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SpaceX Cargo Dragon spacecraft returns to Earth after second trip to orbit
A SpaceX Cargo Dragon spacecraft has safely returned to Earth after a month in orbit, completing the company’s 24th successful cargo delivery to the International Space Station (ISS).
Launched on December 21st, 2021, the CRS-24 mission’s Dragon spacecraft docked with the ISS on December 22nd, delivering almost 3 tons (~6600 lb) of cargo to the station and raising the total amount of cargo delivered in 2021 to about 8.5 tons (18,500 lb) – about 40% of all cargo delivered in 2021. After 32 days at the station, Cargo Dragon C209 undocked from the ISS on January 23rd, 2022 and reentered Earth’s atmosphere about 30 hours later, ultimately splashing down off of Florida’s Gulf Coast with 2.2 tons (~4900 lb) of cargo aboard.
Incredibly, just shy of a decade after Cargo Dragon’s first Space Station cargo delivery, SpaceX’s Dragon remains the only spacecraft on Earth capable of returning a significant amount of cargo to Earth. Without it, Europe, Russia, the United States, and dozens of companies would have no way to reliably return large quantities of broken hardware, science experiments, samples, or any number of other cargo items to Earth.
That will only change once the Sierra Nevada Corporation’s (SNC) uncrewed Dream Chaser spaceplane finally begins launching under NASA’s second round of Commercial Resupply Services (CRS2) contracts. When SNC won its CRS2 contract in mid-2016, it had hoped to prepare Dream Chaser for its first demonstration launch sometime between October 2019 and April 2020. Five and a half years later, it looks increasingly likely that Dream Chaser won’t be ready for its first launch until 2023. Worse, the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan Centaur rocket SNC has tied Dream Chaser to continues to run into delay after delay. Dream Chaser’s first launch will be Vulcan’s second and, as of January 2022, it’s no longer clear if Vulcan will be ready to launch once – let alone twice – this year.
SpaceX says Cargo Dragon 2 is designed to deliver up to 6 tons to the ISS and return up to 3 tons to Earth. SNC says Dream Chaser will be able to deliver up to 5.5 tons and return an unspecified amount. More importantly, though, Dream Chaser will use a larger berthing port and have substantially more space and volume to store its cargo, likely making it far easier for SNC to actually take full advantage of its theoretical performance. Because of its limited volume, Dragon 2 has never launched with even 60% as much cargo as it’s theoretically capable of carrying. For NASA, the more a spacecraft’s performance can be exploited, the cheaper a given cargo delivery effectively becomes.
Due to SNC’s Dream Chaser delays, it’s likely that Dragon will remain the only spacecraft in the world capable of routinely returning a significant amount of cargo to Earth for at least another 9-18 months and 2-4 more cargo launches. Cargo Dragon 2’s next launch – CRS-25 – is scheduled no earlier than (NET) May 2022.
Tesla has expanded its branded ‘For Business’ Supercharger program that it launched last year, as yet another company is using the platform to attract EV owners to its business and utilize a unique advertising opportunity.
Francis Energy of Oklahoma is launching four Superchargers in Norman, where the University of Oklahoma is located. The Superchargers, which are fitted with branding for Francis Energy, will officially open tomorrow.
It will not be the final Supercharger location that Francis Energy plans to open, the company confirmed to EVWire.
Back in early September, Tesla launched the new “Supercharger for Business” program in an effort to give businesses the ability to offer EV charging at custom rates. It would give their businesses visibility and would also cater to employees or customers.
“Purchase and install Superchargers at your business,” Tesla wrote on a page on its website for the new program. “Superchargers are compatible with all electric vehicles, bringing EV drivers to your business by offering convenient, reliable charging.”
The first site opened in Land O’ Lakes, Florida, which is Northeast of Tampa, as a company called Suncoast launched the Superchargers for local EV owners.
Tesla launches its new branded Supercharger for Business with first active station
The program also does a great job at expanding infrastructure for EV owners, which is something that needs to be done to encourage more people to purchase Teslas and other electric cars.
Francis Energy operates at least 14 EV charging locations in Oklahoma, spanning from Durant to Oklahoma City and nearly everywhere in between. Filings from the company, listed by Supercharge.info, show the company’s plans to convert some of them to Tesla Superchargers, potentially utilizing the new Supercharger for Business program to advertise.
Moving forward, more companies will likely utilize Tesla’s Supercharger for Business program as it presents major advantages in a variety of ways, especially with advertising and creating a place for EV drivers to gain range in their cars.
Tesla Cybercab is perhaps the most highly-anticipated project that the company plans to roll out this year, and as it is undergoing its testing phase in pre-production currently, there are some things to work through with it.
Over the weekend, an image of the Cybercab being loaded onto a tow truck started circulating on the internet, and people began to speculate as to what the issue could be.
Hmmmmmm… https://t.co/L5hWcOXQkb pic.twitter.com/OJBDyHNTMj
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) January 11, 2026
The Cybercab can clearly be seen with a Police Officer and perhaps the tow truck driver by its side, being loaded onto, or even potentially unloaded from, the truck.
However, it seems unlikely it was being offloaded, as its operation would get it to this point for testing to begin with.
It appears, at first glance, that it needs assistance getting back to wherever it came from; likely Gigafactory Texas or potentially a Bay Area facility.
The Cybercab was also spotted in Buffalo, New York, last week, potentially undergoing cold-weather testing, but it doesn’t appear that’s where this incident took place.
It is important to remember that the Cybercab is currently undergoing some rigorous testing scenarios, which include range tests and routine public road operation. These things help Tesla assess any potential issue the vehicle could run into after it starts routine production and heads to customers, or for the Robotaxi platform operation.
This is not a one-off issue, either. Tesla had some instances with the Semi where it was seen broken down on the side of a highway three years ago. The all-electric Semi has gone on to be successful in its early pilot program, as companies like Frito-Lay and PepsiCo. have had very positive remarks.
The Cybercab’s future is bright, and it is important to note that no vehicle model has ever gone its full life without a breakdown. It happens, it’s a car.
Nevertheless, it is important to note that there has been no official word on what happened with this particular Cybercab unit, but it is crucial to remember that this is the pre-production testing phase, and these things are more constructive than anything.
Tesla analyst Andrew Percoco of Morgan Stanley teased the company’s dominance in its self-driving initiative, stating that its lead over competitors is “not even close.”
Percoco recently overtook coverage of Tesla stock from Adam Jonas, who had covered the company at Morgan Stanley for years. Percoco is handling Tesla now that Jonas is covering embodied AI stocks and no longer automotive.
His first move after grabbing coverage was to adjust the price target from $410 to $425, as well as the rating from ‘Overweight’ to ‘Equal Weight.’
Percoco’s new note regarding Tesla highlights the company’s extensive lead in self-driving and autonomy projects, something that it has plenty of competition in, but has established its prowess over the past few years.
He writes:
“It’s not even close. Tesla continues to lead in autonomous driving, even as Nvidia rolls out new technology aimed at helping other automakers build driverless systems.”
Percoco’s main point regarding Tesla’s advantage is the company’s ability to collect large amounts of training data through its massive fleet, as millions of cars are driving throughout the world and gathering millions of miles of vehicle behavior on the road.
This is the main point that Percoco makes regarding Tesla’s lead in the entire autonomy sector: data is King, and Tesla has the most of it.
One big story that has hit the news over the past week is that of NVIDIA and its own self-driving suite, called Alpamayo. NVIDIA launched this open-source AI program last week, but it differs from Tesla’s in a significant fashion, especially from a hardware perspective, as it plans to use a combination of LiDAR, Radar, and Vision (Cameras) to operate.
Percoco said that NVIDIA’s announcement does not impact Morgan Stanley’s long-term opinions on Tesla and its strength or prowess in self-driving.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang commends Tesla’s Elon Musk for early belief
And, for what it’s worth, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang even said some remarkable things about Tesla following the launch of Alpamayo:
“I think the Tesla stack is the most advanced autonomous vehicle stack in the world. I’m fairly certain they were already using end-to-end AI. Whether their AI did reasoning or not is somewhat secondary to that first part.”
Percoco reiterated both the $425 price target and the ‘Equal Weight’ rating on Tesla shares.
Tesla expands its branded ‘For Business’ Superchargers
Tesla Cybercab ‘breakdown’ image likely is not what it seems
