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SpaceX competitor ULA readies for final launch of 30-year-old Delta II rocket
Long-time SpaceX competitor United Launch Alliance (ULA) is nearly ready for the final launch of its Boeing subsidiary’s Delta II family of rockets, culminating a nearly 30-year history mostly dominated by routine success.
If completed without failure, the launch of NASA’s ICESat-2 satellite – built to track global ice-sheet variation with a huge space-based laser – will mark Delta II’s 100th consecutive success and the rocket’s 153rd fully successful launch overall, an immensely impressive and laudable achievement regardless of the vehicle’s lack of competitive advantage in the modern launch industry.
A teary farewell to Delta II this weekend, so in the run up we're going to give her a send off with a trip down memory lane per the vehicle's evolution from Thor.
Standby for a 7,000 word (yep!) feature article from William Graham on Thursday, with a ton of cool info/old photos. pic.twitter.com/g43PS6kHcr
— NSF – NASASpaceflight.com (@NASASpaceflight) September 13, 2018
Shockingly tiny when compared with modern launch vehicles like Delta IV, Atlas V, and Falcon 9, Delta II measures roughly 39 meters (~128 ft) tall, 2.4 meters (8 ft) in diameter, and weighs 160 metric tons (~350,000 lb) when fully fueled, just over half as tall and significantly less than 30% as heavy as SpaceX’s Falcon 9.
Contracted by NASA in 2013, Delta II’s ICESat-2 launch cost the agency roughly $97 million (2013 USD), although the cost of launch has shrunk in relation to the satellite, which suffered at least $200 million of overruns and 12+ months of delays due to difficulties developing the spacecraft’s impressive space-based LIDAR system. For comparison, NASA contracted a Falcon 9 launch (for the TESS exoplanet observatory, launched in April 2018) from SpaceX for $87 million in 2016, while the USAF has secured several launch contracts with SpaceX for far more complex GPS satellite launches at a cost of almost exactly $97 million apiece.
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- The final Delta II rocket is awaiting its last launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base this Saturday. (NASA/Randy Beaudoin)
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- A Delta II Heavy rocket seen launching NASA’s THEMIS satellite in 2007. (NASA)
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- Falcon 9 Block 5 booster B1049 returned to Port Canaveral today, ~60 hours after launch. Falcon 9 is dramatically cheaper than the aging Delta II. (Tom Cross)
Aging rockets, changing markets
Put simply, the contrast in capabilities offered for equivalent prices soundly demonstrates exactly why Delta II is being phased out. Although capable of better performance with a third upper stage and nine much larger solid rocket boosters (SRBs), that ‘Heavy’ variant of Delta II cost NASA an incredible $150 million per launch in 2009. For the versions of Delta II closer to $100 million per launch, the rocket is able to place 2500-3200 kg (5500-7000 lb) in low Earth orbit and not much at all to any higher energy destinations, which demand a third stage or a heavier rocket. At a comparable price (or much lower in SpaceX’s case), Atlas V and Falcon 9 are able to launch far larger payloads to far higher orbits.
This was by no means the case when Delta II debuted in 1989, and the McDonnell Douglas-built rocket readily earned its impressive reputation as a relatively reliable, capable, and (more or less) affordable launch vehicle compared alongside other rockets available in the ’90s. Delta II wound up as a ULA rocket (sort of) thanks to Boeing and McDonnell Douglas’ 1997 corporate merger, followed in 2006 by Lockheed Martin and Boeing’s cooperative formation of the United Launch Alliance. ULA thus operates Delta II, Delta IV, and Atlas V, all featuring multiple variants and very few distinguishing capabilities when compared amongst themselves.
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- Delta II is trucked to the launch pad ahead prior to launch. (NASA)
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- The business end of Delta II. (ULA)
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- ULA technicians install one of four solid rocket boosters on ICESat-2’s Delta II launch vehicle. (NASA)
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- ULA technicians install one of four solid rocket boosters on ICESat-2’s Delta II launch vehicle. (NASA)
The cost of maintaining all those highly duplicative rockets and unique factories and engineering expertise is fundamentally unnatural and reliant upon some sort of noncompetitive market forces (i.e. launch monopolies assured through “block buys” of multiple rockets from NASA and the US military), forces that have been mortally challenged by SpaceX’s reintroduction of competition to the American launch industry.
ICESat-2 is scheduled to launch on Delta II on Saturday, September 15th at 5:46 AM PDT/12:46 UTC. Stay tuned for more information on ICESat-2’s giant space LIDAR payload and mission goals, as well as Teslarati photographer Pauline Acalin’s photos of the fairly historic rocket launch.
For prompt updates, on-the-ground perspectives, and unique glimpses of SpaceX’s rocket recovery fleet check out our brand new LaunchPad and LandingZone newsletters!
Tesla has initiated Cybertruck deliveries in a new region for the first time, as the all-electric pickup has officially made its way to the United Arab Emirates, marking the newest territory to receive the polarizing truck.
Tesla launched orders for the Cybertruck in the Middle East back in September 2025, just months after the company confirmed that it planned to launch the pickup in the region, which happened in April.
I took a Tesla Cybertruck weekend Demo Drive – Here’s what I learned
By early October, Tesla launched the Cybertruck configurator in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, with pricing starting at around AED 404,900, or about $110,000 for the Dual Motor configuration.
This decision positioned the Gulf states as key early international markets, and Tesla was hoping to get the Cybertruck outside of North America for the first time, as it has still been tough to launch in other popular EV markets, like Europe and Asia.
By late 2025, Tesla had pushed delivery timelines slightly and aimed for an early 2026 delivery launch in the Middle East. The first official customer deliveries started this month, and a notable handover event occurred in Dubai’s Al Marmoom desert area, featuring a light and fire show.
Around 63 Cybertrucks made their way to customers during the event:
First @cybertruck deliveries in the UAE 🇦🇪 pic.twitter.com/sN2rAxppUA
— Tesla Europe & Middle East (@teslaeurope) January 22, 2026
As of this month, the Cybertruck still remains available for configuration on Tesla’s websites for the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other Middle Eastern countries like Jordan and Israel. Deliveries are rolling out progressively, with the UAE leading as the first to see hands-on customer events.
In other markets, most notably Europe, there are still plenty of regulatory hurdles that Tesla is hoping to work through, but they may never be resolved. The issues come from the unique design features that conflict with the European Union’s (EU) stringent safety standards.
These standards include pedestrian protection regulations, which require vehicles to minimize injury risks in collisions. However, the Cybertruck features sharp edges and an ultra-hard stainless steel exoskeleton, and its rigid structure is seen as non-compliant with the EU’s list of preferred designs.
The vehicle’s gross weight is also above the 3.5-tonne threshold for standard vehicles, which has prompted Tesla to consider a more compact design. However, the company’s focus on autonomy and Robotaxi has likely pushed that out of the realm of possibility.
For now, Tesla will work with the governments that want it to succeed in their region, and the Middle East has been a great partner to the company with the launch of the Cybertruck.
Tesla has officially launched public Robotaxi rides in Austin, Texas, without a Safety Monitor in the vehicle, marking the first time the company has removed anyone from the vehicle other than the rider.
The Safety Monitor has been present in Tesla Robotaxis in Austin since its launch last June, maintaining safety for passengers and other vehicles, and was placed in the passenger’s seat.
Tesla planned to remove the Safety Monitor at the end of 2025, but it was not quite ready to do so. Now, in January, riders are officially reporting that they are able to hail a ride from a Model Y Robotaxi without anyone in the vehicle:
I am in a robotaxi without safety monitor pic.twitter.com/fzHu385oIb
— TSLA99T (@Tsla99T) January 22, 2026
Tesla started testing this internally late last year and had several employees show that they were riding in the vehicle without anyone else there to intervene in case of an emergency.
Tesla has now expanded that program to the public. It is not active in the entire fleet, but there are a “few unsupervised vehicles mixed in with the broader robotaxi fleet with safety monitors,” Ashok Elluswamy said:
Robotaxi rides without any safety monitors are now publicly available in Austin.
Starting with a few unsupervised vehicles mixed in with the broader robotaxi fleet with safety monitors, and the ratio will increase over time. https://t.co/ShMpZjefwB
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) January 22, 2026
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
The Robotaxi program also operates in the California Bay Area, where the fleet is much larger, but Safety Monitors are placed in the driver’s seat and utilize Full Self-Driving, so it is essentially the same as an Uber driver using a Tesla with FSD.
In Austin, the removal of Safety Monitors marks a substantial achievement for Tesla moving forward. Now that it has enough confidence to remove Safety Monitors from Robotaxis altogether, there are nearly unlimited options for the company in terms of expansion.
While it is hoping to launch the ride-hailing service in more cities across the U.S. this year, this is a much larger development than expansion, at least for now, as it is the first time it is performing driverless rides in Robotaxi anywhere in the world for the public to enjoy.
Tesla has scheduled its Earnings Call for Q4 and Full Year 2025 for next Wednesday, January 28, at 5:30 p.m. EST, and investors are already preparing to get some answers from executives regarding a wide variety of topics.
The company accepts several questions from retail investors through the platform Say, which then allows shareholders to vote on the best questions.
Tesla does not answer anything regarding future product releases, but they are willing to shed light on current timelines, progress of certain projects, and other plans.
There are five questions that range over a variety of topics, including SpaceX, Full Self-Driving, Robotaxi, and Optimus, which are currently in the lead to be asked and potentially answered by Elon Musk and other Tesla executives:
- You once said: Loyalty deserves loyalty. Will long-term Tesla shareholders still be prioritized if SpaceX does an IPO?
- Our Take – With a lot of speculation regarding an incoming SpaceX IPO, Tesla investors, especially long-term ones, should be able to benefit from an early opportunity to purchase shares. This has been discussed endlessly over the past year, and we must be getting close to it.
- When is FSD going to be 100% unsupervised?
- Our Take – Musk said today that this is essentially a solved problem, and it could be available in the U.S. by the end of this year.
- What is the current bottleneck to increase Robotaxi deployment & personal use unsupervised FSD? The safety/performance of the most recent models or people to monitor robots, robotaxis, in-car, or remotely? Or something else?
- Our Take – The bottleneck seems to be based on data, which Musk said Tesla needs 10 billion miles of data to achieve unsupervised FSD. Once that happens, regulatory issues will be what hold things up from moving forward.
- Regarding Optimus, could you share the current number of units deployed in Tesla factories and actively performing production tasks? What specific roles or operations are they handling, and how has their integration impacted factory efficiency or output?
- Our Take – Optimus is going to have a larger role in factories moving forward, and later this year, they will have larger responsibilities.
- Can you please tie purchased FSD to our owner accounts vs. locked to the car? This will help us enjoy it in any Tesla we drive/buy and reward us for hanging in so long, some of us since 2017.
- Our Take – This is a good one and should get us some additional information on the FSD transfer plans and Subscription-only model that Tesla will adopt soon.
Tesla will have its Earnings Call on Wednesday, January 28.
Tesla begins Cybertruck deliveries in a new region for the first time
BREAKING: Tesla launches public Robotaxi rides in Austin with no Safety Monitor
