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SpaceX’s Crew Dragon gets tentative NASA target for first astronaut launch

Crew Dragon arrives at the International Space Station for the first time ever during its March 2019 DM-1 mission. (NASA)

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New information from both NASA and the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) confirm that SpaceX is currently targeting – at least very tentatively so – Crew Dragon’s first launch with astronauts aboard no earlier than November 15th, 2019.

SpaceX is currently in the midst of a complex, high-stakes anomaly investigation after its flight-proven DM-1 Crew Dragon capsule suffered a catastrophic failure on April 20th. That investigation is nowhere near full closure due to the fact that the interests of NASA and the Commercial Crew Program (CCP) are equally interwoven into the work involved. Given the potential consequences of a similar failure occurring with astronauts (public or private) aboard, NASA is unlikely to accept anything less than a no-stone-left-unturned analysis and failure resolution, including any necessary design changes to Crew Dragon, no matter how far-reaching.

As NASASpaceflight.com’s Chris Gerbhardt notes, the Crew Dragon-related dates included in the NASA Flight Planning Integration Panel (FPIP) document are extremely tentative. They’re really only there to serve as placeholders for longer-term International Space Station planning, already a necessarily uncertain endeavor. Nevertheless, NASA’s NET November 15th 2019 planning date for Crew Dragon DM-2 (the first crewed test flight) was likely okayed by SpaceX – if not provided outright by the company – before going into an official FPIP.

In other words, November 15th is probably a real target but should be treated as an absolutely-positively-no-earlier-than launch date for Crew Dragon’s first astronaut-laden mission to the ISS. Back in late March (after DM-1’s successfully completion but before the capsule’s ground failure), anonymous Russian space industry sources confirmed that NASA’s DM-2 planning date was July 25th, while also indicating that the space agency was already preparing for delays that could push DM-2 as late as November 2019.

Specifically, an anonymous Roscosmos source told Russian outlet TASS that “the [DM-2] launch of Crew Dragon is likely to be postponed to November”. Given that that delay was rumored – albeit quasi-officially – and reported on nearly a month before Crew Dragon capsule C201 catastrophically exploded during testing, it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in a November 2019 DM-2 planning date officially released by NASA more three months later.

Crew Dragon stumbles, but optimism remains

As is often said, things were going perfectly up to the point that they weren’t. Despite 2-3 months of NASA paperwork and review-related delays, SpaceX’s first flightworthy Crew Dragon performed flawlessly during orbital rendezvous, docking, departure, and reentry to the extent that NASA and SpaceX officials were joking on-webcast about their partial disbelief. NASA’s lengthy post-mission review effectively concluded as much, although there is always room for improvement.

Due to those aforementioned DM-1 delays (roughly early January to early March), DM-2’s Crew Dragon assembly and integration was delayed in turn to preserve access in case DM-1 revealed flaws or necessary changes. Things didn’t quite go as planned, but the delayed integration has turned out to be beneficial, preserving access to most of Dragon 2’s critical subsystems without requiring major disassembly before any anomaly-related changes are implemented.

A May 2019 NASA update indicated that SpaceX’s DM-2 Crew Dragon (likely the vehicle previously assigned to the subsequent USCV-1 mission) is in the late stages of assembly. Once the anomaly investigation is complete and the DM-2 spacecraft is updated with any necessary modifications, SpaceX will likely require an additional ~4 months of work to reach flight-readiness. (NASA)

Per a late-May update from CCP manager Kathy Lueders, SpaceX has effectively shifted its Crew Dragon hardware assignments over one to account for the loss of the DM-1 capsule, C201. The vehicle previously assigned to DM-2 has been reassigned to a critical in-flight abort (IFA) test, previously meant to use flight-proven C201. Per charts provided during Lueders’ presentation, SpaceX’s replacement DM-2 capsule (likely the capsule previously assigned to the following mission, Crew-1) is in a sort of holding pattern to allow for modifications that may be required after the DM-1 failure investigation concludes.

Per a previous December 2018 update from Lueders, SpaceX’s original DM-2 spacecraft (now assigned to IFA) was expected to be fully assembled, shipped to Pad 39A, and ready for launch by June 2019. Accounting for DM-1’s delays, that spacecraft could likely be ready for the abort test as early as July or August, which meshes with post-anomaly indications that IFA is now scheduled no earlier than fall (September 2019)

Backlit by Earth’s limb, Crew Dragon DM-1’s ISS arrival was captured by astronaut Anne McClain on March 3rd. (NASA/Anne McClain)

All things considered, a pragmatic analysis suggests that Crew Dragon‘s DM-2 launch will most likely happen no earlier than Q1 2020, although miracles (and nightmares) are certainly possible. For the time being, all that really matters to SpaceX is wrapping up the C201 failure investigation as quickly and accurately as possible. Only after the company has publicly announced the results of that investigation should any IFA or DM-2 launch dates be taken with anything less than a full shaker of salt.

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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 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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EVgo taps Tesla Superchargers for mass charging expansion

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Credit: EVgo

EVgo has tapped Tesla Superchargers for its most recent efforts to expand its charging presence in the United States, a move that seems logical based on the effectiveness of the automaker’s own infrastructure.

EVgo opened its first Supercharger site in Illinois, a 12-stall station near downtown Chicago at 3145 South Ashland Avenue in the Riverside Square & River’s Edge center, right beside a grocery store. This marks the start of the company’s plan to deploy hundreds of Supercharger stalls across the United States, primarily at grocery-anchored Regency Centers properties where drivers can shop, eat, or run errands while they charge.

The new location uses Tesla’s Magic Dock technology so both NACS and CCS vehicles can plug in natively without drivers needing to carry their own adapters. Peak power reaches 325 kW at this site, with pricing set between $0.25 and $0.35 per kWh depending on the hour—the same rate for Tesla and non-Tesla drivers.

The stalls also appear in Tesla’s in-car navigation and Trip Planner, making them easy for Tesla owners to find and route to. Illinois has seen EV registrations rise nearly 60 percent over the past two years, and EVgo’s broader network has experienced more than 700 percent growth in charging demand over three years, so the timing fits the market’s trajectory.

Choosing Tesla hardware through the Supercharger for Business program turns out to have been a smart, practical move.

Tesla’s V4 stalls and cabinets deliver high, reliable power with a proven track record of strong uptime, while Magic Dock delivers true dual-standard compatibility in one package. Because the sites show up in Tesla’s navigation tools, EVgo instantly gains visibility among millions of existing Tesla drivers, which should raise utilization and help the company double its addressable market as more vehicles adopt NACS. EVgo still owns the stations and sets pricing, yet benefits from Tesla’s established hardware, longer cables, and operational support.

The result is faster, lower-risk infrastructure expansion that serves every EV driver—Tesla or otherwise—with convenient, high-power charging at everyday retail locations. For drivers, that means fewer adapters, more predictable stops, and a denser network just as electric vehicles become everyday transportation.

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