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SpaceX may have signed a fairing agreement with ULA supplier RUAG (Update: no agreement)
According to unverified and speculative comments reportedly made to a member of the space industry by a RUAG spokesperson, the prominent aerospace supplier may have reached an agreement with SpaceX to manufacture a handful of larger payload fairings for future Falcon 9 and Heavy launches.
In the likely event that SpaceX is one of two contractors awarded a portion of several dozen US military launch contracts next year, the company will need to be able to cater to niche requirements, including accommodating unusually tall military satellites. Those satellites can be so tall that SpaceX’s own payload fairing – generally middle-of-the-pack relative to competitors’ offerings – may be too short, meaning that SpaceX will have to find ways around that minor shortcoming.
Update: Tim Chen has retracted his earlier comments and has stated that there is actually no agreement currently in place with SpaceX for RUAG to produce taller fairings out of its new Decatur, AL factory.
Additionally, ULA CEO Tory Bruno clarified that the company’s “[new fairing] has [ULA] intellectual property in its design and manufacture … [and] is currently planned only for use on Atlas and Vulcan”, meaning that any cooperation between SpaceX and RUAG would likely require a new production facility and a somewhat different fairing design.
“ULA’s new fairing, which is built in our factory in Decatur, has our intellectual property in its design and manufacture. This fairing is currently planned only for use on Atlas and Vulcan. You would want to ask RUAG about business they might have with their other customers.”
Tory Bruno, August 14th, 2019
Regardless of the veracity of these recent claims, it appears that SpaceX has three obvious responses at its disposal: design and build an entirely new variant of its universal Falcon fairing, purchase the necessary fairings from an established supplier, or bow out of launch contract competitions that demand it. The latter option is immediately untenable given that it could very well mean bowing out of the entire US military competition, known as Phase 2 of the National Security Space Launch program’s (NSSL; formerly EELV) Launch Services Procurement (LSP).
For dubious reasons, the US Air Force (USAF) has structured the NSSL Phase 2 acquisition in such a way that – despite there being four possible competitors – only two will be awarded contracts at its conclusion. The roughly ~30 launch contracts up for grabs would be split 60:40 between the two victors, leaving two competitors completely emptyhanded. In short, bowing out of the Phase 2 competition could mean forgoing as many as one or two-dozen contracts worth at least $1-2B, depending on the side of the 60:40 split.
According to a handful of recent comments and developments, SpaceX has likely sided with the option of procuring taller fairings from an industry supplier. As it turns out, European company RUAG has effectively cornered the Western rocket fairing market, with SpaceX being the only Western launch company currently building its own fairings. RUAG builds fairings for both Arianespace’s Ariane 5 and Vega rockets and ULA’s Atlas V. Additionally, RUAG will build and supply fairings for both companies’ next-gen rockets – Arianespace’s Ariane 6 and ULA’s Vulcan – and builds fairings for a number of smallsat launch companies.
Comments made in June by a RUAG official confirmed that there was some semblance of a relationship between SpaceX and RUAG for the purpose of satisfying USAF needs for taller fairings, although the phrasing suggested that the cooperation was in its early stages and nothing had been solidified.
“In a June 12 letter to Smith, the company’s CEO Peter Guggenbach makes the case that legislation forcing access to suppliers is unnecessary in this case because RUAG does not have an exclusive arrangement with ULA and is willing to work with SpaceX or any other launch providers.
“For this competition, we are in the process of submitting or have submitted proposals to multiple prime contractors regarding launch vehicle fairings. In those agreements, we share technical data to support a prime contractor’s bid while protecting our intellectual property.”
RUAG vice president Karl Jensen told SpaceNews the company has a “significant partnership” with ULA but is looking to work with others too. “We have an offer to SpaceX,” he said. “We don’t know if they’ll accept it.”
SpaceNews, 06/13/2019
Interestingly, although ULA’s RUAG-built Atlas V fairing is slightly narrower than SpaceX’s 5.2m (17 ft) diameter fairing, Atlas V’s largest fairing is significantly taller, supporting payloads up to 16.5m (54 ft) tall compared to 11m (36 ft) for Falcon 9 and Heavy. Given that just a tiny portion of military spacecraft actually need fairings that tall, SpaceX is apparently not interested in simply modifying its own fairing design and production equipment to support a 20-30% stretch.
This likely relates in part to the fact that one of SpaceX’s three NSSL Phase 2 competitors – Northrop Grumman (Omega), Blue Origin (New Glenn), and ULA (Vulcan) – are guaranteed to receive hundreds of millions of dollars of development funding after winning one of the two available slots (60% or 40% of contracts). SpaceX, on the other hand, will receive no such funding while still having to meet the same stringent USAF requirements compete in LSP Phase 2. Of note, Congressman Adam Smith managed to insert a clause into FY2020’s defense authorization bill that could disburse up to $500M to SpaceX in the event that the company is one of Phase 2’s two winners.
Despite this potential influx of infrastructure-focused funds, SpaceX may still be pursuing taller Falcon fairings from RUAG as a backup in the event that the company is not one of the two Phase 2 winners or is unable to use some of the $500M secured by Rep. Smith to develop its own stretched fairing.
On August 12th, SpaceX – along with Blue Origin, ULA, and NGIS – submitted bids for NSSL Phase 2 launch services, confirming that all four companies will indeed be in the running for contracts. The USAF is not expected to announce the results of this competition until Q2 2020.
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Tesla Cybercabs take over Austin’s F1 weekend
Tesla Cybercabs swarmed Austin’s F1 Grand Prix as sightings hit a record during race weekend.
Tesla’s driverless Cybercabs used the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix in Austin as their biggest public stress test yet. On Sunday afternoon, Tesla head of AI software Ashok Elluswamy quoted a photo from X user Ben Steindl showing a long line of gold Cybercabs and Model Y Robotaxis stacked up on a road near Circuit of the Americas. “Robotaxis as far as the eye can see!” Elluswamy wrote. Steindl’s original post was more matter of fact: “@Tesla @robotaxi is busy for the Austin F1.”
The fleet also handled the trip home. The race started at 3 p.m. Central, and once it ended, Cybercab Spotter, an account that logs Cybercab sightings around Austin, posted that “People are requesting Cybercabs to get home.”
Robotaxis as far as the eye can see! 🤩
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) October 25, 2026
Tesla set this up days in advance without announcing it. Late on October 22, rider David Moss posted Robotaxi app screenshots showing the Austin service area wrapping around the track toward Elroy and FM 812, with ride requests open until 1 a.m. A banner in the app read “Last call is 1am · Limited to nearby dropoffs.” Austin rides ended at 11 p.m. as recently as early October, as Teslarati reported, before moving to midnight on October 17.
Not every rider got dropped at the gate. Early app searches showed spots like COTA Karting as “Service blocked,” and one rider who took a Cybercab to the track Friday said the rideshare area was less than a 20 minute walk from the front gate.
The weekend also produced a new activity record. Cybercab Spotter counted 1,250 Cybercab sightings in Austin on Saturday, qualifying day. The previous high was 1,072 on October 16. Sightings count the same car more than once, so they measure how busy the fleet is rather than how big it is. For size, the Texas automated vehicle registry listed 463 Cybercabs at midday Sunday, up from the 300+ Tesla claimed on October 10, when Elluswamy also said Dallas is next for Cybercab.
The track was out of reach for Tesla’s main rival. Waymo runs in Austin only through Uber, and its service area stops well short of COTA. Waymo did not announce any race day service.
Tesla has not said how many rides it gave to and from the circuit, or whether the expanded zone and 1 a.m. cutoff will stay after race weekend. On the third quarter earnings call, Elluswamy said 2 a.m. service is coming “pretty soon” and that Tesla plans to run Robotaxi around the clock before the end of the year. The company is also aiming to hand the first Cybercabs to customers before 2026 ends, which would put cars like these outside Tesla’s own fleet for the first time.
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Tesla makes good on its Cybercab promise in just two weeks
Tesla Cybercab riders can now pull up a rear camera view and darken the screen.
Tesla has given Cybercab passengers a way to see what is behind them, along with a way to turn the cabin screen off entirely.
Riders in Austin can now bring up a live rearview camera feed on the Cybercab’s center display in the middle of a trip. Austin rider Ethan McKanna spotted the change late Friday night, posting from a ride that “You can now open the camera to view what’s behind you in Cybercab!” His photo shows a strip of rear camera video across the top of the screen, with another Cybercab following on a bridge. Sawyer Merritt shared the image Saturday and wrote that it “sounds like” there is also a new quiet mode that darkens the entire screen for riders who want to relax, sleep, or avoid a bright display at night.
The camera view goes beyond the rear feed. Tesla UI software engineer Evan, who posts as @CarCoder, replied to McKanna with a tip: “You can also tap it to see more cameras, and swipe it up or down to hide and show.” Until now, the Cybercab only showed its rear and repeater feeds on the “Please Exit Safely” screen at the end of a ride, so passengers could check for cyclists and traffic before opening a door.
Quiet mode surfaced a day earlier. Austin rider Jackson Blatz posted a video Friday morning of the new Robotaxi interface in a Cybercab with the option. Tesla has not published release notes for either feature.
The rear camera view moved quickly from request to release. Earlier this month, Cybercab rider Dan Burkland asked Tesla to let passengers pull up the rear and repeater cameras whenever they want, “especially for peace of mind.” Evan answered “In development,” as Teslarati reported at the time. About two weeks later, riders have it.
The feature fills a gap created by the Cybercab’s design. With no steering wheel, no pedals, no mirrors and no rear window, a passenger has no natural way to glance behind the car. The eight exterior cameras that feed Tesla’s autonomy software were already on board, so the change only required software.
There is also an AI angle to how it was built. Yun-Ta Tsai, a senior staff engineer on Tesla’s AI team, quoted Merritt’s post and wrote that the “(human) camera view tuning is optimized with Grok and implements part of the algorithm by directly programming the fixed-function hardware, so I don’t even need to check the datasheet.” Tsai did not say which part of the algorithm Grok handled. Grok already plays a bigger role inside the vehicle, with Grok Bot now enabled across every Cybercab and the Model Y Robotaxi fleet after Tesla brought the agent into its cars in September.
The two features join a busy week of changes for riders in Austin, which also brought a redesigned Live Activity for iPhone and Apple Watch and live trip sharing. They also arrive as Tesla prepares the Cybercab for life outside its own fleet. On the third quarter earnings call, Lars Moravy said the company is aiming to deliver Cybercabs to customers before the end of 2026. Tesla has not said whether the camera view and quiet mode will also come to its Model Y Robotaxis.
Elon Musk
Tesla shows what Roadster drivers will see on screen before thruster activation
Tesla’s Roadster video reveals a fighter jet inspired cockpit with a 5,500 PSI thruster gauge.
Tesla has given future owners their clearest look yet at the cockpit of its next generation Roadster. In a 34 second video posted to X on Friday afternoon, the company walked through the car’s touchscreen with a caption: “Inspired by fighter jet cockpits, Roadster’s interface was designed around the pilot.”
The clip opens on a black screen with red graphics and a 3D wireframe of the car, which sits beside the Roadster’s squared off yoke. Tapping parts of the model brings up controls for the rear wing, including low drag and high downforce positions, along with a charging page with a charge limit bar and a small music player. A row of tabs along the bottom reads Home, Vehicle, Listen, Climate and Navigate.
Most of the video is spent in Track Mode. The dashboard shows a live circuit map, a list of session lap times, brake and motor temperatures, and pressure and temperature readouts for each tire. A setup page lets the driver pick Auto, Low Drag, High Downforce or Custom aero modes, adjust aero balance and brake balance, and switch stability and traction control off. Along the bottom, a status bar reads “Thruster · 5,500 PSI” next to a “Boost Ready” indicator.
That gauge ties the software to the hardware Tesla showed off near Waco, Texas on October 15. The Thrust and Rocket versions use cold gas thrusters fed by carbon overwrapped pressure vessels, and Tesla lists 0 to 60 mph times of under 0.9 seconds and under 0.59 seconds for them, as Teslarati detailed in its breakdown of the three Roadster configurations. The base Performance car relies on a fan and ground sealing system for grip, and the aero settings on screen match the active wings and suction setup covered in our look at how the Roadster generates downforce.
The Roadster layout is a departure from the rest of Tesla’s lineup. Instead of a map centered screen, the Roadster puts the car itself at the center of the home page, and Tesla’s Roadster page lists two smaller forward displays alongside the main touchscreen. Tesla has not said whether any of the Track Mode telemetry will make its way to the Model 3 Performance or other vehicles.
The interface could still change before deliveries. Elon Musk said at the event that Roadster production will begin in 2028, and Tesla says the flagship Rocket version is not approved for public road use. Reservations are open with a $50,000 payment, while Thrust is listed as a limited release and Rocket is invite only.
Those who want to see the car in person will get their first chance this weekend. The Roadster goes on display in the lobby of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles from October 24 to 27, according to Sawyer Merritt, the first time the public will be able to view it up close.
Tesla Cybercabs take over Austin’s F1 weekend
Tesla makes good on its Cybercab promise in just two weeks
