SpaceX
SpaceX given the go-ahead for Crew Dragon’s first journey into Earth orbit
NASA and SpaceX officials announced on Friday that the company is ready to conduct the first orbital launch of Crew Dragon as early as March 2nd, a demonstration that will directly precede the first crewed launch on a US rocket in more eight years.
Shortly after the news broke, NASA hosted what can only be described as an effusive press conference in which typically reserved officials like Bill Gerstenmaier and Kathy Lueders discussed the Commercial Crew Program milestone. Above all else, they reported no glaring concerns and rather unequivocally echoed the affirmation that SpaceX, NASA, Falcon 9, and Crew Dragon are all ready and eager to get to orbit. SpaceX now aims to roll the spacecraft and rocket out to the launch pad – Kennedy Space Center’s Pad 39A – on Thursday, February 28th, roughly 48 hours before T-0.
The Demo-1 Flight Readiness Review has concluded. The Board set March 2 at 2:48 a.m. EST as the official launch date for @SpaceX's flight to @Space_Station. #LaunchAmerica https://t.co/2DIJ99guG2 pic.twitter.com/86lV29gVNS
— NASA Commercial Crew (@Commercial_Crew) February 22, 2019
Relative to any number of recent NASA press conferences, the mood in the conference hall following the joint NASA-SpaceX Flight Readiness Review (FRR) was one of obvious relief and elation, marked particularly by heaps of praise and rare personal segues from Mr. Gerstenmaier (associate NASA administrator of Human Exploration and Operations) and Ms. Lueders, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager.
“We’re go for launch, we’re go for docking, and we’ll work through [one minor ISS partner concern] next week. But again, just a phenomenal review today … It’s great being back here again [and] starting to get that feeling of launching again and getting ready to go fly.” – Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA HEOMD, 02/22/19
“Right now, [we] do not have any open, joint risks [present on] this mission. It’s been part of our FRR process, and it was the reason why I could tell Mr. Gerstenmaier … that we [are] ready to go fly.” – Kathy Lueders, NASA CCP, 02/22/19
SpaceX Vice President of Build and Flight Reliability Hans Koenigsmann was equally enthusiastic about the completed review, describing his firm belief that – regardless of any delays it may have caused – the Crew Dragon spacecraft and its Falcon 9 rocket would ultimately be the best they could be as a result of the constant back-and-forth between NASA and SpaceX engineers and analysts.
The main mission objectives for DM-1: pic.twitter.com/i5rCKSQEDP
— SpaceXUpdates (@SpaceXUpdates) February 22, 2019
Aside from the encouraging FRR and follow-up press conference, SpaceX and NASA are reportedly planning on making the hosted webcast of Crew Dragon’s inaugural launch something fairly spectacular. While no specifics were given, this would come as no surprise knowing SpaceX’s past history of exceptional launch webcasts combined with CEO Elon Musk’s equal affinity to spectacular events. According to Koenigsmann, Crew Dragon will be outfitted with a mannequin (effectively an aerospace-grade crash test dummy) dressed in one of SpaceX’s in-house spacesuits, a globally-recognizable icon thanks to the widespread popularity of Falcon Heavy’s launch debut and special payload.
“The only work between now and launch is what we would consider standard work and [the] standard close-out of activities moving forward. So that shows you that we’re fully ready to go do this DM-1 flight next Saturday.” – Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA HEOMD, 02/22/19
The spacecraft will also apparently be nearly identical to DM-2’s Crew Dragon, the first vehicle that will fly with astronauts onboard. As such, it will presumably be outfitted with everything a crew of astronauts would need, including seats, a functioning control panel/display, lighting, and the general fit and finish of an interior ready to support a human presence for multiple days straight. Live camera views of both Starmannequin and out of Crew Dragon’s windows will thus be par for the course, among many other unique perspectives. SpaceX will also offer a rare hosted webcast for Crew Dragon’s arrival and docking at the International Space Station, scheduled roughly 24 hours after launch, an event that could potentially include exceptionally rare feeds from Dragon’s own onboard cameras.
Regardless, this is an event you do not want to miss. If all goes well during the Feb. 27 launch readiness review (LRR) and Falcon 9’s subsequent roll-out to Pad 39A, SpaceX will attempt its first Crew Dragon launch at 2:49 am EST (07:49 UTC) March 2nd.
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In a pointed message on X, Elon Musk warned that firms maintaining significant short positions in SpaceX over time face “very low” survival probability.
The statement comes amid post-IPO volatility for the rocket company, now trading under the ticker $SPCX.
The survival probability of firms who maintain a significant short position in SpaceX over time is very low
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 17, 2026
Five weeks after what was described as the largest IPO in history, the stock had fallen roughly 30% from its peak above $2.6 trillion, briefly surpassing Microsoft and Amazon in market value. Short sellers celebrated gains of about $8.7 billion, but Musk’s reply underscores his long-term conviction.
The warning directly echoes a detailed bullish analysis arguing that Starship’s cost reductions could unlock a multi-trillion-dollar space economy. Projects ranging from solar power beamed from orbit and asteroid mining to orbital data centers and Mars terraforming were projected to create over $100 trillion in new market capitalization.
In this vision, SpaceX acts as the essential infrastructure provider, akin to AWS for cloud computing, capturing monopoly-like revenues from launches, crew transport, and data traffic across a rapidly expanding frontier.
This is far from the first time Musk has targeted short sellers. With Tesla, he has repeatedly framed persistent bears as destined for major losses. In July 2024, Musk declared that once Tesla achieves full autonomy and volume production of Optimus robots, “anyone still holding a short position will be obliterated. Even Gates,” referencing Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates’ reported short bets.
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Earlier, in 2018, he taunted shorts that they had “about three weeks before their short position explodes,” a remark followed by sharp stock gains. Musk has also called short selling “value destroying” and once suggested it “should be illegal,” viewing it as betting against innovation and progress.
Critics often dismiss Musk’s optimism as hype, especially when near-term metrics like quarterly deliveries or stock fluctuations disappoint.
Yet his pattern remains consistent: framing short positions against his companies as fundamentally misjudging exponential technological leaps. For SpaceX shorts, the message is clear: betting against multi-planetary ambitions and the infrastructure monopoly they enable carries existential risk for the firms involved.
As Musk and supporters see it, the space economy’s upside dwarfs Earth-bound valuation models, making today’s dips temporary in a decades-long ascent.
SpaceX has updated its target for the thirteenth integrated flight test of Starship, aiming for as early as Thursday, July 23. The 90-minute launch window opens at 5:45 p.m. CT from the company’s Starbase facility in South Texas.
The target flight was initially rescheduled for today, but SpaceX pushed it back again.
This latest adjustment follows an aborted attempt earlier in the week and reflects the iterative, rapid-development approach that has defined the Starship program. With the vehicle already stacked and ground teams making final preparations, the mission represents another step toward proving the full reusability of the world’s most powerful rocket system.
Now targeting to launch Starship’s thirteenth flight test as early as Thursday, July 23 → https://t.co/Rp7VwBzpWx pic.twitter.com/Y0YNzfc5zk
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 19, 2026
The original launch attempt on July 16 was scrubbed at T-0 when several Raptor engines on the Super Heavy booster failed to ignite properly. The automatic abort system triggered just as the engines began their startup sequence, preventing liftoff.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk confirmed that some engines did not start as expected, prompting the decision to replace two Raptors on Booster 20 to ensure reliability. The issue occurred despite a successful full-duration static fire earlier, highlighting the complexities of coordinating 33 engines under flight conditions.
This cautious approach underscores SpaceX’s commitment to safety amid an aggressive test cadence.
Flight 13 builds directly on the lessons from Flight 12 in May 2026. The Super Heavy booster’s primary goals include a successful liftoff, ascent, stage separation, boostback burn, and controlled splashdown in the Gulf of America.
Hardware and software modifications address the off-nominal flip and boostback burn problems from the prior flight, where propellant slosh and engine relight issues led to an uncontrolled impact.
For the Starship upper stage, objectives include deploying 20 operational Starlink V3 satellites, the first real payload of this type, performing a single Raptor engine relight in space, and executing a controlled entry, descent, and splashdown in the Indian Ocean. Propulsion upgrades aim to improve engine-out capability after one vacuum Raptor was lost on Flight 12.
Additional test elements focus on heat shield performance. Six satellites carry cameras to image the tiles during flight, while white-painted tiles and upgraded attachments on flaps and the aft skirt will gather data for future reusability.
The FAA completed its mishap investigation into Flight 12 earlier this month, clearing the regulatory path.
This suborbital mission, the second with V3 vehicles, advances Starship toward operational missions, including potential crewed flights and support for NASA’s Artemis program. Success would mark significant progress in rapid reusability and satellite deployment from the massive system.
Elon Musk dismissed reports claiming SpaceX had placed a massive order for NVIDIA GPUs worth $52 billion. The denial came hours after Taiwanese media, citing unnamed industry sources, reported that SpaceX planned to acquire approximately 13,000 AI server racks, equating to roughly 1 million GB300 GPUs, from Foxconn.
Each rack was estimated at around $4 million, with deliveries potentially starting in late 2025.
The story suggested this would mark SpaceX’s first major foray into Foxconn-manufactured NVIDIA hardware, breaking from suppliers like Supermicro and Dell. Musk responded bluntly on X:
This is fake news
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 20, 2026
Despite the denial, the rumored scale aligns with SpaceX’s explosive growth in AI infrastructure. NVIDIA’s GB300 (successor to the GB200 NVL) racks deliver unprecedented performance for large-scale training and inference. A $52 billion commitment would dwarf most corporate AI budgets and provide the compute muscle needed for frontier models.
SpaceX already operates gigawatt-scale terrestrial clusters like Colossus in Memphis, Tennessee, and has monetized them aggressively through leasing deals.
SpaceX’s newest Starmind will make earth data centers obsolete
Major customers include Anthropic (paying ~$1.25 billion monthly for 220,000+ GPUs), Google (~$920 million monthly for 110,000 GPUs), and Reflection AI. These arrangements are projected to generate tens of billions in annual revenue, far outpacing traditional SpaceX businesses.
Such an investment would fuel internal AI efforts, particularly Grok models under the integrated SpaceXAI division, while supporting ambitious orbital data center plans. SpaceX envisions launching thousands of AI-optimized satellites powered by solar energy and cooled in space, bypassing terrestrial power and land constraints.
This “Starmind” constellation could position the company as a leader in space-based computing.
SpaceX as an Emerging AI Powerhouse
Once primarily known for reusable rockets and Starlink satellite internet, SpaceX has transformed into a multifaceted AI player.
The 2026 acquisition of xAI integrated Grok development directly into the company. Starlink’s low-latency global network complements massive compute clusters, enabling efficient data flow for training and serving AI models.
Musk has long argued that AI scaling demands solutions beyond Earth, citing things like real estate and electricity limits on the ground.
While the Foxconn deal may not be in the cards, SpaceX’s trajectory is continuing on the path of blending aerospace engineering with hyperscale AI to dominate both launches and intelligence infrastructure.
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