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SpaceX competitor Blue Origin completes first suborbital launch in 10 months
Prospective SpaceX competitor Blue Origin has completed a suborbital launch of its reusable New Shepard rocket for the first time in 10 months.
Originally designed to help usher in a new wave of space tourism as early as 2017, the tourist launch debut of the New Shepard rocket – alongside fellow tourism company Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo – appears destined to forever be “a couple flights” away.
Essentially the same diameter as SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, New Shepard measures ~3.6m (~12 ft) wide, ~15m (~50 ft) tall, and likely weighs around 35 metric tons (~75,000 lb) at liftoff. The small rocket booster is powered by one liquid hydrogen and oxygen (hydrolox) BE-3 engine capable of producing ~500 kN (110,000 lbf) of thrust and is designed for what Blue Origin calls “operational reuse”.
In practice, Blue Origin has only built four New Shepards in ~6 years and has never flown the same booster twice in less than ~60 days, despite an effectively blank-check budget from owner Jeff Bezos since the company’s founding in 2000.
It’s truly difficult to fathom why, if New Shepard is capable of semi-rapid reuse, Blue Origin has only launched the small rocket an average of once every six months in the last four years. If the company genuinely wants to routinely launch space tourists above the Karman Line (100 km), actually demonstrating safety with as many consecutively successful launches as possible is a no-brainer given an effectively unlimited budget and schedule.
Put a different way, Blue Origin was technically founded two years before SpaceX. In the 6-7 years since Bezos’ space startup began building the first New Shepard, the company has built just four vehicles total, one of which was destroyed when it failed its first landing attempt. In that same timeframe, SpaceX has built ~50 Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy boosters and completed 83 successful launches, only one of which was intentional suborbital.
In the ten months it has taken Blue Origin to complete two suborbital launches of the same New Shepard 3 booster, SpaceX has completed 18 Falcon 9 launches, orbited more than 600 self-built Starlink satellites, become the first private company in history to launch astronauts into orbit, shipped the first upgraded Cargo Dragon spacecraft to Florida, landed a booster after a satellite launch for the US military, beat NASA’s Space Shuttle to make Falcon 9 the world’s most rapidly reusable rocket, completed six orbital-class launches with the same Falcon booster, performed two successful Starship hop tests, crushed a decades-old world record with a Raptor engine, and much, much more.
While Blue Origin is technically working on New Glenn – a massive orbital-class reusable rocket with performance similar to Falcon Heavy – and the powerful BE-4 engine, mean to power both New Glenn and ULA’s new Vulcan rocket, both appear to be in the throes of technical difficulties and delays. During Blue Origin’s official New Shepard Flight 13 (NS-13) webcast, the company didn’t mention either program once.
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Tesla avoids California sales suspension after DMV review
The agency confirmed Tuesday that Tesla has taken “corrective action.”
Tesla will not face a 30-day sales suspension in California after the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) stated that the company has come into compliance regarding the marketing of its automated-driving features.
The agency confirmed Tuesday that Tesla has taken “corrective action” following a prior ruling over how it promoted Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD), as noted in a Bloomberg News report.
The California DMV had previously given Tesla 90 days to address concerns that were raised by an administrative judge. Regulators had alleged that Tesla overstated the capabilities of its driver-assist systems, which were branded as Autopilot and Full Self-Driving.
A potential 30-day suspension of vehicle sales in California was on the table if Tesla had failed to comply. On Tuesday, however, the DMV stated that Tesla had met the requirements to avoid that penalty, though it did not provide detailed specifics about the changes that were made.
That being said, Tesla did discontinue its standalone Autopilot product in January and has ramped the marketing of its most advanced driver-assistance package available to consumers today, Full Self Driving (Supervised). From its naming, FSD (Supervised) clearly emphasizes that the system, despite its advanced features, still requires driver attention.
Following reports of a potential sales ban in California, Tesla clarified the matter on X, stating that the issue “was a ‘consumer protection’ order about the use of the term ‘Autopilot’ in a case where not one single customer came forward to say there’s a problem.” Tesla also noted that “Sales in California will continue uninterrupted.”
Tesla has not issued a comment about the matter as of writing.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk confirms Tesla Cybercab pricing and consumer release date
Elon Musk has confirmed that Tesla does intend to sell a version of the Cybercab for less than $30,000 by 2027.
Elon Musk has confirmed that Tesla does intend to sell a version of the Cybercab for less than $30,000 by 2027. He shared the update in a post on social media platform X.
Amidst Tesla’s announcement that the first Cybercab has been produced at Giga Texas’ production line, some members of the Tesla community immediately started joking about how the milestone will affect a wager shared by popular YouTube tech reviewer Marques Brownlee (MKBHD.)
Following Tesla’s We, Robot event in October 2024, MKBHD noted that while the Cybercab was impressive in a lot of ways, he is very skeptical about Elon Musk’s estimate that the autonomous two-seater could be sold to consumers for below $30,000 around 2027.
“I think the obvious red flag, the biggest red flag to me is the timeline stuff. This is notorious Elon stuff. He gets on stage, he says we’re going to have this vehicle out for $30,000 before 2027,” he said, adding “No, they’re not. There’s just no way that they’re actually going to be able to do that. I mean, if they do, let’s say they do, I will shave my head on camera because I’m that confident.”
It was then no surprise that meme images of MKBHD with his head shaved immediately spread on X following Tesla’s announcement that the first Cybercab has been built at Giga Texas. One of these, which was posted by longtime FSD tester Whole Mars Catalog, received a response from Elon Musk. The CEO responded with the words “Gonna happen,” together with a laughing emoji.
Apart from riding jokes about MKBHD’s wager, Musk also confirmed that Tesla will be selling a Cybercab to regular consumers before 2027, and the vehicle will be priced for $30,000 or less. In response to an X user who asked if the exact scenario will be happening, Musk responded with a simple “Yes.”
While the first Cybercab has been produced at Giga Texas, it would not be surprising if the following months will only see low volumes of the autonomous two seater being produced. As per Elon Musk in previous comments, the Cybercab’s early production will likely be slow, but it will eventually be extremely fast. “For Cybercab and Optimus, almost everything is new, so the early production rate will be agonizingly slow, but eventually end up being insanely fast,” he said.
Elon Musk
First Tesla Cybercab rolls off Giga Texas production line
Tesla’s official account on X shared an image showing employees gathered around the first Cybercab built at Gigafactory Texas.
Tesla has produced the first Tesla Cybercab at Texas Gigafactory, marking a key milestone ahead of the planned autonomous two-seater’s production in April. The two-seat Robotaxi, which was unveiled in 2024, is designed without pedals or a steering wheel and represents Tesla’s most aggressive step yet toward fully autonomous mobility.
Tesla’s official account on X shared an image showing employees gathered around the first Cybercab built at Gigafactory Texas. Elon Musk echoed the milestone, writing, “Congratulations to the Tesla team on making the first production Cybercab!”
Previous comments from Musk on X reiterated the idea that production of the Cybercab “starts in April.” The vehicle will launch without traditional driver controls, and it will rely entirely on Tesla’s vision-based Full Self-Driving (FSD) system.
The Cybercab is positioned to compete with autonomous services such as Waymo. While Tesla has deployed Model Y vehicles in limited Robotaxi operations in Austin and the Bay Area, a serious ramp of the service to other cities across the United States is yet to be implemented. The production of the Cybercab could then be seen as a push towards the company’s autonomy plans.
Musk has linked the Cybercab to Tesla’s proposed “Unboxed” manufacturing process, which would assemble large vehicle modules separately before integrating them, rather than following a traditional production line. The approach is intended to cut costs, reduce factory footprint, and speed up output.
That being said, Elon Musk has set expectations for the Cybercab’s production ramp. As per Musk, it would likely take some time before meaningful volumes of the Cybercab are produced because it is such a new and different vehicle. But when the vehicle hits its pace, volumes will be notable.
“Initial production is always very slow and follows an S-curve. The speed of production ramp is inversely proportionate to how many new parts and steps there are. For Cybercab and Optimus, almost everything is new, so the early production rate will be agonizingly slow, but eventually end up being insanely fast,” Musk noted.
Tesla avoids California sales suspension after DMV review
Elon Musk confirms Tesla Cybercab pricing and consumer release date
