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SpaceX’s Cargo Dragon spacecraft nears space station with 2.5 tons of cargo
Following a successful May 4th launch atop Falcon 9, SpaceX’s latest Cargo Dragon spacecraft is just a few hours away from starting its International Space Station (ISS) berthing sequence.
Scheduled to begin around 5:30 am EDT (09:30 UTC), SpaceX operations staff will command Dragon to continue a cautious ISS approach. Several hours later, the spacecraft will be quite literally grabbed by station astronauts and gently berthed with one of the space station’s several Common Berthing Mechanism (CBM) ports. Once Cargo Dragon has been safely joined with the ISS, the station’s crew of astronauts can begin the intensive process of unpacking more than 1500 kg (3300 lb) of pressurized cargo, including dozens of time-sensitive and complex science experiments.
Aside from the 1.5 tons of cargo contained inside Dragon’s climate-controlled cabin, ISS astronauts and ground-based NASA controllers will again use the space station’s robotic Canadarm2 manipulator to extract two large unpressurized payloads from Dragon’s trunk. The ‘flagship’ instrument of CRS-17 is NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3 (OCO-3), an upgraded follow-on to OCO-2 that should dramatically improve the quantity and quality of data available on the distribution of carbon in the Earth’s atmosphere. The second trunk-stashed payload is known as STP-H6 and is carrying around half a dozen distinct experiments.
Both STP-H6 and OCO-3 will be installed on the outside of the space station with the help of Canadarm2, an extremely useful capability that limits the need for astronauts to suit up and perform risky and time-consuming EVAs (extra-vehicular activities) outside the ISS. With its trunk emptied, Cargo Dragon will eventually discard the section to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere just before the reusable capsule begins its own reentry.
Unlike several other spacecraft with service sections, both proposed, flying, or retired, SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft strive to minimize the complexity and cost of their expendable service sections. For both Cargo and Crew Dragon, the trunk serves as a structural adapter for unpressurized payloads and the Falcon-Dragon interface, hosts solar arrays and radiators, and doesn’t do much else. All propulsion, plumbing, and major avionics are kept within the capsule to maximize reusability.
Defining “slow and steady”
The process of berthing or docking with the ISS is a fundamentally cautious thing, developed by NASA, Roscosmos, and other international partners through forced and painful trial and error. In short, the road to today’s cautious procedures has been paved with countless failures and close calls over decades of space activity. For Cargo Dragon, the process involves berthing, more passive and less complex than docking. Outside of a dozen or so meters, the processes begin quite similarly. Cargo Dragon (Dragon 1) will very slowly approach the station’s several-hundred-meter keep out zone, typically no faster than a few m/s (mph).
Then follows a back-and-forth process of stop and go, in which SpaceX commands Dragon forward, halts at set locations, verifies performance and station readiness with NASA, and repeat. Once within 10 or so meters of the ISS, Dragon will begin carefully stationkeeping, essentially a version of formation flying without a hint of aerodynamic forces. ISS astronauts will then command the Canadarm2 robotic arm toward a sort of target/handle combo located on the spacecraft. The arm follows similar stop-start procedures before finally grappling Dragon, at which point the astronauts in command are legally required (/s) to quip something along the lines of “We’ve caught ourselves a Dragon!”
From start to finish, the process takes about 1.5 hours under optimal conditions. Around 2.5 hours after that, Canadarm2 will physically berth Dragon with one of several ISS berthing ports. Soon after, station astronauts can open Dragon’s hatch, snag some fresh goodies, and begin the unpacking process. CRS-17’s ISS arrival operations will be covered live on NASA TV.
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SpaceX plans to attempt what will be a defining moment in rocket reusability on Starship Flight 15.
As Elon Musk announced in a recent X post, SpaceX will attempt to catch both the Super Heavy Booster and the Starship upper stage during the upcoming orbital flight. If successful, it will mark the first time that all parts of an orbital rocket return to Earth intact, a breakthrough Musk has called essential to making life multiplanetary.
SpaceX will attempt to catch both the Super Heavy booster and Starship on the upcoming flight.
If both are successful, it will mark the first time that all parts of an orbital rocket return to Earth intact.
This is the critical breakthrough needed to make life multiplanetary.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 6, 2026
Previous flights have demonstrated the tower-catch technique with Super Heavy. SpaceX has successfully caught V1 boosters three times (on Flights 5, 7, and 8), with some even reflown. The Ship upper stage has never been caught.
Returning from orbital velocity after deploying payload makes it a significantly harder challenge due to higher energy, heat loads, and the need for precise belly-flop reentry, a flip maneuver, and a final landing burn to settle between the Mechazilla tower’s chopstick arms.
Flight 15, using Booster 22 and Ship 42 (both Block 3 vehicles), is targeted for no earlier than Friday, November 13, 2026, from Orbital Launch Pad 2 at Starbase, Texas. The 75-minute window opens at 4:45 p.m. CT, pending regulatory approval. After hot staging and separation, the booster is planned to return for a catch roughly 6 minutes and 35 seconds after liftoff.
The Ship will insert into a roughly 275 km orbit, deploy 26 advanced Starlink V3 satellites, complete about 14 orbits over more than 22 hours, and—if systems check out—perform a deorbit burn, reentry, flip, and landing burn for a tower catch at approximately T+22 hours 32 minutes.
SpaceX confirms Starship 15 launch window with massive ambitions
A simulation shown during SpaceX’s October earnings call depicted the Ship descending in a belly-flop attitude, flipping upright with a short engine burn, and being captured by the arms:
From simulation to reality
SpaceX is just ONE WEEK away from attempting its most ambitious Starship catch yet https://t.co/nHrxSX6DSz
— X Freeze (@XFreeze) November 6, 2026
Contingency splashdown zones exist in the Gulf of Mexico (booster) and Pacific (Ship) if a catch is not viable. SpaceX has stressed rigorous health checks before committing the Ship to a return-to-launch-site trajectory.
Musk has described the odds of success on this first dual-catch attempt as “more likely than not,” noting a steady stream of additional flights is already scheduled if needed. Full recovery would enable rapid inspection, refurbishment, and reflight—slashing costs and supporting the high launch cadence required for Starlink expansion, lunar missions, and eventual Mars settlement.
As Musk put it, this is “the critical breakthrough needed to make life multiplanetary.”
Tesla Cybercab is going to get some pretty substantial updates, including improvements to efficiency and a new color.
CEO Elon Musk said in a post on X on Saturday that Tesla would be working to refine the Cybercab even more, following the announcement during the week that the company would eliminate the Cybertruck lines within Giga Texas for more Cybercab manufacturing capacity.
“There are efficiency improvements coming that will allow for a 40kWh Cybercab pack,” Musk posted on X. “We will make this in liquid silver, so the colors are not too monotonous.”
There are efficiency improvements coming that will allow for a 40kWh Cybercab pack. We will make this in liquid silver, so the colors are not too monotonous.
The biggest thing most people fail to understand is that there are a very limited number of smart, dedicated people! They can only do so many things.
If we have to maintain a complex production line, supply chain and allocate engineering for Cybertruck, we can’t use those people or factory space and machinery for scaling Cybercab, which is the vehicle that will PROFOUNDLY transform the world of terrestrial transport!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 7, 2026
A new, more efficient model of the Cybercab will be engineered, which will only help Tesla’s profitability and margins, and it also boosts the argument for why the Cybertruck should be discontinued, at least from a business perspective.
The current Cybercab that operates in the Robotaxi platform in Austin, Texas, has a 48 kWh pack, and it sounds like Musk believes Tesla is on its way to introducing a version that has fewer cells but can manage the same workload thanks to engineering efficiencies.
Credit: Tesla
Musk also doubled down on the decision to prioritize Cybercab production over Cybertruck, which is a decision that has been extremely polarizing within the community, and many fans have made it abundantly clear that they are not particularly pleased with the plans.
“If we have to maintain a complex production line, supply chain, and allocate engineering for Cybertruck, we can’t use those people or factory space and machinery for scaling Cybercab, which is the vehicle that will PROFOUNDLY transform the world of terrestrial transport,” Musk said.
A good look at Tesla’s new Liquid Silver Cybercab, planned with a 40 kWh battery pack following new improvements
😍 https://t.co/IUYsUcCBMs
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) November 8, 2026
Cybercab is obviously Tesla’s path forward in an automotive sense. It seems that Tesla is less concerned about catering to the passenger vehicle market and is more prone to focus on transforming passenger transportation in a way that prioritizes autonomy. However, this requires some sacrifice on Tesla’s end, and the Cybertruck is unfortunately a victim of this.
Cybercab holds an extremely crucial part of Tesla’s future. With the company already revolutionizing passenger transportation once, this is the next phase, and Cybercab is the path forward.
News
Tesla Robotaxi app update now tells riders if Cybercab is the better choice
Tesla’s Robotaxi app now shows ETAs, wait times and availability for Cybercab and Model Y.
Tesla has rolled out a new vehicle selection screen in its Robotaxi app, and it puts the numbers riders care about most in front of them before they book.
Version 26.11.0 of the app shows the estimated arrival time, the expected wait and current availability for each vehicle option on a single screen, according to a video shared by @gheeunit on X on November 7. Riders deciding between a Cybercab and a Model Y Robotaxi can now compare those figures side by side instead of picking a car first and learning how long it will take afterward.
Tesla first gave riders that choice on September 3, the day paid Cybercab rides began in Austin. The original version of the screen listed the Cybercab, which seats two, next to the Model Y, which seats four. A later build, 26.8.2, added a seating capacity indicator so groups knew which car would fit them. What it did not show was whether choosing the Cybercab meant standing on the curb a few extra minutes.
Newest version of @robotaxi app has a new vehicle selector UI for choosing between Cybercab and Model Y and shows you the fare for both simultaneously! https://t.co/7qoDQ0vACX — mantequilla 🧈 (@gheeunit) November 7, 2026
That question matters more now than it did two months ago. Tesla had 45 Cybercabs on the Texas DMV roster when rides started. By late October the state listed 573, alongside 631 Model Ys, and community trackers logged a record 1,576 Cybercab sightings across Austin on Halloween alone. With two large fleets sharing one service area, the closest car and the quickest pickup are not always the same vehicle.
Inline availability also changes what happens when demand spikes. If no Cybercab is free nearby, the rider sees that on the selection screen rather than after trying to book one.
For now the comparison is mostly an Austin feature. Riders in Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth and the Florida markets are still matched with Model Y vehicles, though Tesla said on its third quarter earnings call that Cybercab rides would launch in Dallas this month.
The update follows a steady run of smaller changes to the rider experience. Late last month Tesla brought a quiet mode that blacks out the cabin screen to Model Y Robotaxis after first testing it in the Cybercab, and it has stretched Austin service to run from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m.
The Cybercab side of that selection screen is about to get much busier. Elon Musk said this week that Tesla will wind down Cybertruck production at Gigafactory Texas around the middle of 2027 to make room for more Cybercab output, and Tesla has said it is aiming to get Cybercabs to customers by the end of this year.
Tesla has not published official release notes for version 26.11.0.
SpaceX will perform Starship double catch attempt with Flight 15
Tesla Cybercab is set to get some massive improvements
