News
SpaceX, NASA schedule back-to-back astronaut recovery and launch after delays
Poor winter weather on Florida’s East Coast and across the Atlantic Ocean has forced NASA and SpaceX to flip the nominal sequence of events for the imminent back-to-back launch and recovery of two Crew Dragons.
Contrary to preference, SpaceX and NASA’s four Crew-2 astronauts are now scheduled to undock from the International Space Station (ISS) and return to Earth before their replacements (Crew-3) launch to the station. As a result, there will be no on-orbit handoff, meaning that only one NASA astronaut – Mark Vande Hei – will be left alongside cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov to crew and operate the US segment of the ISS until Crew-3’s arrival.
After several delays from an initial October 30th target, Crew-3 astronauts Raja Chari, Thomas Marshburn, Matthias Maurer, and Kayla Barron are scheduled to ride Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon to orbit no earlier than (NET) 9:03pm EST, Wednesday, November 10th (02:03 UTC 13 Nov) – two days after Crew-2 is expected to splash down.
Save for a one-day delay from October 30th to October 31st needed to give SpaceX and NASA time to qualify a fixed plumbing leak for crewed spaceflight, all subsequent delays into November have been caused by poor weather – a rather common late fall and winter occurrence in the Atlantic Ocean and southern US. The weather isn’t entirely to blame, though. Crew Dragon, SpaceX, and NASA are also partly responsible due to the extremely strict and narrow range of weather conditions the spacecraft has been certified to operate in.
Worse, a large portion of Dragon’s weather constraints are for hypothetical abort scenarios rather than the nominal launch – not “is it safe to launch?” but “is it safe to launch if something fails catastrophically and Dragon aborts and has to splash down anywhere in a several-dozen-mile corridor stretching the entire length of the Atlantic?” In the case of Crew-3’s launch, the main condition making that vast abort zone a no-go for launch is surface winds.
While aborting an expensive, time-sensitive rocket launch due to ground winds might bring to mind some kind of storm with vast swells and torrential rain, the reality is that NASA has only rated Crew Dragon to splash down when surface winds are less than 8-11 mph (13-18 km/h). In other words, the conditions causing 10+ days of delays and leading NASA to leave a skeleton crew at the space station’s US segment amounts to a firm breeze. There are likely many reasons (most hopefully good) for that highly conservative limit but ultimately, it means that NASA’s Crew Dragon missions will almost always be at risk of weather delays both going up and coming down.
As if to emphasize that fact, winds in the Gulf of Mexico, on the opposite side of Florida, also caused NASA to delay SpaceX’s Crew-2 departure and splashdown from November 6th/7th to November 8th, raising the risk of more Crew-3 delays or another complex schedule conflict if conditions force another change. A minor issue with Dragon’s toilet discovered during Inspiration4 and fixed on Crew-3’s ride to space will preclude its use during Crew-2’s 11-hour trip home, but that change should be barely noticeable to professional astronauts that are required to wear diapers as a precaution regardless. Otherwise, throughout the delays, Falcon 9 B1067, Crew-3 Dragon C210, and Crew-2 Dragon C206 have all thankfully remained healthy and ready to go.
Crew-2 is scheduled to undock from the ISS around 2pm EST (17:00 UTC) on November 8th and could splash down as early as 10:33 pm (03:33 UTC) – less than nine hours later.
Elon Musk
Brazil Supreme Court orders Elon Musk and X investigation closed
The decision was issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes following a recommendation from Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet.
Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court has ordered the closure of an investigation involving Elon Musk and social media platform X. The inquiry had been pending for about two years and examined whether the platform was used to coordinate attacks against members of the judiciary.
The decision was issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes following a recommendation from Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet.
According to a report from Agencia Brasil, the investigation conducted by the Federal Police did not find evidence that X deliberately attempted to attack the judiciary or circumvent court orders.
Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet concluded that the irregularities identified during the probe did not indicate fraudulent intent.
Justice Moraes accepted the prosecutor’s recommendation and ruled that the investigation should be closed. Under the ruling, the case will remain closed unless new evidence emerges.
The inquiry stemmed from concerns that content on X may have enabled online attacks against Supreme Court justices or violated rulings requiring the suspension of certain accounts under investigation.
Justice Moraes had previously taken several enforcement actions related to the platform during the broader dispute involving social media regulation in Brazil.
These included ordering a nationwide block of the platform, freezing Starlink accounts, and imposing fines on X totaling about $5.2 million. Authorities also froze financial assets linked to X and SpaceX through Starlink to collect unpaid penalties and seized roughly $3.3 million from the companies’ accounts.
Moraes also imposed daily fines of up to R$5 million, about $920,000, for alleged evasion of the X ban and established penalties of R$50,000 per day for VPN users who attempted to bypass the restriction.
Brazil remains an important market for X, with roughly 17 million users, making it one of the platform’s larger user bases globally.
The country is also a major market for Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service, which has surpassed one million subscribers in Brazil.
Elon Musk
FCC chair criticizes Amazon over opposition to SpaceX satellite plan
Carr made the remarks in a post on social media platform X.
U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr criticized Amazon after the company opposed SpaceX’s proposal to launch a large satellite constellation that could function as an orbital data center network.
Carr made the remarks in a post on social media platform X.
Amazon recently urged the FCC to reject SpaceX’s application to deploy a constellation of up to 1 million low Earth orbit satellites that could serve as artificial intelligence data centers in space.
The company described the proposal as a “lofty ambition rather than a real plan,” arguing that SpaceX had not provided sufficient details about how the system would operate.
Carr responded by pointing to Amazon’s own satellite deployment progress.
“Amazon should focus on the fact that it will fall roughly 1,000 satellites short of meeting its upcoming deployment milestone, rather than spending their time and resources filing petitions against companies that are putting thousands of satellites in orbit,” Carr wrote on X.
Amazon has declined to comment on the statement.
Amazon has been working to deploy its Project Kuiper satellite network, which is intended to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink service. The company has invested more than $10 billion in the program and has launched more than 200 satellites since April of last year.
Amazon has also asked the FCC for a 24-month extension, until July 2028, to meet a requirement to deploy roughly 1,600 satellites by July 2026, as noted in a CNBC report.
SpaceX’s Starlink network currently has nearly 10,000 satellites in orbit and serves roughly 10 million customers. The FCC has also authorized SpaceX to deploy 7,500 additional satellites as the company continues expanding its global satellite internet network.
Energy
Tesla Energy gains UK license to sell electricity to homes and businesses
The license was granted to Tesla Energy Ventures Ltd. by UK energy regulator Ofgem after a seven-month review process.
Tesla Energy has received a license to supply electricity in the United Kingdom, opening the door for the company to serve homes and businesses in the country.
The license was granted to Tesla Energy Ventures Ltd. by UK energy regulator Ofgem after a seven-month review process.
According to Ofgem, the license took effect at 6 p.m. local time on Wednesday and applies to Great Britain.
The approval allows Tesla’s energy business to sell electricity directly to customers in the region, as noted in a Bloomberg News report.
Tesla has already expanded similar services in the United States. In Texas, the company offers electricity plans that allow Tesla owners to charge their vehicles at a lower cost while also feeding excess electricity back into the grid.
Tesla already has a sizable presence in the UK market. According to price comparison website U-switch, there are more than 250,000 Tesla electric vehicles in the country and thousands of Tesla home energy storage systems.
Ofgem also noted that Tesla Motors Ltd., a separate entity incorporated in England and Wales, received an electricity generation license in June 2020.
The new UK license arrives as Tesla continues expanding its global energy business.
Last year, Tesla Energy retained the top position in the global battery energy storage system (BESS) integrator market for the second consecutive year. According to Wood Mackenzie’s latest rankings, Tesla held about 15% of global market share in 2024.
The company also maintained a dominant position in North America, where it captured roughly 39% market share in the region.
At the same time, competition in the energy storage sector is increasing. Chinese companies such as Sungrow have been expanding their presence globally, particularly in Europe.
Brazil Supreme Court orders Elon Musk and X investigation closed
FCC chair criticizes Amazon over opposition to SpaceX satellite plan
