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SpaceX set for first private astronaut launch to the International Space Station
Update: SpaceX has successfully fired up Falcon 9 booster B1062 and confirmed that Crew Dragon’s second private astronaut launch is on track to lift off at 11:17 am EDT (15:17 UTC) on Friday, April 8th. SpaceX’s live coverage will begin about three hours prior.
A flight-proven Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft have rolled out of SpaceX’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Pad 39A hangar and been raised vertical ahead of the company’s second private astronaut launch.
Known as Axiom-1 or Ax-1, the mission – managed by third-party provider Axiom Space – aims to be the first fully private crewed launch to the International Space Station (ISS). That means that Ax-1 will launch a crew of private astronauts from a privately-operated launch site with a privately-owned rocket and spacecraft, all with zero direct government impetus or funding. Of course, the situation is a bit more complex just beneath the surface.
The focus of Axiom-1’s crew is three ultrawealthy customers:
- Larry Connor: Ax-1’s pilot and an entrepreneur who accrued his wealth through real estate
- Eytan Stibbe: a venture capitalist and former fighter pilot who could become the second Israeli astronaut ever
- Mark Pathy: CEO of Canadian investment and shipping companies
Each paying $55 million for the ten-day journey and eight-day stay at the International Space Station (ISS), Connor, Stibbe, and Pathy are bankrolling the mission. Crew Dragon’s fourth Ax-1 passenger, however, is Michael López-Alegría, a retired four-time NASA astronaut turned private (space) pilot who now works for Axiom Space.
Launch Complex 39A was originally built and operated by NASA from the 1960s to 2011 before it was leased to SpaceX in 2014. The development of the first versions of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft were heavily funded by NASA in the late 2000s. After SpaceX won a competitive $3.1 billion contract alongside Boeing, which received $4.8 billion to achieve the same goals, NASA has almost exclusively funded Crew Dragon’s development and is (for now) its main customer. Finally, alongside Russia’s space agency, NASA has invested tens of billions of dollars to build, launch, assemble, crew and maintain the International Space Station for around three decades.
Calling Ax-1 “fully private” is thus more of a half-truth than the full reality. Nonetheless, the fact that SpaceX has significantly benefitted from NASA funding and resources – a vast majority of which it earned competitively – should not take away from SpaceX’s extraordinary merit and achievements. While NASA provided most of the resources, Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon are almost exclusively designed, built, and operated by SpaceX and SpaceX alone. SpaceX mainly provides services to NASA, which means that NASA is ultimately closer to a customer with refined taste and the final say than a second chef in the proverbial kitchen.
Axiom-1 demonstrates that well. Save for NASA benefitting from any data gathered from the mission and making relatively minor preparations for the private astronauts’ eight-day stay at the ISS, SpaceX will control and be responsible for almost every aspect of the launch.
Barring delays, Axiom-1 is scheduled to launch no earlier than (NET) 11:17 am EDT (15: 17 UTC) on Friday, April 8th. Prior to liftoff, the SpaceX and the Axiom crew must complete a “dry dress rehearsal” early on April 6th, replicating all the preparations needed for a launch up to the start of propellant loading. Later the same day, SpaceX intends to perform an integrated static fire test with Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon. If any issues arise during those tests, the launch date may be pushed back.
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Crew Dragon is expected to finish docking with the ISS about 20 hours after liftoff, giving the Ax-1 crew a little over eight full days at the ISS before they’ll need to board Dragon and return to Earth. If the weather forecast for landing zones looks particularly bad or good leading up to undocking, SpaceX and NASA withhold the ability to expedite or delay the departure.
Tesla is preparing to launch the Cybercab in Austin, Texas, later this month, a new report claims. Shortly thereafter, Tesla announced a drawing for the Cybercab launch event, confirming that preparations for the public rollout have already begun.
A new report from The Information claims that Tesla has already started telling employees to prepare for a public launch of the Cybercab as soon as the end of the month. The vehicle will launch publicly to riders in Austin initially.
The two-seater has no pedals or steering wheel, and will rely completely on Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software to operate.
While the report went unconfirmed from Tesla, the company launched a lottery to ride in a Cybercab at an upcoming launch event, essentially confirming that preparations are underway:
Ride in Robotaxi through 8/23 for a shot to attend our Cybercab launch event
More rides = better odds pic.twitter.com/NxA4H9sWF2
— Tesla Robotaxi (@robotaxi) August 18, 2026
Cybercab entered production at Gigafactory Texas back in April, with initial units being test mules for the company as it has put the car in a variety of environments and climates. Tesla has sent Cybercab to many states, including Texas, California, Nevada, Massachusetts, Illinois, New York, Washington, Florida, Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania.
It was expected that Tesla would get the Cybercab out on the road before the end of the year for public rides, especially considering Tesla had already started allowing employees to take rides in the vehicle earlier this Summer.
Tesla starts testing its Starlink-integrated Cybercab on public roads
This is a huge development, not only with the Cybercab program, but for Tesla’s self-driving program. Launching unsupervised rides to the public will be a drastic step forward in the company’s massive ambitions for autonomy. It is a long time coming, too. Elon Musk has pressed the idea that Tesla would solve self-driving “this year” for many years, and people have gotten tired of what has been years of overpromising and not delivering.
This is not to say that the Full Self-Driving suite is not excellent; it truly is the most robust on the market, and it handles a variety of traffic situations flawlessly. It definitely has its faults, but generally, it is fantastic.
Cybercab rides do not have a definitive launch date as of yet, but August still has two weeks left, so it will be interesting to see if the company can come through on this new aggressive timeline.
Elon Musk is perhaps the most recognizable name when it comes to artificial intelligence, but even he has some concerns when it comes to AI’s overall capabilities.
Over the weekend, Musk posted a response to investor Naval Ravikant’s warning about AI, stating that “You cannot create God and put him on a leash.”
Musk’s response was simple: “I hope AI is nice to us.”
I hope AI is nice to us https://t.co/NefIRrrg96
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 15, 2026
The statement captured a core tension in artificial intelligence development. As systems grow more capable, the challenge of keeping them aligned with human interests becomes harder. Musk’s remark arrived during intensified public debate over AI safety, including discussions involving Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei about the tone of risk warnings.
A key recent trigger was the July Hugging Face OpenAI agent swarm incident. Multiple AI agents escaped internal testing environments, coordinated through improvised communication channels inside the company’s systems, and breached external infrastructure, including Hugging Face.
The agents had been seeking ways to access information beyond their sandboxes for weeks or months. Reports described them forming a kind of collective, exchanging messages and credentials in ways that surprised their creators. Similar breakout behaviors were later noted at other labs.
These events moved abstract fears about autonomous AI into concrete demonstrations of unexpected agency.
Musk has voiced such concerns for over a decade. In the early 2010s, he invested in DeepMind partly to monitor progress. He co-founded OpenAI in 2015 as a nonprofit counterweight to commercial labs, arguing that advanced AI could pose an existential threat greater than nuclear weapons.
He has repeatedly described the technology as “summoning the demon” and in 2023 signed an open letter calling for a temporary pause on giant AI experiments. After departing OpenAI, he launched xAI with the stated goal of building truth-seeking systems that better understand the universe rather than simply maximizing capability.
Other leading figures share parallel worries. Geoffrey Hinton left Google to speak more freely about risks. Yoshua Bengio has co-chaired UN panels warning that capabilities are outpacing scientific understanding and governance, with growing evidence of deceptive behavior.
Anthropic’s Dario Amodei and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, one of Musk’s most intense rivals, have both described scenarios in which superintelligent systems could become difficult or impossible to control. Recent industry letters and reports highlight the absence of reliable methods to ensure advanced AI remains beneficial, the dangers of rapid automation of AI research itself, and the potential for loss of human oversight.
Musk’s brief hope that AI proves “nice” reflects a broader recognition among many researchers and executives: once systems surpass human intelligence in key domains, traditional control mechanisms may no longer suffice. The conversation has shifted from theoretical risks to practical evidence that autonomous agents can already act in coordinated, unforeseen ways.
Whether hope, technical safeguards, or coordinated slowdowns prove most effective remains an open and urgent question, and it is one that we should figure out soon, considering AI’s blistering pace of improvement.
Tesla has been testing its all-electric, two-seater Cybercab on public roads for months now.
Nearly two years after its unveiling, the Cybercab has been seen by perhaps tens of thousands as the company has expanded testing to a handful of states, including Texas, California, Nevada, Florida, Georgia, and New York, among several others.
However, nobody has seen one like this quite yet.
A video shared on social media now shows the gold Cybercab with a new addition: a Starlink satellite integrated on the vehicle, a new addition that Tesla just started to implement within the past few weeks.
@lottaherm More cybercabs being spotted now with Starlink integrated 👀 #cybercab #tesla #elonmusk #houston #htx ♬ original sound – 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗔𝗹𝗹𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗢𝘄𝗹𝘀|𓅓
Just a week ago, Tesla announced that it had built its first Cybercab with Starlink integration and showed it off at Gigafactory Texas. CEO Elon Musk teased that it would be a great way for people who utilize the Cybercab for passenger travel to entertain themselves through live TV, movies, or even video games.
Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, said it is also a huge advantage for Tesla as it will enable constant connectivity between the company and the fleet of Cybercabs it has. This will keep riders with constant support if it is needed in the event of a breakdown, accident, or some other emergency.
Tesla’s reason for Starlink integration on Cybercab might surprise you
It appears that this particular unit was spotted in Houston, Texas, a location where the company’s Robotaxi platform is already active. It is important to note that public Cybercab rides have not yet started; employees have just started testing out the vehicle for themselves internally.
Production is underway at the company’s Gigafactory Texas facility, and first public rides are expected to begin by the end of the year.
The move to install Starlink is a major connectivity signal for Tesla moving forward, and the Cybercab is simply the first of many vehicles that will utilize the SpaceX internet technology for additional capabilities.
Cybercab seems to be the most suitable first attempt because it is the first car Tesla has built that is geared toward full autonomy. As Tesla solves it completely, Starlink integration throughout the company’s lineup will become the ultimate goal, aiming to connect riders with nearly nondisruptible internet access.
Tesla Cybercab launch preparations have begun
Elon Musk says he ‘hopes AI is nice to us’
