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SpaceX ready for 31st Starlink launch of 2022
SpaceX is on track to launch its 31st Starlink mission of 2022 later this morning.
No earlier than (NET) 10:50 am EDT (14:50 UTC) on Thursday, October 20th, a Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to lift off from SpaceX’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) LC-40 launch pad with 54 internet satellites in tow. Weighing in at 16.75 tons (~36,900 lb), the batch of Starlink V1.5 satellites is one of just a few left for SpaceX to complete the second of five ‘shells’ that make up its first constellation.
Even before today’s Starlink 4-36 launch, more than two-thirds of the 4408 satellites required to complete the constellation are already in orbit and (by all appearances) working as expected. Of the 3131 working satellites in orbit, approximately 2700 are at their operational altitudes and theoretically capable of serving customers on Earth. Another ~390 satellites are in the process of climbing to their operational orbits. Once they’re done, SpaceX’s first Starlink constellation will be more than two-thirds complete.
The constellation is made up of five orbital ‘shells’ – distinct groups of satellites that share a similar orbital inclination (the angle between the satellite’s orbit and Earth’s equator) and altitude. Two of those shells, known as Group 1 and Group 4, contain 3168 satellites or more than two-thirds of the constellation. They’re nearly identical and focus on Earth’s mid-latitudes, where almost every person (and customer) on Earth resides. Both are almost complete: astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell estimates that 1456 of 1584 possible Group 1 satellites are operational. Group 4 is one launch behind, with about 1405 working satellites in orbit.
In addition to Starlink 4-36, SpaceX has one more Starlink launch (4-31) tentatively scheduled in late October. The company’s November manifest is jam-packed with up to five commercial launches, potentially precluding any additional Starlink launches next month. December could be an even more commercially productive month if just a handful of schedules hold. But there’s a chance that SpaceX will find space to complete two more Starlink launches within the next ten weeks, allowing it to nearly complete Group 4 by the end of the year.
Once #4 is complete, all future launches for SpaceX’s first-generation Starlink constellation will likely head to one of three shells with semi-polar or polar inclinations. Group 2, the largest of the remaining shells with a planned 720 satellites, can be launched from any of SpaceX’s three pads. SpaceX has already launched one batch of Group 2 satellites and will need to complete ~13 more launches to finish the shell. Finally, more than half of Group 3’s 348 satellites have already been launched, but SpaceX has yet to start Group 5 (172 satellites). Both Group 3 and Group 5 will likely be launched out of SpaceX’s California launch pad.
Including an allowance for several dozen on-orbit satellite failures over the same period, SpaceX’s first Starlink constellation thus appears to be about 23 launches away from completion. If SpaceX matches its 2022 cadence in 2023, the entire 4408-satellite constellation could be fully operational before the end of next year. If SpaceX can hit its target of 100 total launches in 2023, the first Starlink constellation could be fully operational months before the end of 2023.
Even with a third of its satellites still on the ground, Starlink is close to an order of magnitude larger than any other constellation in history. Confirming an estimate shared by Teslarati earlier this year, CEO Elon Musk says that SpaceX now owns and operates more than half of all active satellites in orbit less than three years after the company began operational Starlink launches.
Tune in below to watch SpaceX’s 31st Starlink mission and 48th launch this year.
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Tesla Cybercab is set to launch in Austin, Texas, on September 3, as the company has officially started sending out invitations to a dedicated event it will hold in the city where its headquarters is located.
The Cybercab is Tesla’s dedicated ride-sharing vehicle: it features just two seats and has no steering wheel or pedals. It is aimed at fully autonomous passenger transport, and will operate in the Robotaxi fleet alongside the Tesla Model Y, which has been performing driverless rides for real-world passengers for more than a year.
Thank you so much @Tesla for inviting us to the Cybercab launch in Austin! 🤠 pic.twitter.com/F1rAR8zd5O
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 22, 2026
The launch of the Cybercab marks the next chapter in Tesla’s autonomy story. The company has been developing autonomous transport for years with its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) platform, which is available in any vehicle the company has built with the proper hardware and software capabilities.
Its capabilities vary by hardware and software version, but Tesla says its latest hardware version, known as AI4, can deliver full autonomy. However, future vehicles will operate with even more robust hardware packages, as Tesla will develop AI4.5 and AI5 for even more capability in its vehicles.
Following a report from The Information that surfaced earlier this week, the writing was on the wall that Tesla was set to launch Cybercab in the near term. The report stated Tesla could launch Cybercab as soon as the end of August. Tesla came close and has booked it for September 3.
The big thing with this event being scheduled is not necessarily that Tesla is launching a new vehicle, but instead that it is launching a vehicle that has no steering wheel or pedals and will operate exclusively on a self-driving program that is evidently nearing full autonomy. If the event allows vehicles to take passengers on public roads and drop them off wherever they please within the City of Austin, it will be a drastic advancement in the company’s self-driving story.
People have ridden in Cybercab previously: Tesla had the “We, Robot” event in October 2024, which allowed people to experience fully autonomous rides in a closed circuit at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank.
🚨 Ride in a Tesla Cybercab with us
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) May 11, 2025
Additionally, Tesla launched employee rides in Cybercab in July.
It’s a drastic step forward for Tesla, whose CEO, Elon Musk, has promised for years that the company would release a fully autonomous vehicle and platform capable of allowing drivers to relinquish any responsibility behind the wheel.
Elon Musk put a number on where he thinks SpaceX’s Starship program is headed by 2030, replying on X a day after President Trump signed a memo pushing the country toward 1,000 space launches and reentries a year.
The exchange started when Aaron Burnett, co-founder of propulsion startup Mach 33, posted that “1,000 launches/reentries is the goal,” quoting White House science adviser Michael Kratsios on the newly signed National Space Transportation Policy. Burnett noted that the FAA’s own bull-case forecast reached only 385 annual launches by 2030, while his firm’s conservative model already put SpaceX alone near 940. Musk responded, “We’re aiming to reach 30+ Starship launches/day in 2030, which is ~10k annualized. Still tiny numbers compared to airplane flights!”
We’re aiming to reach 30+ Starship launches/day in 2030, which is ~10k annualized.
Still tiny numbers compared to airplane flights!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 21, 2026
That figure is specific to Starship, the rocket SpaceX is still developing for orbital and lunar missions, not the Falcon 9 fleet that carries most of the company’s current launch volume. Starship has flown twice this year, a slower pace than the four and five flights SpaceX managed in 2024 and 2025. Getting from two flights a year to 30 a day is the scale of jump the new federal policy is meant to clear regulatory room for.
Trump’s memo, signed Thursday, directs agencies to identify new launch and reentry sites on federal land, including a new reentry site within 90 days, and to speed up the permitting and environmental reviews that have long slowed cadence growth. It also sets a goal of returning American astronauts to the moon by 2028 and placing initial lunar base elements by 2030, tying the launch buildout directly to NASA’s Artemis program.
SpaceX has already been pushing the FAA toward higher numbers on its own. The agency approved up to 44 annual Starship launches from Kennedy Space Center in February, on top of a 2024 review that raised the cap at Starbase in Texas to 25 a year. Those approvals cover a fraction of the 10,000 annual flights Musk is now describing, which shows how far current permitting still sits from the administration’s stated target.
The near-term test of all this is more modest. SpaceX cleared a full-duration, six-engine static fire on its next Starship vehicle this week, the last major hardware checkpoint before Flight 14, which is targeting no earlier than August 28 and is expected to attempt the vehicle’s first full orbital mission. Musk said last week that a tower catch of the upper stage is still probably months away, a reminder that the immediate roadmap remains far more incremental than the daily launch numbers he just posted.
Tesla will resolve its massive recall of nearly three million vehicles in China with stickers and a software update.
On Friday, Chinese regulators filed recall plans against Tesla, Xiaomi, Leapmotor, Xpeng, Chery, Geely, Dongfeng, Arcfox, and FAW to resolve what is essentially a carbon-copy issue throughout each of the companies’ vehicle models: emergency door release latches are simply not visible enough.
Tesla door handle saga gets its latest chapter and a big change is coming
The companies will be required to add things that will make these latches, which will open the door in the event of an emergency, more visible. Of the 7 million vehicles impacted, Tesla accounts for 2,975,910 units. More than 1.9 million of those are Model Y vehicles, with the rest, just over 970,000, being Model 3s.
To resolve the issue, Tesla is going to add warning labels to the emergency latches free of charge, and then utilize an Over-the-Air update to add a post-crash window-lowering strategy, according to CNEVpost.
This massive effort to fix the all-electric Model Y and Model 3’s emergency latch system comes just months after several probes across various markets identified the trouble some had identifying this latch. Those who had gotten involved in car accidents that stripped the vehicle of its power were not aware that every Tesla has emergency door latches.
China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) said that severe crashes that disable a vehicle’s low-voltage system could not only hinder occupants from getting out, but also make it more difficult for emergency response workers to gain entry.
SAMR is starting to tighten the regulations it has on door handles on vehicles. A new mandatory national standard will take effect for all models starting January 1, 2027, and will require all doors to be equipped with mechanical release mechanisms. This will effectively end purely electronic door handles. Models already on sale with type approval have been granted a two-year transition period, which will enable things to change until January 2029.
Tesla Cybercab launch gets official date in Austin with dedicated event
SpaceX and a new Trump order that could rewrite the next decade of launches
