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SpaceX Crew Dragon aces third autonomous space station docking

Carrying four astronauts, Crew Dragon approaches the International Space Station for the third time ever on its historic Crew-1 mission. (NASA)

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Update: A SpaceX Crew Dragon has successfully performed an autonomous rendezvous and docking with the International Space Station (ISS) for the third time in a row and the first time with four astronauts aboard.

Near-flawless space station arrival now behind it, Crew Dragon has effectively kicked off what could be the longest continuous spaceflight of a crewed US spacecraft in the history of American space exploration. Barring surprises, Crew Dragon capsule C207 (deemed “Resilience” by its first crew) and its expendable trunk section will spend roughly 180 days in orbit, crushing the previous US record of 84 days set by an Apollo Command and Service Module spacecraft in 1973.

Dragon’s view of the ISS. (SpaceX)
Crew Dragon Crew-1 captain Mike Hopkins (left) and pilot Victor Glover (right) monitor the spacecraft’s autonomous docking. (SpaceX/NASA)
The Crew-1 Crew Dragon docked almost exactly on schedule at 11:01 pm EST (04:01 UTC). (NASA)

Crew Dragon’s first successful operational space station arrival also marks the beginning of a small but significant new era for the ISS, enabling a crew of seven astronauts – up from six – to continuously live and work aboard the 20-year-old orbital outpost. Thanks to the station’s well-quantified needs for regular maintenance and operational expertise, that new seventh crew member will ultimately be able to dedicate almost every working moment to doing science in orbit.

Meanwhile, ISS NASA astronaut Kate Rubins hinted to SpaceX and NASA ground control that a range of photos she took of Crew Dragon’s third ISS arrival were likely to be spectacular. A ground controller took no time to respond with the quip that “[Crew Dragon] is known objectively to be a very good-looking vehicle.” Stay tuned for another update when those approach photos go live.

Four elated Crew-1 astronauts join three existing ISS crew members for the first time. (NASA)

Approximately two hours after Crew Dragon’s third successful docking, Rubins successfully completed an array of tasks and opened the spacecraft’s hatch, allowing NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins, Shannon Walker, Victor Glover, and JAXA astronaut Soichi Noguchi to officially depart Dragon and join the International Space Station’s existing crew of three.

A SpaceX Crew Dragon is set to rendezvous and dock with the International Space Station for the third time later tonight and its four-astronaut crew took some time during their 27-hour flight to give live viewers a tour of the brand new spacecraft.

Emphasizing just how much space Crew Dragon offers its astronaut passengers once in orbit, the tour also included a minor tradition for NASA astronaut Victor Glover’s first orbital spaceflight. Astronauts Soichi Noguchi, Mike Hopkins, and Shannon Walker – all spaceflight veterans – commemorated Glover’s milestone with the gift of a small, golden pin, continuing a decades-old tradition.

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If Crew Dragon remains in good health, the four astronauts will officially kick off the first ISS docking attempt with a 90-second thruster burn shortly after 9 pm EST (02:00 UTC).

Quite similar to Crew Dragon’s flawless Demo-2 astronaut launch debut, the Crew-1 spacecraft is scheduled to arrive at what is known as the ISS keep-out sphere around half an hour after its final major course-change thruster burn. Dragon will pause approximately 400m (~1300 ft) from the space station and wait for ground and station teams to give it the go-ahead to continue to another stopped point 20m (65 ft) out.

Altogether, the Crew-1 Dragon docking process will take about 55 minutes after the spacecraft enters the keep-out sphere and will culminate with a ‘soft’ capture around 11pm EST (04:00 UTC) and a ‘hard’ capture – signified by the docking port firmly bolting Dragon to the ISS – a bit less than 15 minutes later.

Orbital sunset is expected roughly 10 minutes before docking, meaning that Crew Dragon’s Crew-1 docking should be sunlit from a distance of ~1000 to 20 meters (3300 to 65 ft) from the ISS. Tune in below to watch the historic docking live.

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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 plans to use Unreal Engine for driver visualization with crazy upgrade

This could change the way Driver Visualization looks for Tesla owners.

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Credit: Tesla Newswire | X

Tesla looks to be planning a major upgrade to its driver visualization for Autopilot with a crazy upgrade from its current version.

Tesla’s driver visualization appears on the center screen and shows the vehicle, its surroundings, and, when it is operating on Autopilot or Full Self-Driving, shows the route of travel.

It has improved over the years, and even includes things like pedestrians, pets, and the shapes of other vehicles. It also helps with manual driving because it can be a good representation of your surroundings when trying to change lanes or merge in traffic.

However, it appears Tesla is planning a pretty substantial upgrade with the

Coding found in the 2025.20 firmware by Tesla hacker greentheonly showed the company is planning to utilize Unreal Engine for Autopilot visualization. He said the one Tesla currently uses is “godot-based.”

Unreal Engine is a 3D computer graphics game engine that was developed by Epic Games, the developer of the popular third-party shooter game Fortnite. It was first released back in 1998, and the most recent version is Unreal Engine 5. The sixth version is in development, and it could be out in 2027 or 2028.

However, Tesla could use it for a more realistic representation of vehicle surroundings. It would undoubtedly improve driver visualization, creating a smoother and freer-flowing depiction of what is outside of the car.

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SpaceX is rolling out a new feature to Starlink that could be a lifesaver

Starlink now has a new Standby Mode that will enable low-speed internet access in the event of an outage.

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(Credit: Starlink | X)

SpaceX is rolling out a new feature to Starlink that could be a lifesaver in some instances, but more of a luxury for others.

Starlink is the satellite internet service that Elon Musk’s company SpaceX launched several years ago. It has been adopted by many people at their homes, many airlines on their planes, and many maritime companies on their ships.

SpaceX produces its 10 millionth Starlink kit

It has been a great way for customers to relieve themselves of the contracts and hidden fees of traditional internet service providers.

Now, Starlink is rolling out a new service feature on its units called “Standby Mode,” which is part of Pause Mode. The company notified customers of the change in an email:

“We’re reaching out to you to let you know the Pause feature on your plan has been updated. Pause now includes Standby Mode, which comes with unlimited low-speed data for $5.00 per month, perfect for backup connectivity and emergency use. These updates will take effect in 30 days. All of your other plan features remain the same. You are able to cancel your service at any time for no charge.”

SpaceX did not define how fast these “low speeds” will be. However, there are people who have tested the Standby Mode, and they reported speeds of about 500 kilobytes per second.

The mode is ideal for people who might deal with internet or power outages, but still need to have some sort of internet access.

It could also be used as a backup for people who want to stay with their ISP, but would like to have some sort of alternative in case of an outage for any reason.

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Elon Musk says this essential Tesla Robotaxi feature will be here soon

Tesla will work to solve automatic parking at available Supercharger stalls with future updates.

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Credit: Tesla

Elon Musk reiterated that one feature, which is ultimately an essential part of the operation of the Tesla Robotaxi platform, will be here soon.

Tesla released a new video of its longest Full Self-Driving demo yesterday, showing off a zero-intervention drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The drive is roughly seven hours and 360 miles long, and not a single need for the driver to touch the wheel was recorded.

Tesla flexes its most impressive and longest Full Self-Driving demo yet

There was one question that was brought up by an owner that brings up an interesting point. Tesla still needs to solve the vehicle’s ability to pull into Superchargers automatically, something that does not currently have a high success rate, at least for the owner who got a response from CEO Elon Musk.

Musk assured him that a Tesla’s ability to pull into open parking spaces at Superchargers would be more reliable with future software updates. Owners can see how many and which exact stalls are available before traveling to a Supercharger, so Teslas should be able to identify these stalls and pull in automatically:

This is a small part of what will be imperative for the charging experience when Robotaxi launches in the coming years. Tesla plans to enable customer-owned cars to potentially enter the Robotaxi fleet and become an autonomous ride-sharing vehicle by next year.

However, it still needs to figure out autonomous charging. There are two parts to that process: pulling into the spot and charging without human need to connect the Supercharger to the vehicle.

Tesla used to consider a robotic snake-arm charger for this, but it has talked about induction charging more recently. Wireless charging seems to be the route that Tesla plans to go, but it might take some time to resolve the energy loss issue and make it an efficient charging method.

Tesla flexes Robotaxi wireless charging — autonomy from top to bottom

Tesla has said its wireless charging efficiency is “well above 90 percent.”

Nevertheless, Tesla is still working toward figuring out all of the edge cases of Robotaxi operation. Figuring out charging without the need of a human is just one part of the puzzle it still has yet to solve, but with its improvements over the past few years, there’s no doubt Tesla will find the missing piece.

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