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SpaceX Dragon returns private astronauts to Earth after an extra week in space
Update: A SpaceX Crew Dragon has finally returned Axiom Space’s first crew of four private astronauts to Earth after recovery delays ultimately gave the passengers and extra six days in space, boosting their total trip duration from 10-12 days to 17 days.
In the process, capsule C206 (Endeavour) became the first Crew Dragon to successfully transport astronauts to the International Space Station and back to Earth three times. SpaceX and NASA have already certified each Crew Dragon capsule for five flights – a number that will likely need to expanded within just a year or two. SpaceX is currently scheduled to launch Crew-4 no earlier than (NET) April 27th, Axiom-2 NET Q3 2022, Crew-5 NET October 2022, and Polaris Dawn NET late 2022.
Following extensive weather delays, a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft has undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) after carrying the first all-private astronaut mission to the orbital outpost.
That private mission – known as Axiom-1 – was originally supposed to head to the ISS in February and, later, late March. For unspecified reasons, apparent issues with processing or Dragon/Falcon refurbishment ultimately pushed Ax-1’s launch to April 8th. Initially, the crew of four astronauts – one former NASA astronaut turned Axiom pilot and three wealthy paying customers – were scheduled to spend around ten days in space and eight days aboard the ISS. At some point before liftoff, that was updated to 12 days in space and 10 days aboard the station.
Shortly before liftoff, NASA’s official schedule had Axiom-1’s undocking and space station departure penciled in for April 19th. On April 19th, NASA, SpaceX, and Axiom decided to waive off the first departure attempt due to weather issues that were apparently impacting all seven of Crew Dragon’s nominal recovery zones – four in the Gulf of Mexico and three in the Atlantic Ocean. On April 20th, the next undocking attempt was pushed to no earlier than April 23rd. On April 23rd, the teams yet again called off the departure.
Finally, at 9:10 pm EDT on April 24th, the heavens apparently aligned and the Axiom-1 crew was able to board Crew Dragon, undock from the ISS, and begin their ~15-hour trip back to Earth. Until splashdown (NET 1pm EDT, April 25th), however, SpaceX and NASA will still be unable to settle with any confidence on a firm launch date for their Crew-4 NASA and ESA astronaut transport mission. Originally scheduled for April 15th, Axiom-1’s delays have pushed the Crew-4 launch to no earlier than (NET) 3:52 am EDT (07:52 UTC) on April 27th – nearly two weeks behind schedule.
Thankfully, that should be no problem for the ISS or Crew-3. Crew Dragon is currently certified to spend up to 210 days in orbit, and NASA had already planned for Crew-3 to return before even the usual six-month stint aboard the space station, so Crew-4 could have slipped well into early June 2022 without much of a problem. Nonetheless, NASA still plans to inspect the Axiom-1 Crew Dragon and analyze all data gathered from the mission to ensure nothing was amiss before giving SpaceX the green light to launch Crew-4.
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Due to the current proximity of Axiom-1’s splashdown and Crew-4’s launch, even a minor delay or issue during the post-flight review would likely push Crew-4 to April 28th. With any luck, though, Axiom-1’s recovery and data review will be close to perfect and allow Crew-4 to finally get off the ground on the 27th.
Simultaneously, SpaceX is preparing to launch another batch of Starlink satellites as early as April 29th. If both missions avoid delays, Starlink 4-16 will be the company’s sixth launch in April and 17th launch this year.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that flying cars will be coming to the market, something that his own company has hinted at previously.
Musk said on X, in response to a post that read, “We were promised flying cars and all we got is infinite superintelligence for everyone,” “You will get flying cars.”
You will get flying cars
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2026
The post rang back to when Musk teased flying and hovering capabilities for the Tesla Roadster, the company’s supercar that has been delayed more times than anyone cares to count. It was set for an unveiling earlier this year, but it was then pushed back to August. There is still no sign of it coming.
However, that does not mean it won’t. But one of the biggest features of the Roadster that was teased was a SpaceX package that featured cold gas thrusters on the rear end that would help with white-knuckle acceleration. Another set would face the ground and would help the Roadster gain small bits of altitude, potentially helpful to jump over obstacles.
Elon Musk hints at Tesla Roadster’s “hovering” abilities in SpaceX package
But it is not a straightforward thing for Musk. As a serial entrepreneur, he tends to spend his time on major disruptors; currently, his largest projects are artificial intelligence and compute power, as well as SpaceX’s launches that will eventually make life multiplanetary.
In the past, he has been critical of flying cars and has been in favor of tunnels, one of the big reasons he started the Boring Company. In 2017 at a TED talk, he said:
“There is a challenge with flying cars in that they’ll be quite noisy. The wind force generated will be very high. Let’s just say that if something’s flying over your head, if there are a whole bunch of flying cars all over the place, that is not an anxiety-reducing situation…You’re thinking, ‘Did they service their hubcap? Or is it going to come off and guillotine me as they’re flying past?'”
However, he’s never been against them. He has also said he’s in favor of both tunnels and flying cars.
Contrary to press reports, I’m not against flying cars. Just said it was important to consider both pros and cons.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 24, 2015
Most recently, Musk said that anyone who wants a flying car should be able to get one. This was stated last October on the Joe Rogan Experience:
“My friend Peter Thiel once reflected that the future was supposed to have flying cars, but we don’t have flying cars… I think if Peter wants a flying car, we should be able to buy one.”
Whether the Roadster will be Tesla’s flying car or potentially another one remains in the mind of Musk. Of course, the Roadster will have to make its way to production lines before we find out.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s next trillion dollar bet has nothing to do with rockets, Musk tells staff
Elon Musk told SpaceX staff AI revenue will soon dwarf rockets and Starlink combined entirely.
Elon Musk told SpaceX employees this week that artificial intelligence, not rockets, will soon carry the company’s revenue. In a roughly 29 minute internal address posted on SpaceX’s X account on Tuesday, Musk said AI revenue will pass every other line of business at SpaceX “probably in September” and pull further ahead by the fourth quarter.
The numbers he gave are specific. SpaceX currently runs 1.4 gigawatts of AI compute capacity. Musk wants that at 10 gigawatts by the end of 2027, a jump he tied directly to revenue: “if we bring 10GW of AI online by the end of next year, it will be $300 billion to $500 billion a year in revenue.” He called those “big numbers,” which undersells a projection larger than what most countries produce in a year.
We made rockets reusable and are rebuilding the internet in space. The next challenge: making life multiplanetary and understanding the true nature of the universe
Watch @ElonMusk deliver a company update to @SpaceX employees pic.twitter.com/5c8rxoCQfu
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 11, 2026
Musk went further on where AI fits into SpaceX’s future. “Probably in four or five years, AI will be 99% of the value of SpaceX,” he told staff, adding that digital intelligence would eventually run “a trillion times” ahead of biological intelligence as computing scales. He tied that growth to the company’s founding mission, telling employees “we must win on AI, because the future is overwhelmingly AI and robots,” with the payoff meant to help fund Starship and a Mars program that increasingly runs through Terafab, the joint Tesla, SpaceX and xAI chip plant.
Elon Musk launches TERAFAB: The $25B Tesla-SpaceXAI chip factory that will rewire the AI industry
None of this is entirely new territory. SpaceX told investors much the same story during its first earnings call as a public company on August 4, where Musk moved the company’s $1 trillion revenue target up a year to 2030 and said Starlink could someday carry a majority of the world’s internet. What the all hands video adds is a hard deadline and a specific power figure Musk had not given publicly before, along with a franker pitch to his own workforce that AI, not launch cadence, is now the thing SpaceX is betting its future on.
The AI revenue itself is not coming from SpaceX training its own models. It is largely Starlink acting as the network layer for xAI’s workloads, plus SpaceX renting out compute capacity directly, the same approach behind the roughly $16 billion the company spent on AI infrastructure in a single quarter.
Musk closed the video with a pitch aimed at recruiting and retention rather than investors, telling employees that anyone who helps SpaceX win the AI race will eventually get the chance to go to the moon or Mars themselves. Whether SpaceX can turn 1.4 gigawatts into 10 in seventeen months is the more immediate question, and one that will show up in quarterly numbers well before anyone leaves Earth.
In a new note to investors on Tuesday, Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Percoco said that Tesla has one big financial question to answer for investors regarding its Robotaxi rollout, Full Self-Driving software, and Optimus.
Percoco said in the note that, for the most part, investors are still very positive about the direction the company is headed. However, there are some things the firm would like to see, and they have to do with financials.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla bulls are more than convinced that the company’s Full Self-Driving software is proof it can develop physical AI. Financially, however, there are still some questions, especially on elevated spending, which CEO Elon Musk said would occur as the company works to roll out Robotaxi faster and continue developing its Optimus robot.
The latter two are where Tesla will have to prove progress to investors, as Percoco writes that both projects “will require clearer evidence that Robotaxi is scaling and more tangible Optimus proof points to support the ROI on elevated capex.”
Percoco said the second quarter earnings call did not change his long-term thesis of where Tesla is positioned in the AI race, which is out in front. However, there are concerns that weaker gross margins and higher R&D spend will stress financials, and that has “sharpened our (and investors’) focus on measurable progress across Robotaxi and Optimus.”
Additionally, Robotaxi still needs to be proven with more operation in existing cities while maintaining safety but improving how many rides it gives in any given time, he said. For Optimus, Percoco wrote that he is “still looking for evidence beyond commentary around SOP.”
Morgan Stanley put Percoco in charge of covering Tesla after long-time analyst Adam Jonas transitioned to the automotive side.
Currently, Morgan Stanley has a $415 price target on Tesla and a ‘Hold’ rating on the stock. It is trading at around $330 at the time of publication, which was 2:30 P.M. on the East Coast.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk says flying cars are coming
SpaceX’s next trillion dollar bet has nothing to do with rockets, Musk tells staff
