TEL uses a powerful hydraulic lift system to rotate itself and its rocket payload from horizontal to vertical. It may look underwhelming, but it serves to remember that a complete Falcon 9/Heavy and its TEL are both considerably more than twice as tall as a basketball court is long.
Falcon Heavy goes vertical pic.twitter.com/uG1k0WISv1
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 5, 2018
Once at the pad, the TEL serves as the rocket’s connection to the pad’s many different ground systems. Crucially, it is tasked with loading the rocket with at least four different fuels, fluids, and gases at a broad range of temperatures, as well as holding the rocket down with giant clamps at its base, providing connection points to transmit a flood of data back to SpaceX launch control. SpaceX’s relatively unique TEL technology is to some extent the foundation of the company’s horizontal integration capabilities – such a practice would be impossible without reliable systems and methods that allow the rocket to be easily transported about and connected to pad systems.
Still, after the Amos-6 mishap in September 2016, which saw a customer’s payload entirely destroyed by a launch vehicle anomaly ahead of a static fire test, SpaceX has since changed their procedures, and now conducts those static fire tests with just the first and second stages – the payload is no longer attached until after the test is completed. For such a significant decrease in risk, the tradeoff of an additional day or so of work is minimal to SpaceX and its customers. Once completed, the rocket is brought horizontal and rolled back into the HIF, where the rocket’s payload fairing is finally attached to the vehicle while technicians ensure that the rocket is in good health after a routine test-ignition of its first stage engines.
- Elon Musk’s Roadster seen before being encapsulated in Falcon Heavy’s massive payload fairing. Below the Tesla is the payload adapter, which connects it to the rocket. (SpaceX)
- Imagine this building-sized fairing traveling approximately TWO MILES PER SECOND. (USAF)
- Finally, the fairing is transported vertically to the HIF, where it can be flipped horizontal and attached to its rocket. (Reddit /u/St-Jed-of-Calumet)
Before being connected to the rocket, the payload itself must also go through its own integration process. Recently demonstrated by a flurry of SpaceX images of Falcon Heavy and its Roadster payload, this involves attaching the payload to a payload adapter, tasked with both securing the payload and fairing to the launch vehicle. Thankfully, the fairing is far smaller than the rocket itself, and this means it can be vertically integrated with the payload and adapter. The final act of joining and bolting together the two fairing halves is known as encapsulation – at which point the payload is now snug inside the fairing and ready for launch. Finally, the integrated payload and fairing are lifted up by cranes, rotated horizontally, and connected to the top of the rocket’s second stage, marking the completion of the integration process.
A different way to integrate
Here lies the point at which the Air Force’s $20m contract with SpaceX comes into play. As a result of certain (highly classified) aspects of some of the largest military satellites, the Department of Defense (DoD) and National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) prefer or sometimes outright require that their payloads remain vertical while being attached to a given rocket. The United Launch Alliance (ULA), SpaceX’s only competition for military launches, almost exclusively utilizes vertical integration for all of their launches, signified by the immense buildings (often themselves capable of rolling on tracks) present at their launch pads. SpaceX has no such capability, at present, and this means that they are effectively prevented from competing for certain military launch contracts – contracts that are often the most demanding and thus lucrative.
It’s clear that the Air Force itself is the main impetus pushing SpaceX to develop vertical integration capabilities, a reasonable continuation of the military’s general desire for assured access to orbit in the event of a vehicle failure grounding flights for the indefinite future. For example, if ULA or SpaceX were to suffer a failure and be forced to ground their rockets for months while investigating the incident, the DoD could choose to transfer time-sensitive payload(s) to the unaffected company for the time being. With vertical integration, this rationale could extend to all military satellites, not simply those that support horizontal integration.
- A hop and a skip south of 39A is SpaceX’s LC-40 pad. (SpaceX)
- Like all SpaceX pads, horizontal integration is a central feature. (SpaceX)
- LC-40’s brand new TEL carries a flight-proven Falcon 9 and Dragon out to the pad. (SpaceX)
Fittingly, the ability to vertically integrate satellites is likely a necessity if SpaceX hopes to derive the greatest possible value from its recently and successfully introduced Falcon Heavy rocket, a highly capable vehicle that the government is likely very interested in. Although the specific Air Force contract blandly labels it a “Design Study,” (FPDS.gov account required) its hefty $21 million award may well be far more money than SpaceX needs to design a solution. In fact, knowing SpaceX’s famous ability to develop and operate technologies with exceptional cost efficiency, it would not be shocking to discover that the intrepid launch company has accepted the design study grant and instead jumped head-first into prototyping, if not the construction of an operational solution. More likely than not, SpaceX would choose to take advantage of the fixed tower (known as the Fixed Service Structure, FSS) currently present at Pad 39A, atop which a crane and work platforms could presumably be attached
Intriguingly, it is a real possibility that Fairing 2.0 – its first launch scheduled to occur as early as Feb. 21 – could have been upgraded in part to support present and future needs of the Department of Defense, among numerous other benefits. Fairing 2.0’s larger size may have even been precipitated by physical requirements for competing for and dealing with the largest spysats operating by the DoD and NRO, although CEO Elon Musk’s characterization of that change as a “slightly larger diameter” could suggest otherwise. On the other hand, Musk’s offhand mention of the possibility of significantly lengthening the payload fairing is likely aimed directly at government customers in both the civil and military spheres of space utilization. Time will tell, and it certainly will not hurt SpaceX or its customers if Fairing 2.0 is also considerably easier to recover and reuse.
Under consideration. We’ve already stretched the upper stage once. Easiest part of the rocket to change. Fairing 2, flying soon, also has a slightly larger diameter. Could make fairing much longer if need be & will if BFR takes longer than expected.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 12, 2018
Ultimately, it should come as no surprise that SpaceX would attempt to leverage this contract and the DoD’s interest in ways that might also facilitate the development of the company’s futuristic BFR rocket, intended to eventually take humans to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. As shown by both 2016 and 2017 iterations of the vehicle, it appears that SpaceX intends to use vertical integration to attach the spaceship (BFS) to the booster (BFR). While it’s unlikely that this Air Force contract will result in the creation of a vertical integration system that could immediately be applied to or replicated for BFS testing, the experience SpaceX would gain in the process of building something similar for the Air Force would be invaluable and essentially kill two birds with one stone.

While now outdated, SpaceX’s 2016 Mars rocket featured a giant crane used for vertical integration. BFR appears to use the same approach. (SpaceX)
Follow along live as I and launch photographers Tom Cross and Pauline Acalin cover these exciting proceedings live and in person.
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Tom Cross – Twitter
Pauline Acalin – Twitter
Eric Ralph – Twitter
News
I figured out how to charge my Tesla at my rented townhouse – Here’s how
I hope that this article is able to help the prospective EV buyer or the current Tesla owner who is living in a rental and does not have a straightforward solution to home charging. My situation will be presented in this article, and I will tell you why I went with the solution I went with, and alternatives, because there is more than one way to do this.
When I bought my Tesla Model Y Premium All-Wheel-Drive last year, I knew I would have to try to figure out a way not become totally reliant on Superchargers. After about six months of ownership, it came time to resolve that problem once and for good, and being a tenant in a rented townhouse community definitely added to my challenge.
Before I even bought my Tesla, I emailed my leasing office to see if the community had any plans to bring EV charging to the neighborhood. I had made myself available to them as I am familiar with a lot of the solutions out there and how much of an advantage this could be for the community, and attracting new tenants. After months of trying, I bought my Tesla in August anyway, and figured I’d be able to find an answer — whether positive or negative — and go from there.
I hope that this article is able to help the prospective EV buyer or the current Tesla owner who is living in a rental and does not have a straightforward solution to home charging. My situation will be presented in this article, and I will tell you why I went with the solution I went with, and alternatives, because there is more than one way to do this.
My Challenge with Home Charging
In a rental community, apartment complex, or even townhouse row, parking spots are a little complicated. I have assigned parking at my house, and unfortunately, my parking spot is not right in front of my front door. Instead, it is staggered, so my car is parked in front of my neighbor’s front door.
Initially, I had spoken to my neighbor whose spot is right in front of my front door and had gotten permission to park in their spot during the day while it is vacant. However, I was not going to be able to upgrade my outlet from a 110v-120v to the typical and suggested 220v-240v alternative.
I knew that this would mean I would need to be in my permanent spot because charging sufficiently, especially in preparation for trips or errands, would require overnight charging.
The Tesla Mobile Connector is 20 feet long, which is sufficient for most applications. Mine, however, required about 30 feet, maybe even a little more, to charge.
My Options
I had a few options: Use the Mobile Connector and park in my neighbor’s spot and charge when I could, buy an 8 or 10-gauge extension cord that could handle moving power from the Mobile Connector to my car, or buy an NACS to NACS extension cord.
I didn’t really want to do the first option, considering I knew that spot would only be available when my neighbor was not there. It didn’t seem like a viable option, and I figured it would be better to figure out something from my personal, permanent parking spot anyway.
The 10-gauge extension cord option was what I first considered: it was less expensive than buying an NACS extension, it was more readily available, and it was the first thing my friends who are electricians recommended.
However, running this option would have put the Mobile Connector in the grass or on the ground, and I was not interested in doing that. Running the risk of having that $300 connector that came with the car in the grass and exposing it to dew, dogs, and various other things just did not seem like the best idea.
I looked around for some NACS to NACS connectors, and there are a lot of options. Given that this was something that was going to plug into a $50,000 car, I chose to spend the additional money on one that was not from Amazon, and I went with this one from A2Z, which was recommended by other owners, and their reputation seemed more than positive. I was leaning toward this option anyway because it would keep the Mobile Connector off the ground, and it gave me an additional 16 feet of length to work with.
This was the solution.
Putting It Into Action
It was a relatively simple process: Plug the Mobile Connector into my house, plug the NACS to NACS extension into the Mobile Connector, plug the NACS extension into the car. It all worked immediately, but there are some things you should know if you are also planning to do this.
The first is that you should be very aware that these cables are going to be a target of thieves. I don’t have too much of an issue with this in my area, but if you’re in a place where copper wiring is heavily sought after, be sure to keep these in a place where they won’t be stolen. I put mine away when they’re not charging, and at night, they’re visible from my Ring camera, so I’m not overly concerned. Definitely be aware of it, though.
Additionally, if you’re going to run it across the sidewalk like I am, you’re going to want to pick up some sort of cable cover from a local hardware store. I picked up this one from Amazon because it was a little more heavy-duty, and it was big enough to cover the thicker gauge of the NACS to NACS extension:
I’ve considered picking up a second one for the visible cable, but I am undecided.
So far, I’ve been able to add some range to my car three times using this strategy, and while it is very slow, it is definitely worth it. It’s better than it sitting there stagnant.
Speed of Charging
Tesla says the Mobile Connector will provide you with between 3 and 5 miles of range per hour when plugged into a typical wall outlet. That is about what I’ve gotten with it. From 30 percent to 80 percent, be aware that it will take well over 24 hours to charge your car.
I plan to cover some additional details on this as time goes on, including any troubleshooting I might have to do, how much my electric bill goes up, and whether or not I run into any issues with my neighbors or my leasing office.
If you’re looking for some help on an at-home charging solution or have any questions about my setup, please email me at joey@teslarati.com.
🚨 I FINALLY figured out a way to charge my Tesla at home as a renter — Using Superchargers exclusively was inconvenient, tough on the battery, and expensive
Here’s how I did it: https://t.co/TZokpc6Fh3 pic.twitter.com/UtRYKLvB2Y
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) March 2, 2026
Elon Musk
Starlink V2 to bring satellite-to-phone service to Deutsche Telekom in Europe
Starlink stated that the system is designed to deliver 5G speeds directly to compatible smartphones in remote areas.
Starlink is partnering with Deutsche Telekom to roll out satellite-to-mobile connectivity across Europe, extending coverage to more than 140 million subscribers across 10 countries.
The service, planned for launch in 2028 in several Telekom markets, including Germany, will use Starlink’s next-generation V2 satellites and Mobile Satellite Service (MSS) spectrum to enable direct-to-device connectivity.
In a post on X, the official Starlink account stated that the agreement will be the first in Europe to deploy its V2 next-generation satellite-to-mobile technology using new MSS spectrum. The company added that the system is designed to deliver 5G speeds directly to compatible smartphones in remote areas.
Abdu Mudesir, Board Member for Product and Technology at Deutsche Telekom, shared his excitement for the partnership in a press release. “We provide our customers with the best mobile network. And we continue to invest heavily in expanding our infrastructure. At the same time, there are regions where expansion is especially complex due to topographical conditions or official constraints,” he said.
“We want to ensure reliable connectivity for our customers in those areas as well. That is why we are strategically complementing our network with satellite-to-mobile connectivity. For us, it is clear: connectivity creates security and trust. And we deliver. Everywhere.”
Under the partnership, compatible smartphones will automatically switch to Starlink’s satellite network when terrestrial coverage is unavailable, enabling access to data, voice, video, and messaging services.
Telekom reports 5G geographic coverage approaching 90% in Germany, with LTE exceeding 92% and voice coverage reaching up to 99%. Starlink’s satellite layer is intended to extend connectivity beyond those terrestrial limits, particularly in topographically challenging or infrastructure-constrained areas.
Stephanie Bednarek, VP of Starlink Sales, also shared her thoughts on the partnership. “We’re so pleased to bring reliable satellite-to-mobile connectivity to millions of people across 10 countries in partnership with Deutsche Telekom. This agreement will be the first-of-its-kind in Europe to launch Starlink’s V2 next-generation technology that will expand on data, voice and messaging by providing broadband directly to mobile phones,” she said.
Starlink’s V2 constellation is designed to expand bandwidth and capacity compared to its predecessor. If implemented as outlined, the 2028 launch would mark one of the first large-scale European deployments of integrated satellite-to-phone connectivity by a major telecom operator.
News
Tesla back on top as Norway’s EV market surges to 98% share in February
Tesla became Norway’s top-selling brand with 1,210 registrations, representing a 16.6% share.
Tesla reclaimed the top spot in Norway’s auto market in February as electric vehicles captured more than 98% of all new car registrations.
The rebound follows a sharp January slump triggered by VAT rule changes, which prompted numerous car buyers to advance their purchases into late 2025.
As per data from the Norwegian Road Traffic Information Council (OFV), 7,127 new electric vehicles were registered in February, representing a 98.01% market share. Fossil-fuel vehicles and hybrids accounted for just 2% of total new registrations.
Total new car registrations reached 7,272 units in February, hinting at a rapid recovery after January sales fell nearly 75% year-over-year following VAT adjustments.
OFV Director Geir Inge Stokke noted that similar patterns were observed after previous VAT changes in 2022, with demand temporarily weakening before normalizing, as noted in an Allt Om Elbil report.
“We are now seeing signs that the market is returning to a more normal level of activity, which we also experienced after the VAT change in 2022. At that time, changes in demand led to a weak start to 2023. We have seen the same pattern this year,” he said.
Amidst this trend, the Tesla Model Y made a strong comeback in the domestic market. After an unusually weak January that saw the Tesla Model Y drop to seventh place, the model returned to the top of Norway’s sales chart in February.
The Model Y recorded 1,073 registrations, giving it a 14.8% market share for the month. Tesla also became Norway’s top-selling brand with 1,210 registrations, representing a 16.6% share. Toyota followed with 941 registrations, while Volkswagen, Volvo, and Skoda rounded out the top five brands.
The February data suggests that Tesla’s January dip was tied more to timing effects around VAT adjustments than to structural demand shifts. It would then be interesting to see how the rest of the year unfolds for Tesla, particularly as the company pushes for the release of its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) system to Europe this year.










