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SpaceX Crew Dragon spaceship to bring NASA astronauts home this summer
Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley launched to the space station on May 30, for an indeterminate amount of time. Their stay on orbit depends upon a few different factors, including solar array degradation, the status of the next Crew Dragon, and landing zone weather. While Bob and Doug do not yet have a definitive return date, NASA officials have said they are looking at August as a return time frame.
The mission, known as Demo-2, is the first to fly humans from Florida since the end of the shuttle program in 2011. It’s also SpaceX’s first mission to carry astronauts. But it won’t be the last. The California-based aerospace company is gearing up for its next crewed mission. Known as Crew-1, this flight will see three NASA astronauts, and one Japanese astronaut soar to the space station inside another Crew Dragon capsule.
The two missions are interconnected. Demo-2 is the final test flight of the Crew Dragon capsule, and at the end of the mission, NASA is expected to certify the craft to regularly carry humans to and from the space station. For nearly a decade, NASA has been solely dependent upon Russia to carry its astronauts, but now, the agency will have more flexibility with flights.
Before Demo-2 launched, NASA officials estimated that the Bob and Doug could stay on station anywhere from one to four months. The agency wanted to see how the Dragon performed on orbit before specifying the length of time the crew would remain on orbit.
“We didn’t prescribe the length of the Demo-2 mission until we got the crew on orbit and we could see the performance of the Dragon,” Ken Bowersox, acting administrator for NASA’s human spaceflight program said on Tuesday. “The Dragon is doing very well, so we think it’s reasonable for the crew to stay up there a month or two. The actual details are still being worked out.”
Bowersox explained that the mission is going well, and the spacecraft is holding up as expected. The Crew version of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule has been to the space station one other time. During its first test flight, called Demo-1. This mission launched in 2019, without people on board. The craft proved it could dock and undock itself with the space station, and even spent about a week attached to the orbital outpost.
Now, NASA and SpaceX are putting the craft through its paces and seeing how well it holds up over time against the harsh environment of outer space. Some of the craft’s most sensitive electronics, namely the solar panels, have a shelf life in space. That time period is limited to 120 days, so NASA wants the crew to come home before that time.
The next batch of astronauts are expected to launch in late August or early September, if all goes according to plan. But, in order for them to launch, Bob and Doug have to come home several weeks before the planned liftoff so that the Dragon can be evaluated and certified.
To that end, NASA is looking at bringing the Demo-2 crew home in late July or early August. This will allow them to help with station maintenance, as well perform a spacewalk or two. Since April, Chris Cassidy has been the sole NASA astronauts on board, as the space station has been operating on a skeleton crew. The addition of Bob and Doug allows the crew to do more routine maintenance, as well as some research experiments.
Bob Behnken is expected to perform at least two spacewalks — one in late June, followed by one in early July. Behnken will join Chris Cassidy in replacing batteries on the space station’s exterior. The batteries were delivered on a recent cargo resupply mission and will help power the space station.
While Behnken is suited up and working outside the station, Doug Hurley will operate the space station’s robotic arm, helping Behnken and Cassidy move about during their spacewalks.
The plans were brought up in a joint meeting on Tuesday of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s Space Studies Board and the Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board.
“It is very likely that by the end of July, we will have conducted some spacewalks with Chris Cassidy and Bob Behnken, replaced some batteries on the ISS, and we’ll — about two months from now — start thinking about bringing Bob and Doug home,” Bowersox said. “We’d like to get them home some time in August.”
Bowersox is a former astronaut, who flew on five shuttle missions. He recently took over as acting head of NASA’s human spaceflight division after the previous administrator, Doug Loverro, suddenly resigned. That change in leadership took place just days before Hurley and Behnken took flight. Industry sources say Loverro’s departure had to do with him breaking agency rules during a competition to procure bids for NASA’s upcoming lunar lander program.
While the timing was suspect, the Demo-2 mission was unaffected and went off without a hitch.
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Investor's Corner
Tesla Optimus Gen 3 shows off a cleaner, factory-ready design in new app discovery
Renders hidden inside Tesla’s Android app show Optimus Gen 3’s design before any official reveal.
![Tesla Optimus Gen 3 [Credit: Tesla]](https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/tesla-optimus-gen3-diner.jpg)
Tesla may have accidentally given a first look at its newest Optimus Gen 3 humanoid robot when photos were found in the Tesla smartphone app.
Design files tucked inside a recent Android version of the Tesla app appear to show the third generation humanoid robot next to the older Gen 2.5 prototype. The assets were extracted from the app package by Tesla community member @wholemars, who posted the renders on X late Tuesday night before deleting them. The Tesla Newswire reshared the side by side comparison on Wednesday, and the images have circulated widely since.
Tesla Optimus Gen 2.5 vs Gen 3 comparison via @WholeMars on X
The files are labeled “gen3” and were built as models for Tesla app’s own interface, as validated directly by Grok to be official.
The comparison shows a robot that looks built for a factory line rather than a lab bench. Gen 2.5’s exposed mechanical linkages and gold plating on the knees and shins are gone. In their place, Gen 3 uses matte black fairings on the lower legs, paired with a more contoured champagne gold body. Flexible covers now seal the joint where the torso meets the upper thighs, keeping bearings and moving parts sealed from debris and unnecessary contact.
The body panels fit more tightly, and the hands, which Tesla has said carry 22 degrees of freedom, look far more refined than those on earlier units.
This most recent leak fills a gap Tesla has left open for most of the year. Elon Musk said on March 31 that Optimus 3 was walking around but needed “some finishing touches” before it could be shown, a delay Teslarati covered when Tesla missed its first quarter reveal target. Musk later said Tesla would hold the design back until closer to production, partly to keep competitors from copying it. No reveal date has been announced.
The app itself has been preparing for Optimus for months. In July, code in the Tesla app pointed to a dedicated robot phone key, a consent screen for collecting video and spatial data while Optimus works inside a home, and an alert system for low battery and mechanical faults. Finished 3D models of Gen 3 suggest the interface owners will eventually use is moving past placeholder code toward something Tesla intends to ship.
Manufacturing is moving in parallel. Tesla tore out the original Model S and Model X lines at Fremont this summer to make room for Optimus production, with a planned capacity of one million robots a year. At Giga Texas, the steel frame of a dedicated Optimus factory is nearing completion ahead of a targeted 2027 start, with Musk pointing to an eventual output of 10 million units annually.
News
Tesla Semi lands the biggest electric truck deal in U.S. history
Tesla leads a record 2,500 truck order, but not every truck will be a Semi.
Tesla has landed the largest electric truck order in U.S. history. ZET SCALE, a new alliance of shippers and carriers, named Tesla its primary manufacturer on Tuesday for an initial order of 2,500 electric Class 8 trucks. The deal alone would nearly double the number of electric heavy trucks operating in the country.
According to the press release from Catalyst Mobility, the nonprofit formerly known as CALSTART, Kenworth, RIDE and Volvo were also selected as secondary manufacturers that carriers can pick if their operations call for it. No split between the four brands has been published, so the exact number of Semis in the order is not yet known.
Tesla was selected as the primary OEM for the largest electric Class 8 order in the US by ZET SCALE, a new shippers’ alliance
With 2,500 Semis on order, this will double the entire US electric Class 8 fleet
We’re serious about scale, and ZET SCALE is too!… pic.twitter.com/IiTAdzgken
— Tesla Semi (@tesla_semi) September 22, 2026
Tesla won the top slot through a competitive request for proposals. The alliance, which Catalyst Mobility runs with the Smart Freight Centre, scored bidders on price, range, charging capability and production capacity. Pooling freight demand from founding shippers, including Microsoft and PepsiCo, let every truck maker bid lower than it would for a single fleet. “The Tesla Semi is designed for lower cost per mile operations than diesel,” said Dan Priestley, director of the Tesla Semi program, as noted in the press release.
The financing is built to pull in carriers who have avoided electric trucks. ZET Financial is issuing the purchase order for all 2,500 units and will place them with fleets through a fair market value lease. The trucks will be deployed over the next few years across 10 freight hubs in Los Angeles, Stockton, Bakersfield, Seattle and Tacoma, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Chicago, Atlanta, and the Newark and New York area. ZET SCALE says the first order is only the opening round, with a longer term goal of 10,000 trucks or more.
Even if Tesla ends up with only a majority share, it would still be the biggest Semi deal to date. Einride’s 500 unit order in August was the previous record, and WattEV’s 370 truck order in May was the largest California deal at the time. Einride’s CEO has since said he expects all 500 trucks delivered by the end of 2027.
The announcement lands two days before Tesla formally inaugurates its Semi factory in Nevada on September 24. The 1.7 million square foot plant sits next to Gigafactory Nevada’s 4680 cell lines and is designed for 50,000 trucks a year.
Tesla has expanded Grok from an in-car chatbot into a hands-free work assistant. On September 22, Tesla officially launched Grok Bot capability, confirming that drivers can now manage email, calendars, files, chats, and tasks by voice and then hand more ambitious errands to the AI-fueled productivity cheat code.
Grok itself is built by xAI. The new car features split into two layers: Connectors link Grok to outside accounts. Grok Bot, currently limited to SuperGrok Heavy subscribers, can complete multi-step tasks such as placing a usual coffee order, booking a reservation, or scheduling an appointment. It truly puts the driver in a nearly complete hands-free driving and productivity setting, with ironically the only task truly requiring your hands being to touch the “Start Self-Driving” button.
We were granted access to Grok Bot’s Tesla integration a few weeks back, and we’ve been able to do a handful of things with it. On a handful of occasions, we’ve used it to order food and have it ready for pickup slightly later into the evening; we’ve managed to pick up groceries after a day of errands with Grok Bot, and outside of the car, it’s helped with budgeting and even my fantasy football draft.
We’ve been using @Grok Bot in Tesla for a few weeks after gaining Early Access, which we thank the awesome engineers for
Grok Bot makes things much easier across your entire life. From the Tesla, I’ve used it to place pickup orders for my Fiancée and I, we’ve ordered groceries… https://t.co/ZJSLieG1s5
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) September 22, 2026
Tesla shows another way to utilize it: in their demo, a driver says “Hey Grok,” asks the assistant to check an inbox, and hears that a message concerns a weekend reservation. Grok then scans the calendar, reports no conflicts, and confirms the Tahoe trip is clear. It can also add check-in details to a road-trip itinerary. The point is not novelty chat. It is keeping eyes on the road, or on Full Self-Driving, while the car handles the paperwork of a trip:
.@Grok in your Tesla can now do meaningful work for you
With Connectors, you can manage your inbox, clean up your calendar, or talk through existing files/chat/tasks – all hands-free pic.twitter.com/W1LuybQh0P
— Tesla (@Tesla) September 22, 2026
This Grok rollout is not a gadget add-on as much as it is Tesla’s thesis in software form: the car should stop being a machine you operate and start being a room you occupy.
Connectors and Grok Bot treat the cabin as an office that happens to move, and that has truly been Tesla’s intention for years now. The car has slowly become an extension of a home more than a vehicle. Inbox, calendar, groceries, takeout, and reservations become voice work, not dashboard chores that you need to do before you get in your car.
Responsibility shifts from the driver to the stack, and as many Tesla owners rely on FSD for travel, Grok Bot now handles the monotony of dinner reservations or appointments.
![Tesla Optimus Gen 3 [Credit: Tesla]](https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/tesla-optimus-gen3-diner-80x80.jpg)
Tesla Optimus Gen 3 shows off a cleaner, factory-ready design in new app discovery
Tesla Semi lands the biggest electric truck deal in U.S. history
