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SpaceX launches astronauts on flight-proven rocket and capsule in spaceflight first

SpaceX has aced its third astronaut launch and second operational Crew Dragon mission. (SpaceX)

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For the first time in history, SpaceX has sent astronauts into space inside a reused Crew Dragon space capsule with the help of a flight-proven Falcon 9 rocket booster, kicking off a new era of flight-proven human spaceflight.

Aside from NASA’s Space Shuttle, whose orbiter and solid rocket boosters were routinely refurbished for three decades, no other crewed spacecraft or rocket in the history of spaceflight has launched astronauts more than once. SpaceX, a private company, aims to change that and become the second entity of any kind to reuse a crewed spacecraft or rocket. Even more significantly, a successful launch would make Crew Dragon the first space capsule – and Falcon 9 the first liquid rocket – of any kind to be reused on an astronaut launch.

After high winds and seas hundreds or thousands of miles downrange scrubbed a Thursday, April 22nd attempt, weather cooperated on Friday, permitting a flawless liftoff at 5:49 am EDT (09:49 UTC). Excluding nature, the mission has been a flawless technical success from well before launch to well after liftoff, continuing to demonstrate SpaceX’s extraordinary expertise and the refined nature of Falcon 9 and Dragon.

A flight-proven SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft carried four astronauts into orbit – and into sunlight – early on Friday. (Richard Angle)

Now safely in orbit, Crew Dragon “Endeavor” (capsule C206) and astronauts Akihiko Hoshide, Thomas Pesquet, Shane Kimbrough, and Megan McArthur have a ~23-hour free-flight ahead of them as their SpaceX spacecraft autonomously works to rendezvous with the International Space Station (ISS). That rendezvous will require five major burns of Draco maneuvering thrusters, the first of which was completed around 40 minutes after reaching orbit.

Barring surprises, Crew Dragon C206 is scheduled to dock with the ISS for the second time no earlier than (NET) 5:10 am EDT (09:10 UTC) on Saturday, April 24th. If successful, the Crew-2 Dragon will join SpaceX’s Crew-1 Dragon at a docking port just a handful of meters away, marking the first time that two Crew Dragons have been simultaneously docked at the ISS.

A bit less than five months ago, the first upgraded Cargo Dragon 2 spacecraft – an uncrewed version of Crew Dragon – joined the same Crew-1 Dragon in orbit and at the ISS, marking a significant first for SpaceX. As the company itself made clear at the time, that milestone was expected to kick off a virtually uninterrupted one to two years of Dragon operations in space, meaning that every additional Crew or Cargo Dragon launch would make for two Dragons in orbit. Crew-2 is the second of those guaranteed dual-Dragon occurrences since Crew-1 launched and docked with the ISS in November 2020.

Pending an equally successful rendezvous with the ISS, Friday’s flawless Crew-2 launch means that the Crew-1 Dragon and astronauts Shannon Walker, Soichi Noguchi, Mike Hopkins, and Victor remain on schedule to depart the ISS and return to Earth on April 28th after six months in orbit. SpaceX’s next Dragon mission – Cargo Dragon 2’s second flight, CRS-22 – is scheduled to launch no earlier than (NET) June 3rd, 2021.

Falcon 9’s upper stage engine plume catches orbital dawn before sunlight reaches the Florida coast. (Richard Angle)

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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Tesla Cybercab gets a for sale date at last

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla Cybercab units finally got a definitive date for when they will be able to be purchased by consumers, ending speculation regarding whether the fully autonomous vehicle would be available in the near term.

During Tesla’s third-quarter 2026 earnings call on October 21, Vice President of Engineering Lars Moravy said the company is aiming to begin delivering its purpose-built Cybercab robotaxi to customers before year-end.

“We’re trying to get Cybercabs to customers by the end of this year, 2026,” Moravy said. He added that production is underway on the line at Gigafactory Texas, but “all of those are currently going to our own internal Robotaxi fleet.”

Moravy explained that as operations scale, Tesla will “mainly deliver fully designed autonomous vehicles to our customers,” with the Cybercab as the first such vehicle. Initial customer deliveries will start small while the company gains experience with delivery logistics, ownership models, fleet management, and operating autonomous vehicles outside its direct control.

CEO Elon Musk reinforced the limited nature of private sales, describing the Cybercab primarily as a “transport-as-a-service” offering rather than a personal ownership vehicle like the Model 3, Model Y, or upcoming Roadster. “The vast majority of the Cybercab stuff will be Tesla-owned and transport-as-a-service,” Musk said.

The Cybercab is a two-seater vehicle developed by Tesla without a steering wheel or pedals. It relies completely on Tesla’s Full Self-Driving suite and has been in production since February. Early units have been put in Tesla’s Robotaxi service as of early September, when the company launched rides to the public. Tesla previously indicated it would aim to sell Cybercabs for about $30,000.

Unsupervised Full Self-Driving is expected to ship to consumer cars during Q2 2027, Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s Head of AI, indicated during the call. Early buyers or fleet operators may receive vehicles whose autonomous operation remains geographically restricted due to lagging regulatory agencies. There are some hurdles that remain ahead of Cybercab deliveries.

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Elon Musk

Tesla Q3 2026 Earnings results: in-line revenues, slight beat on EPS

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Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) reported its earnings for the third quarter of 2026, marking a reasonable performance on the various financial metrics. Tesla still plans to hold a call that will field investor questions at 5:30 p.m. ET, 4:30 p.m. CT.

Here’s where Earnings came in:

  • Total Revenues: $28.046 reported vs. $28.34B expected
  • Non-GAAP EPS: $0.48 reported vs. $0.45 expected
  • Operating Margin: 2.6 % reported vs. 2.5% expected
  • Operating Income: $718M reported vs. $721M expected
  • Free Cash Flow: $1.531B reported vs. ~-$4.51B expected

Major Takeaways

Full Self-Driving (Supervised)

“FSD (Supervised)⁴ attach rate continued to grow, reaching over 75% of new vehicle deliveries in North America – our most mature market – a nearly twenty percentage point sequential increase. We believe that FSD is driving demand in markets where it is available, and we continue to work with regulators to get it approved in other markets.”

Tesla Semi

“We began volume production of Tesla Semi, our Class 8 heavy-duty truck. The top variant can go 500 miles at full 82,000 lbs gross combination weight while achieving an efficiency of 1.7 kWh/mile. That efficiency allows the Tesla Semi to use a third of the energy used by a comparable diesel truck to haul the same payload. In a transportation market where energy is one of the largest components of total cost per mile, this will provide a meaningful advantage to Tesla Semi operators.”

SI Compute

“We plan to reach 400 MW of SI training compute by the end of the year, supporting the development of both vehicle and humanoid robot autonomy software. Additionally, we continued construction for the Austin Fab, where we plan to start commissioning equipment in 2027.”

Robotaxi

“We began deployment of Cybercab into our Robotaxi fleet in Austin. We reached nearly two million cumulative unsupervised miles for our Robotaxi service as of the end of the quarter. Operating hours in Austin are now 6am to midnight, and we expect to reduce wait times via increased fleet supply and improvement of Robotaxi orchestration algorithms. Grok is available in Cybercab with access to Grok Bot and Connectors, which allows users to manage their inbox, calendars, files, chats and tasks – all hands free via voice command – making Cybercab a mode of transport, a productivity space and, with our entertainment options, a second living room.”

Interested in ordering a Tesla? Use my referral code for three free months of Full Self-Driving (Supervised) here.

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Investor's Corner

Tesla reports Q3 Earnings today: here’s what to expect

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Credit: TechOperator | X

Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) reports its earnings for Q3 today. Here’s what to expect, as the company will reveal its balance sheet after the market closes on Wednesday.

Tesla already reported deliveries just after Q3 ended, and it demolished Wall Street consensus estimates of roughly 462,000 vehicles. Tesla delivered 486,532 cars in the third quarter, which was a big beat, but was down 2.1 percent from the same quarter last year. Energy storage deployments were 13.7 GWh, up year-over-year.

Tesla showrooms picked clean ahead of Q3 end as demand looks strong

For the quarter, analysts have already compiled their predictions for what Tesla will report this afternoon:

  • Total Revenues: $28.34B
  • Non-GAAP EPS: $0.43
  • Operating Margin: 2.5%
  • Operating Income: $721M
  • Free Cash Flow: ~-$4.51B

Here are a few things we are looking forward to hearing about on the call:

Automotive Gross Margin and Overall Profitability

This was 16.3 percent in Q2, down from 19.2 percent in Q1, and was impacted by warranty charges and some fading regulatory credits. Consensus implies overall gross margin near 18 percent, but a miss here would potentially reinforce concerns about pricing pressure on its vehicles.

Pay attention to energy storage margins as well, especially since Tesla missed GWh expectations, although it was still a strong quarter.

Robotaxi/Cybercab, Unsupervised FSD, and Optimus Progress

The Say questions from retail investors usually focus on these types of projects, and this quarter is no different. Scaling the Cybercab fleet beyond Austin amid the open NHTSA safety review, timeline for Unsupervised FSD in customer cars, Robotaxi unit economics, and Optimus cost per unit plus when it could start generating revenue, are all things to be looking for.

Any concrete timelines or regulatory path details will likely move the stock more than the near-term numbers. SpaceX merger speculation, which was detailed during SpaceX’s earnings call last night, may also surface, although the key details were shared last night.

Elon Musk just confirmed the Tesla and SpaceX merger step everyone was waiting for

Say Investor Questions

  1. How does the Cybercab fleet scale past Austin, and what’s the regulatory path outside Texas given NHTSA’s open safety review?
  2. When can we anticipate FSD unsupervised in customer cars?
  3. When will the CyberCab be available for customer purchase/ownership?
  4. What’s the unit economics per paid robotaxi mile, and how does it compare to the thirty-cent target?
  5. Tesla has acknowledged that HW3 vehicles cannot support unsupervised FSD. When will owners know whether they can upgrade their hardware for free, and when will Tesla provide a clear plan?

The full Earnings Call will be streamed this evening after market close around 5 p.m. this evening.

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