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SpaceX’s historic Crew Dragon spacecraft returned to dry land for reuse

SpaceX has safely returned historic Crew Dragon capsule C206 to dry land, setting the spacecraft up for a second launch as early as February 2021. (NASA - Bill Ingalls)

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Five days after becoming the first private spacecraft to successfully launch and land astronauts, as well as the first crewed spacecraft to land in the Gulf of Mexico, SpaceX safely returned historic Demo-2 Crew Dragon to dry land.

After a brief night in a Floridan port on the Gulf of Mexico, SpaceX recovery vessel GO Navigator pushed off, ultimately completing a several-day journey around the entirety of Florida before arriving at Port Canaveral on August 7th. One final lift onto dry land marked the true end of Crew Dragon capsule C206’s Demo-2 NASA astronaut launch debut, although astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley were technically extracted from the spacecraft and airlifted to NASA’s Houston facilities on August 2nd.

While, prior to Demo-2’s May 30th launch, it appeared that post-astronaut extraction recovery operations would not be of significant interest to NASA, things changed dramatically just a few days later. On June 3rd, a modification to SpaceX’s Commercial Crew contract with NASA revealed that the space agency had unexpectedly given the company permission to reuse Falcon 9 boosters – and Crew Dragon capsules, too – on astronaut launches planned as few as eight months in the future.

Five days after splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico, Crew Dragon capsule C206 arrived in Port Canaveral, Florida. (Richard Angle)

Given just how unexpected NASA’s (quasi) announcement was, many assumed that a clause that SpaceX could begin reusing Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon on Crew-2 (the second operational astronaut launch) meant that NASA would maybe consider the feat in 2021 or 2022. Instead, revealed in detail by both NASA and SpaceX officials over the course of several media events before, during, and after Crew Dragon’s first crewed reentry and splashdown, it quickly became clear that the plan was to reuse the Demo-2 Crew Dragon on Crew-2.

Crew Dragon was safed, secured, and brought aboard GO Navigator in a process that took several hours. (NASA – Bill Ingalls)

Scheduled as early as February 2021, Crew-2 is shorthand for SpaceX’s second operational astronaut launch to the International Space Station (ISS) and will follow directly in the footsteps of Crew-1, itself scheduled no earlier than (NET) late September. Given that NASA had apparently agreed to reuse the Demo-2 Crew Dragon before it had even returned to Earth (and thus before any inspections could be done), the space agency’s confidence in SpaceX must be at an all-time high.

Knowing NASA, though, that confidence is likely almost entirely based on fact and observations made over a decade of cooperation with SpaceX. With Crew Dragon capsule C206 safely in hand and back on dry land, SpaceX – alongside NASA – can begin an extensive inspection of the historic spacecraft. Building off of experience gained from Crew Dragon’s Demo-1 (C201) and In-Flight Abort (C205) test flights and recoveries, if capsule C206 look as good as SpaceX and NASA seem to think it will be, the inspection process could be a surprisingly short one.

The most important spacecraft in SpaceX’s history sails through the mouth of Port Canaveral aboard GO Navigator. (Richard Angle)

Once NASA officially qualifies Crew Dragon for operational astronaut launches, SpaceX teams will likely begin reassembling capsule C206 as soon as possible, completing any necessary repairs, replacements, or refurbishment along the way. If capsule C201’s processing is anything to go by, SpaceX may choose to perform some major integrated tests – possibly including a Super Draco abort thruster static fire – before giving the spacecraft the go-ahead to become the first reused crew capsule.

According to SpaceX engineer Kate Tice, the Crew Dragon refurbishment process will be quick relative to Cargo Dragon thanks to major design improvements, requiring six months or less between orbital flights. That means that future reuses should leave SpaceX and NASA plenty of schedule margin and Crew Dragon capsule C206 could potentially be ready to launch Crew-2 as early as late 2020.

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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 Robotaxi app update now tells riders if Cybercab is the better choice

Tesla’s Robotaxi app now shows ETAs, wait times and availability for Cybercab and Model Y.

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Concept art of a Tesla Cybercab in Las Vegas Strip as rendered via Grok

Tesla has rolled out a new vehicle selection screen in its Robotaxi app, and it puts the numbers riders care about most in front of them before they book.

Version 26.11.0 of the app shows the estimated arrival time, the expected wait and current availability for each vehicle option on a single screen, according to a video shared by @gheeunit  on X on November 7. Riders deciding between a Cybercab and a Model Y Robotaxi can now compare those figures side by side instead of picking a car first and learning how long it will take afterward.

Tesla first gave riders that choice on September 3, the day paid Cybercab rides began in Austin. The original version of the screen listed the Cybercab, which seats two, next to the Model Y, which seats four. A later build, 26.8.2, added a seating capacity indicator so groups knew which car would fit them. What it did not show was whether choosing the Cybercab meant standing on the curb a few extra minutes.

That question matters more now than it did two months ago. Tesla had 45 Cybercabs on the Texas DMV roster when rides started. By late October the state listed 573, alongside 631 Model Ys, and community trackers logged a record 1,576 Cybercab sightings across Austin on Halloween alone. With two large fleets sharing one service area, the closest car and the quickest pickup are not always the same vehicle.

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Inline availability also changes what happens when demand spikes. If no Cybercab is free nearby, the rider sees that on the selection screen rather than after trying to book one.

For now the comparison is mostly an Austin feature. Riders in Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth and the Florida markets are still matched with Model Y vehicles, though Tesla said on its third quarter earnings call that Cybercab rides would launch in Dallas this month.

The update follows a steady run of smaller changes to the rider experience. Late last month Tesla brought a quiet mode that blacks out the cabin screen to Model Y Robotaxis after first testing it in the Cybercab, and it has stretched Austin service to run from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m.

The Cybercab side of that selection screen is about to get much busier. Elon Musk said this week that Tesla will wind down Cybertruck production at Gigafactory Texas around the middle of 2027 to make room for more Cybercab output, and Tesla has said it is aiming to get Cybercabs to customers by the end of this year.

Tesla has not published official release notes for version 26.11.0.

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Tesla is ending Cybertruck production

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Credit: diagnosticdennis/Instagram and @smile__no via Tesla Owners of Santa Clarita Valley/X

Tesla is ending Cybertruck production sometime in mid-2027, according to CEO Elon Musk.

Musk made the announcement on X last night, which came as a shock to many. He said that the Cybertruck will end production “to make room for increased Cybercab production” at Gigafactory Texas.

It is a huge blow to the fans of Tesla who have come to love the Cybertruck and identify with it as a symbol of their fandom. It has been the best-selling electric pickup, but it has had an underwhelming sales performance in terms of what was expected. This is mostly due to Tesla not meeting the prices it planned to offer the Cybertruck, as its unveiling and actual release were four years apart.

Overall, the responses were mixed. Some fans understood the move toward Cybercab production, especially as Tesla is truly pushing the autonomous future through its Robotaxi platform. However, others did not understand it.

“Damn, how many Cybercabs do you guys need?” one response read. Another said it was “Sad but understandable.”Even analyst Gary Black had responded to the news, stating he hoped Tesla planned to replace it with a traditional pickup design.

It doesn’t seem like that will be the case.

Tesla is so hell-bent on delivering autonomy and eventually providing a driverless service that owning a car seems like an arbitrary idea, according to their thesis. Instead, Cybercabs will be available to pick you up and drop you off on demand, safely, without any human help.

As a result, Tesla has thinned its lineup considerably, and one can only ask where the vehicle lineup goes from here. Eventually, it seems like Cybercab could be the only vehicle that Tesla will sell.

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SpaceX’s next Starship flight set to make history on Friday the 13th

SpaceX is targeting Friday, November 13 for Starship Flight 15 and its first ship catch.

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SpaceX is targeting Friday, November 13 for Starship Flight 15, the mission the company plans to use for its first attempt at catching the ship itself with the launch tower.

SpaceX Vice President of Launch Kiko Dontchev shared the date on stage at the UP.Summit on Thursday, according to Ars Technica’s Eric Berger, who was in attendance. It is the first launch target to come directly from a SpaceX executive. Until now, the public schedule had relied on FAA air traffic planning slides, which listed Flight 15 for no earlier than November 8 and later November 12. SpaceX has not posted an official mission page yet, and no launch time has been shared.

The date lands inside the window Elon Musk sketched out last month. Speaking at Giga Texas on October 10, Musk said the flight would “probably launch a little bit before Thanksgiving,” as Teslarati reported. On SpaceX’s third quarter earnings call ten days later, he confirmed that Flight 15 would try to catch both the Super Heavy booster and the ship, and put the odds of a successful ship catch at “more likely than not.” SpaceX also aired an animation of the maneuver during that webcast, showing the ship swinging vertical over Starbase before dropping into the tower’s chopsticks.

The hardware is ready. Booster 22 fired all 33 of its Raptor engines for a full duration static fire at Pad 2 on October 25. Ship 42 followed with a single engine burn simulating a deorbit maneuver on October 26 and a 60 second firing of all six engines the next day, according to NASASpaceflight. Ship 42 had already rehearsed the catch in September, when the Pad 2 arms lifted it into position and crews connected the quick disconnect arm while the vehicle hung from the tower.

The remaining hurdle is regulatory. The FAA’s Starship page does not yet list a Flight 15 license. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said in October that, after “significant constructive engagement with the FAA,” she expects the license to cover a return to the launch site and a tower catch for both stages. Bringing the ship home means a reentry path that heads toward land, rather than ending over open ocean as every Starship flight so far has.

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SpaceX has caught Super Heavy three times, on Flights 5, 7 and 8, but the ship comes back from orbital velocity and has never been caught. Flight 14 on September 28 was the first Starship to reach orbit, deploying 26 Starlink V3 satellites before splashing down despite an early engine shutdown that Musk blamed on engine computer software.

Musk has called a successful ship catch “the first time that there’s been full recovery of an orbital class rocket,” and he has already named the step after it: a Flight 16 where both the booster and the ship fly again. NASASpaceflight reports that Ship 43, the next vehicle in line, is set for static fire testing in December.

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