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SpaceX Crew Dragon to perform first space station “flyaround” in November
A member of a NASA safety advisory panel says that SpaceX’s second operational Crew Dragon spacecraft will perform the first International Space Station (ISS) “flyaround” in years.
In the days of the Space Shuttle, similar flyaround maneuvers were extremely common as the US and Russia slowly but surely assembled the ISS from nothing in low Earth orbit (LEO) – mainly serving to document that undeniably historic process. In 2011, NASA and Roscosmos planned what would become the last flyaround in seven years to capture Shuttle Discovery on its last mission (also the first of the Shuttle’s last three launches) and the more-or-less completed space station. While the occasional partial flyaround still occurred during rare spacecraft relocation maneuvers, it would be more than seven years until the next flyaround – again by a Soyuz spacecraft – was completed in October 2018, capturing excellent photos of the ISS ahead of its 20th anniversary in orbit.
Now, more than three years after Soyuz’s MS-08 flyaround, SpaceX is reportedly set to continue the tradition as early as November 2021, making Crew Dragon the third of three crewed visiting vehicles to do a full flyaround survey of the ~450 ton (million-pound) orbital outpost.
Barring changing plans, twice-flown Crew Dragon Endeavor (C206) will perform the maneuver immediately after it undocks from the space station for the second time (including one relocation maneuver) with Crew-2 ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet, JAXA astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, and NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur. According to the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) meeting where news of the flyaround was first broken, Crew-2’s ISS departure remains on track to occur in early to mid-November.
In the 5-6 weeks between then and now, SpaceX is scheduled to undock Cargo Dragon 2 spacecraft C208 and return it to Earth, completing the CRS-23 resupply mission and capsule C208’s second trip to orbit and freeing up one of the ISS’ two American docking ports. Then, SpaceX is scheduled to launch yet another batch of astronauts to the ISS as part of Crew Dragon’s third operational crew transfer mission (Crew-3). Crew-3 remains on track to launch no earlier than (NET) October 31st, where it and astronauts Raja Chari, Thomas Marshburn, Kayla Barron, and Matthias Maurer will briefly join Crew-2 and their Dragon at the ISS.
Hand-off complete, Crew-2 and Dragon Endeavor will then be free to depart the ISS, perform the first 360-degree flyaround survey in years, and return to Earth after more than six months in orbit. Due to years of continued technical and programmatic delays, Boeing – NASA’s other Commercial Crew partner – is unlikely to be ready to support operational astronaut launches until late 2022 at the earliest, likely guaranteeing that one or even two more Dragon-to-Dragon crew handoffs will occur before Starliner can give Dragon a break. SpaceX, in other words, is on track to singlehandedly ensure continuous NASA access to the International Space Station for two full years – and maybe even longer.
Tesla has expanded its branded ‘For Business’ Supercharger program that it launched last year, as yet another company is using the platform to attract EV owners to its business and utilize a unique advertising opportunity.
Francis Energy of Oklahoma is launching four Superchargers in Norman, where the University of Oklahoma is located. The Superchargers, which are fitted with branding for Francis Energy, will officially open tomorrow.
It will not be the final Supercharger location that Francis Energy plans to open, the company confirmed to EVWire.
Back in early September, Tesla launched the new “Supercharger for Business” program in an effort to give businesses the ability to offer EV charging at custom rates. It would give their businesses visibility and would also cater to employees or customers.
“Purchase and install Superchargers at your business,” Tesla wrote on a page on its website for the new program. “Superchargers are compatible with all electric vehicles, bringing EV drivers to your business by offering convenient, reliable charging.”
The first site opened in Land O’ Lakes, Florida, which is Northeast of Tampa, as a company called Suncoast launched the Superchargers for local EV owners.
Tesla launches its new branded Supercharger for Business with first active station
The program also does a great job at expanding infrastructure for EV owners, which is something that needs to be done to encourage more people to purchase Teslas and other electric cars.
Francis Energy operates at least 14 EV charging locations in Oklahoma, spanning from Durant to Oklahoma City and nearly everywhere in between. Filings from the company, listed by Supercharge.info, show the company’s plans to convert some of them to Tesla Superchargers, potentially utilizing the new Supercharger for Business program to advertise.
Moving forward, more companies will likely utilize Tesla’s Supercharger for Business program as it presents major advantages in a variety of ways, especially with advertising and creating a place for EV drivers to gain range in their cars.
Tesla Cybercab is perhaps the most highly-anticipated project that the company plans to roll out this year, and as it is undergoing its testing phase in pre-production currently, there are some things to work through with it.
Over the weekend, an image of the Cybercab being loaded onto a tow truck started circulating on the internet, and people began to speculate as to what the issue could be.
Hmmmmmm… https://t.co/L5hWcOXQkb pic.twitter.com/OJBDyHNTMj
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) January 11, 2026
The Cybercab can clearly be seen with a Police Officer and perhaps the tow truck driver by its side, being loaded onto, or even potentially unloaded from, the truck.
However, it seems unlikely it was being offloaded, as its operation would get it to this point for testing to begin with.
It appears, at first glance, that it needs assistance getting back to wherever it came from; likely Gigafactory Texas or potentially a Bay Area facility.
The Cybercab was also spotted in Buffalo, New York, last week, potentially undergoing cold-weather testing, but it doesn’t appear that’s where this incident took place.
It is important to remember that the Cybercab is currently undergoing some rigorous testing scenarios, which include range tests and routine public road operation. These things help Tesla assess any potential issue the vehicle could run into after it starts routine production and heads to customers, or for the Robotaxi platform operation.
This is not a one-off issue, either. Tesla had some instances with the Semi where it was seen broken down on the side of a highway three years ago. The all-electric Semi has gone on to be successful in its early pilot program, as companies like Frito-Lay and PepsiCo. have had very positive remarks.
The Cybercab’s future is bright, and it is important to note that no vehicle model has ever gone its full life without a breakdown. It happens, it’s a car.
Nevertheless, it is important to note that there has been no official word on what happened with this particular Cybercab unit, but it is crucial to remember that this is the pre-production testing phase, and these things are more constructive than anything.
Tesla analyst Andrew Percoco of Morgan Stanley teased the company’s dominance in its self-driving initiative, stating that its lead over competitors is “not even close.”
Percoco recently overtook coverage of Tesla stock from Adam Jonas, who had covered the company at Morgan Stanley for years. Percoco is handling Tesla now that Jonas is covering embodied AI stocks and no longer automotive.
His first move after grabbing coverage was to adjust the price target from $410 to $425, as well as the rating from ‘Overweight’ to ‘Equal Weight.’
Percoco’s new note regarding Tesla highlights the company’s extensive lead in self-driving and autonomy projects, something that it has plenty of competition in, but has established its prowess over the past few years.
He writes:
“It’s not even close. Tesla continues to lead in autonomous driving, even as Nvidia rolls out new technology aimed at helping other automakers build driverless systems.”
Percoco’s main point regarding Tesla’s advantage is the company’s ability to collect large amounts of training data through its massive fleet, as millions of cars are driving throughout the world and gathering millions of miles of vehicle behavior on the road.
This is the main point that Percoco makes regarding Tesla’s lead in the entire autonomy sector: data is King, and Tesla has the most of it.
One big story that has hit the news over the past week is that of NVIDIA and its own self-driving suite, called Alpamayo. NVIDIA launched this open-source AI program last week, but it differs from Tesla’s in a significant fashion, especially from a hardware perspective, as it plans to use a combination of LiDAR, Radar, and Vision (Cameras) to operate.
Percoco said that NVIDIA’s announcement does not impact Morgan Stanley’s long-term opinions on Tesla and its strength or prowess in self-driving.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang commends Tesla’s Elon Musk for early belief
And, for what it’s worth, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang even said some remarkable things about Tesla following the launch of Alpamayo:
“I think the Tesla stack is the most advanced autonomous vehicle stack in the world. I’m fairly certain they were already using end-to-end AI. Whether their AI did reasoning or not is somewhat secondary to that first part.”
Percoco reiterated both the $425 price target and the ‘Equal Weight’ rating on Tesla shares.
Tesla expands its branded ‘For Business’ Superchargers
Tesla Cybercab ‘breakdown’ image likely is not what it seems
