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SpaceX reveals first photos of historic Crew Dragon capsule's astronaut cabin
SpaceX has published the first photos of the interior of the US-built spacecraft scheduled to launch NASA astronauts for the first time in almost a decade.
Set to lift off on a Falcon 9 rocket no earlier than (NET) mid-to-late May, SpaceX is on the cusp of the most important and historic launch in its storied history. If things go as planned, Crew Dragon’s Demo-2 mission could make SpaceX the first company in history to launch humans into orbit with a privately-built rocket and spacecraft. Even more significantly, it will be the United States’ first domestic astronaut launch since Congress and the White House prematurely canceled NASA’s Space Shuttle in 2011.
Since then, the US has relied exclusively on a total of 34 increasingly expensive Russian Soyuz spacecraft launches and is likely to purchase a handful of additional seats for more than $85 million apiece. Thanks to the Commercial Crew Program, despite several years of delays, NASA will soon be able to launch its own astronauts once again. While Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft – at ~$90 million per seat – is expected to cost NASA more than Russia’s price-gouged Soyuz offerings, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon will likely be closer to $55 million per seat, potentially saving NASA tens of millions of dollars for each astronaut it launches. Now, photos posted by NASA have revealed the first glimpses inside the cabin of SpaceX’s first astronaut-ready Crew Dragon.
Unsurprisingly, the first photos taken inside an astronaut-ready Crew Dragon capsule show that SpaceX’s Hawthorne, California-based simulator is nearly identical where it matters. Over the last ~18 months, NASA astronauts assigned to SpaceX’s first several Crew Dragon launches having been training almost non-stop to learn the ropes of operating and flying in the company’s first human-rated spacecraft. Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, set to support Crew Dragon’s historic astronaut launch debut, have rightfully taken up most of the limelight as they ready for what is technically the spacecraft’s riskiest mission.
SpaceX has offered views inside Crew Dragon during its Demo-1 orbital launch debut in March 2019 but the spacecraft was uncrewed and had no display and control module installed, leaving its interior partially incomplete.
Now, NASA says that the Crew Dragon spacecraft assigned to SpaceX’s Demo-2 astronaut launch is “is undergoing final testing and prelaunch processing” a few miles from its Kennedy Space Center launch site. That process is reportedly “kicking off more simulations, final crew training, and flight readiness reviews”, some of which likely involved NASA’s Demo-2 astronauts boarding and inspecting a fully-complete Crew Dragon capsule for the first time.
Meanwhile, back at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Launch Complex 39A (Pad 39A), NASA posted SpaceX’s latest photos of the Falcon 9 rocket scheduled to launch the space agency’s astronauts just two or so months from now. A brand new booster an expendable Falcon 9 upper stage will support the mission, with B1058 scheduled to attempt a landing aboard drone ship Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY) a handful of minutes after liftoff. Posted on April 2nd, NASA also revealed that the booster has been fitted with the space agency’s ‘worm’ logo, its first official use since it was retired almost three decades ago.
In short, everything is quite literally coming together for SpaceX’s historic astronaut launch debut. NASA maintains that Demo-2 is scheduled to lift off no earlier than “mid-to-late May”, now just 6-8 weeks distant.
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, but it is currently unclear if that is the case across its entire fleet of vehicles in Austin at this point.
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.
Elon Musk shared an incredible detail about Tesla Cybercab’s potential efficiency, as the company has hinted in the past that it could be one of the most affordable vehicles to operate from a per-mile basis.
ARK Invest released a report recently that shed some light on the potential incremental cost per mile of various Robotaxis that will be available on the market in the coming years.
The Cybercab, which is detailed for the year 2030, has an exceptionally low cost of operation, which is something Tesla revealed when it unveiled the vehicle a year and a half ago at the “We, Robot” event in Los Angeles.
Musk said on numerous occasions that Tesla plans to hit the $0.20 cents per mile mark with the Cybercab, describing a “clear path” to achieving that figure and emphasizing it is the “full considered” cost, which would include energy, maintenance, cleaning, depreciation, and insurance.
Probably true
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 22, 2026
ARK’s report showed that the Cybercab would be roughly half the cost of the Waymo 6th Gen Robotaxi in 2030, as that would come in at around $0.40 per mile all in. Cybercab, at scale, would be at $0.20.
Credit: ARK Invest
This would be a dramatic decrease in the cost of operation for Tesla, and the savings would then be passed on to customers who choose to utilize the ride-sharing service for their own transportation needs.
The U.S. average cost of new vehicle ownership is about $0.77 per mile, according to AAA. Meanwhile, Uber and Lyft rideshares often cost between $1 and $4 per mile, while Waymo can cost between $0.60 and $1 or more per mile, according to some estimates.
Tesla’s engineering has been the true driver of these cost efficiencies, and its focus on creating a vehicle that is as cost-effective to operate as possible is truly going to pay off as the vehicle begins to scale. Tesla wants to get the Cybercab to about 5.5-6 miles per kWh, which has been discussed with prototypes.
Additionally, fewer parts due to the umboxed manufacturing process, a lower initial cost, and eliminating the need to pay humans for their labor would also contribute to a cheaper operational cost overall. While aspirational, all of the ingredients for this to be a real goal are there.
It may take some time as Tesla needs to hammer the manufacturing processes, and Musk has said there will be growing pains early. This week, he said regarding the early production efforts:
“…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.”
BREAKING: Tesla launches public Robotaxi rides in Austin with no Safety Monitor
Tesla Earnings Call: Top 5 questions investors are asking
