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SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft photobombed in orbit by solar eclipse
On December 26th, SpaceX’s second-to-last Cargo Dragon spacecraft was photobombed in orbit by the shadow cast on Earth by a solar eclipse, likely a little over a week before the vehicle is set to reenter the atmosphere and splash down in the Pacific Ocean.
Cargo Dragon lifted off atop a rare new Falcon 9 booster – B1059 – on December 5th, carrying around 2600 kg (5800 lb) of cargo inside on the flight-proven capsules third launch into Earth orbit. After a quick three-day journey from its parking orbit to the International Space Station (ISS), Dragon was successfully captured by the station’s astronauts with a robotic arm and berthed to the orbital outpost, where the crew quickly unloaded its cargo of food, consumables, science, and equipment.
Shortly after liftoff, Falcon 9 B1059 completed its first successful landing – a bit of a surprise ordeal aboard drone ship Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY) – and the relatively gentle reentry and trajectory should mean that the booster can be turned around almost immediately for its next launch. B1059 is thus a prime candidate for reuse on a future NASA mission and could very well support Cargo Dragon’s next space station resupply mission (CRS-20) as early as March 2020.
For a number of reasons, the spacecraft’s recent success is a touch bittersweet.
Notably, CRS-19 is the second to last orbital mission scheduled for SpaceX’s original Dragon spacecraft, which debuted in orbit in December 2010, becoming the first commercial spacecraft to successfully reenter and be recovered intact. Less than a year and a half later, Cargo Dragon became the world’s first commercial spacecraft to successful rendezvous and berth with the International Space Station (ISS).
The rest, as they say, is history. Five months later, SpaceX launched Cargo Dragon’s first official mission under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program, known as CRS-1. Aside from a June 2015 launch vehicle failure that prevented Cargo Dragon from reaching orbit on its CRS-7 mission, SpaceX has successfully completed every resupply mission that managed to reach orbit, delivering more than 43 metric tons (95,000 lb) of supplies to the space station and the astronauts aboard it.
There have been several technical challenges over the years but every Cargo Dragon that reached orbit successfully completed its space station resupply mission and was recovered intact from the ocean surface after reentering Earth’s atmosphere. SpaceX has matured and improved almost every aspect of the spacecraft over the nine years it’s been flying, substantially upgrading its PICA-X heat shield, improving navigation sensors, upgrading its reusability, testing Crew Dragon and Starship hardware, and more.
Cargo Dragon has without a doubt been one of SpaceX’s biggest successes, combining with the company’s exceptionally capable and affordable Falcon 9 rocket to enable reliable cargo resupply missions, while also continuing to be the only way that NASA (or anyone alse) can return substantial non-human payloads back to Earth. Thankfully, although the spacecraft’s exceptional track record is set to come to an end after its next launch, the Cargo Dragon lineage will continue to supply the space station in the form of a modified version of Crew Dragon (i.e. Dragon 2).
On December 26th, SpaceX’s CRS-19 Cargo Dragon – attached to the International Space Station (ISS) – was photobombed by the shadow produced on Earth’s surface by an annular solar eclipse. With any luck, the spacecraft’s first upgraded successor will take over and begin orbital resupply launches as early as August 2020, setting SpaceX up for at least another four or so years of Dragon launches.
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Tesla FSD’s newest model is coming, and it sounds like ‘the last big piece of the puzzle’
“There’s a model that’s an order of magnitude larger that will be deployed in January or February 2026.”
Tesla Full Self-Driving’s newest model is coming very soon, and from what it sounds like, it could be “the last big piece of the puzzle,” as CEO Elon Musk said in late November.
During the xAI Hackathon on Tuesday, Musk was available for a Q&A session, where he revealed some details about Robotaxi and Tesla’s plans for removing Robotaxi Safety Monitors, and some information on a future FSD model.
While he said Full Self-Driving’s unsupervised capability is “pretty much solved,” and confirmed it will remove Safety Monitors in the next three weeks, questions about the company’s ability to give this FSD version to current owners came to mind.
Musk said a new FSD model is coming in about a month or two that will be an order-of-magnitude larger and will include more reasoning and reinforcement learning.
He said:
“There’s a model that’s an order of magnitude larger that will be deployed in January or February 2026. We’re gonna add a lot of reasoning and RL (reinforcement learning). To get to serious scale, Tesla will probably need to build a giant chip fab. To have a few hundred gigawatts of AI chips per year, I don’t see that capability coming online fast enough, so we will probably have to build a fab.”
NEWS: Elon Musk says FSD Unsupervised is “pretty much solved at this point” and that @Tesla will be launching Robotaxis with no safety monitors in about 3 weeks in Austin, Texas. He also teased a new FSD model is coming in about 1-2 months.
“We’re just going through validation… https://t.co/Msne72cgMB pic.twitter.com/i3wfKX3Z0r
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) December 10, 2025
It rings back to late November when Musk said that v14.3 “is where the last big piece of the puzzle finally lands.”
With the advancements made through Full Self-Driving v14 and v14.2, there seems to be a greater confidence in solving self-driving completely. Musk has also personally said that driver monitoring has been more relaxed, and looking at your phone won’t prompt as many alerts in the latest v14.2.1.
This is another indication that Tesla is getting closer to allowing people to take their eyes off the road completely.
Along with the Robotaxi program’s success, there is evidence that Tesla could be close to solving FSD. However, it is not perfect. We’ve had our own complaints with FSD, and although we feel it is the best ADAS on the market, it is not, in its current form, able to perform everything needed on roads.
But it is close.
That’s why there is some legitimate belief that Tesla could be releasing a version capable of no supervision in the coming months.
All we can say is, we’ll see.
Investor's Corner
SpaceX IPO is coming, CEO Elon Musk confirms
However, it appears Musk is ready for SpaceX to go public, as Ars Technica Senior Space Editor Eric Berger wrote an op-ed that indicated he thought SpaceX would go public soon. Musk replied, basically confirming it.
Elon Musk confirmed through a post on X that a SpaceX initial public offering (IPO) is on the way after hinting at it several times earlier this year.
It also comes one day after Bloomberg reported that SpaceX was aiming for a valuation of $1.5 trillion, adding that it wanted to raise $30 billion.
Musk has been transparent for most of the year that he wanted to try to figure out a way to get Tesla shareholders to invest in SpaceX, giving them access to the stock.
He has also recognized the issues of having a public stock, like litigation exposure, quarterly reporting pressures, and other inconveniences.
However, it appears Musk is ready for SpaceX to go public, as Ars Technica Senior Space Editor Eric Berger wrote an op-ed that indicated he thought SpaceX would go public soon.
Musk replied, basically confirming it:
As usual, Eric is accurate
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 10, 2025
Berger believes the IPO would help support the need for $30 billion or more in capital needed to fund AI integration projects, such as space-based data centers and lunar satellite factories. Musk confirmed recently that SpaceX “will be doing” data centers in orbit.
AI appears to be a “key part” of SpaceX getting to Musk, Berger also wrote. When writing about whether or not Optimus is a viable project and product for the company, he says that none of that matters. Musk thinks it is, and that’s all that matters.
It seems like Musk has certainly mulled something this big for a very long time, and the idea of taking SpaceX public is not just likely; it is necessary for the company to get to Mars.
The details of when SpaceX will finally hit that public status are not known. Many of the reports that came out over the past few days indicate it would happen in 2026, so sooner rather than later.
But there are a lot of things on Musk’s plate early next year, especially with Cybercab production, the potential launch of Unsupervised Full Self-Driving, and the Roadster unveiling, all planned for Q1.
Tesla has added the 15th automaker to the growing list of companies whose EVs can utilize the Supercharger Network this year, as BMW is the latest company to gain access to the largest charging infrastructure in the world.
BMW became the 15th company in 2025 to gain Tesla Supercharger access, after the company confirmed to its EV owners that they could use any of the more than 25,000 Supercharging stalls in North America.
Welcome @BMW owners.
Download the Tesla app to charge → https://t.co/vnu0NHA7Ab
— Tesla Charging (@TeslaCharging) December 10, 2025
Newer BMW all-electric cars, like the i4, i5, i7, and iX, are able to utilize Tesla’s V3 and V4 Superchargers. These are the exact model years, via the BMW Blog:
- i4: 2022-2026 model years
- i5: 2024-2025 model years
- 2026 i5 (eDrive40 and xDrive40) after software update in Spring 2026
- i7: 2023-2026 model years
- iX: 2022-2025 model years
- 2026 iX (all versions) after software update in Spring 2026
With the expansion of the companies that gained access in 2025 to the Tesla Supercharger Network, a vast majority of non-Tesla EVs are able to use the charging stalls to gain range in their cars.
So far in 2025, Tesla has enabled Supercharger access to:
- Audi
- BMW
- Genesis
- Honda
- Hyundai
- Jaguar Land Rover
- Kia
- Lucid
- Mercedes-Benz
- Nissan
- Polestar
- Subaru
- Toyota
- Volkswagen
- Volvo
Drivers with BMW EVs who wish to charge at Tesla Superchargers must use an NACS-to-CCS1 adapter. In Q2 2026, BMW plans to release its official adapter, but there are third-party options available in the meantime.
They will also have to use the Tesla App to enable Supercharging access to determine rates and availability. It is a relatively seamless process.
Tesla FSD’s newest model is coming, and it sounds like ‘the last big piece of the puzzle’
SpaceX IPO is coming, CEO Elon Musk confirms
