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SpaceX Dragon delivers astronauts to space station ahead of schedule

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Crew Dragon Endurance has delivered four Crew-3 NASA and ESA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) half an hour ahead of schedule, completing the launch and ascent portion of SpaceX’s fifth astronaut launch in 18 months.

Following a flawless 9:03pm EST liftoff, Falcon 9 booster landing, and orbital insertion on Wednesday, November 10th, Crew Dragon has performed several autonomous Draco thruster burns to raise its orbit and rendezvous with the ISS. Originally expected to take 22 hours, the rookie Dragon spacecraft managed the feat in 21.5 hours, docking with the space station almost 40 minutes ahead of schedule at 6:32pm EST on Thursday, November 11th. Following the docking and what’s known as ‘soft capture,’ the station firmed up their connection by driving a number of ‘hooks’ into receptacles on Dragon.

Once a good seal and ‘hard mate’ is confirmed, Crew-3 astronauts are scheduled to open Dragon’s hatch around 60-90 minutes after docking. As is tradition, the three current ISS occupants and four new arrivals will host a welcome ceremony and make a few live comments, marking the end of the ascent, rendezvous, and docking portion of their orbital journey. Now safely aboard the ISS, Crew-3 astronauts Raja Chari, Thomas Marshburn, Kayla Barron, and Matthias Maurer have a more than six-month stay ahead of them, during which they’ll maintain the orbital outpost, perform EVAs to repair and upgrade it, conduct dozens to hundreds of science experiments, and enjoy the ethereal views.

Falcon 9 B1067 lifts off with four astronauts in tow. (Richard Angle)

Crew-3 astronauts have a number of events to look forward to later in their stay. As early as December 21st, a flight-proven Cargo Dragon 2 spacecraft is scheduled to launch and deliver several thousand kilograms of cargo to the ISS. Prior to CRS-24’s arrival, two private Japanese astronauts are on track to launch to the ISS on a Russian Soyuz rocket and spacecraft for a brief stay at the station. Coincidentally, one of those private astronauts – Yusaku Maezawa – is the same Japanese billionaire behind SpaceX’s DearMoon mission, which aims to launch a Starship carrying Maezawa and a dozen or so guests around the Moon as early as 2023.

As early as February 21st, 2022, SpaceX is also scheduled to launch Axiom Space’s Ax-1 mission, which aims to send the first all-private crew to the ISS for a week-long stay. Two months later, SpaceX will launch four new Crew-4 astronauts, freeing up Crew-3 to board their Dragon and return to Earth after half a year in orbit.

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Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

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Tesla plans to use Unreal Engine for driver visualization with crazy upgrade

This could change the way Driver Visualization looks for Tesla owners.

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Credit: Tesla Newswire | X

Tesla looks to be planning a major upgrade to its driver visualization for Autopilot with a crazy upgrade from its current version.

Tesla’s driver visualization appears on the center screen and shows the vehicle, its surroundings, and, when it is operating on Autopilot or Full Self-Driving, shows the route of travel.

It has improved over the years, and even includes things like pedestrians, pets, and the shapes of other vehicles. It also helps with manual driving because it can be a good representation of your surroundings when trying to change lanes or merge in traffic.

However, it appears Tesla is planning a pretty substantial upgrade with the

Coding found in the 2025.20 firmware by Tesla hacker greentheonly showed the company is planning to utilize Unreal Engine for Autopilot visualization. He said the one Tesla currently uses is “godot-based.”

Unreal Engine is a 3D computer graphics game engine that was developed by Epic Games, the developer of the popular third-party shooter game Fortnite. It was first released back in 1998, and the most recent version is Unreal Engine 5. The sixth version is in development, and it could be out in 2027 or 2028.

However, Tesla could use it for a more realistic representation of vehicle surroundings. It would undoubtedly improve driver visualization, creating a smoother and freer-flowing depiction of what is outside of the car.

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SpaceX is rolling out a new feature to Starlink that could be a lifesaver

Starlink now has a new Standby Mode that will enable low-speed internet access in the event of an outage.

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(Credit: Starlink | X)

SpaceX is rolling out a new feature to Starlink that could be a lifesaver in some instances, but more of a luxury for others.

Starlink is the satellite internet service that Elon Musk’s company SpaceX launched several years ago. It has been adopted by many people at their homes, many airlines on their planes, and many maritime companies on their ships.

SpaceX produces its 10 millionth Starlink kit

It has been a great way for customers to relieve themselves of the contracts and hidden fees of traditional internet service providers.

Now, Starlink is rolling out a new service feature on its units called “Standby Mode,” which is part of Pause Mode. The company notified customers of the change in an email:

“We’re reaching out to you to let you know the Pause feature on your plan has been updated. Pause now includes Standby Mode, which comes with unlimited low-speed data for $5.00 per month, perfect for backup connectivity and emergency use. These updates will take effect in 30 days. All of your other plan features remain the same. You are able to cancel your service at any time for no charge.”

SpaceX did not define how fast these “low speeds” will be. However, there are people who have tested the Standby Mode, and they reported speeds of about 500 kilobytes per second.

The mode is ideal for people who might deal with internet or power outages, but still need to have some sort of internet access.

It could also be used as a backup for people who want to stay with their ISP, but would like to have some sort of alternative in case of an outage for any reason.

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Elon Musk says this essential Tesla Robotaxi feature will be here soon

Tesla will work to solve automatic parking at available Supercharger stalls with future updates.

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Credit: Tesla

Elon Musk reiterated that one feature, which is ultimately an essential part of the operation of the Tesla Robotaxi platform, will be here soon.

Tesla released a new video of its longest Full Self-Driving demo yesterday, showing off a zero-intervention drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The drive is roughly seven hours and 360 miles long, and not a single need for the driver to touch the wheel was recorded.

Tesla flexes its most impressive and longest Full Self-Driving demo yet

There was one question that was brought up by an owner that brings up an interesting point. Tesla still needs to solve the vehicle’s ability to pull into Superchargers automatically, something that does not currently have a high success rate, at least for the owner who got a response from CEO Elon Musk.

Musk assured him that a Tesla’s ability to pull into open parking spaces at Superchargers would be more reliable with future software updates. Owners can see how many and which exact stalls are available before traveling to a Supercharger, so Teslas should be able to identify these stalls and pull in automatically:

This is a small part of what will be imperative for the charging experience when Robotaxi launches in the coming years. Tesla plans to enable customer-owned cars to potentially enter the Robotaxi fleet and become an autonomous ride-sharing vehicle by next year.

However, it still needs to figure out autonomous charging. There are two parts to that process: pulling into the spot and charging without human need to connect the Supercharger to the vehicle.

Tesla used to consider a robotic snake-arm charger for this, but it has talked about induction charging more recently. Wireless charging seems to be the route that Tesla plans to go, but it might take some time to resolve the energy loss issue and make it an efficient charging method.

Tesla flexes Robotaxi wireless charging — autonomy from top to bottom

Tesla has said its wireless charging efficiency is “well above 90 percent.”

Nevertheless, Tesla is still working toward figuring out all of the edge cases of Robotaxi operation. Figuring out charging without the need of a human is just one part of the puzzle it still has yet to solve, but with its improvements over the past few years, there’s no doubt Tesla will find the missing piece.

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