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SpaceX releases photo of NASA astronauts testing in Crew Dragon spaceship
In a rare instance of publicity, SpaceX has given the public the first detailed glimpse of a NASA astronaut practicing inside a mockup of Crew Dragon’s cockpit, wearing a sleek spacesuit designed and built by private rocket company.
Taken just over a month ago, the photos show astronauts Doug Hurley and Suni Williams familiarizing themselves with the most recent iteration of Crew Dragon’s cockpit, with a focus on the control systems and display system unique to SpaceX’s spacecraft. Boeing, for example, went with a more traditional set of controls, featuring a joystick and panels of physical buttons and switches alongside a pair of small screens, largely reminiscent of cockpits one might find in the many military and civilian aircraft the company’s non-space branches assemble.
- Boeing’s Starliner Pad Abort Test Vehicle is prepping for a test of its launch abort engines to prove that the vehicle can safely perform an abort maneuver in the event of an emergency on the launchpad or during flight. (Boeing)
- Elon Musk: “SpaceX Crew Dragon ship in anechoic chamber for EMI [electromagentic interference] testing before being sent to @NASA Plum Brook vacuum chamber” (SpaceX)
- NASA Astronaut Suni Williams, fully suited in SpaceX’s spacesuit, interfaces with the display inside a mock-up of the Crew Dragon spacecraft in Hawthorne, California, during a testing exercise on April 3. (SpaceX)
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently showed off the first official photo of the company’s first flight-ready Crew Dragon capsule preparing for Demo Mission-1 (DM-1), an uncrewed orbital test flight of the brand new spacecraft intended to prove out its capabilities ahead of a true crewed test flight several months after. While officially showing launch dates no earlier than August 31 (DM-1) and December 31 (DM-2), sources familiar with the Commercial Crew Program say that SpaceX is currently tracking towards its first two demo flights sometime in Q4 2018 and H1 2019 respectively, and Musk’s brief comment that the DM-1 Crew Dragon was scheduled for shipment to the launch site (Kennedy Space Center) around August 2018.
SpaceX Crew Dragon ships to the Cape in about 3 months
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 2, 2018
Arrival at the launch site will entail its own series of extensive tests, many focusing on integrated the vehicle with its Falcon 9 Block 5 launch vehicle, perhaps the first time a flightworthy Crew Dragon is attached to a SpaceX rocket. The upgraded Falcon 9s (both new) tasked with launching those first two demonstration missions are themselves already under construction at SpaceX’s Hawthorne, CA factory: the rocket intended to launch the first crewed mission is having its propellant tanks welded, while the vehicle aiming to launch an uncrewed test later this year is likely on its way to final integration and easily recognizable as a rocket.

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, shown in an older render and a more recent graphic featured in NASA’s March 2018 Commercial Crew update. (SpaceX/NASA)
In fact, what can only be the second Block 5 Falcon 9 booster (B1047) was captured on May 30 by a member of the /r/SpaceX subreddit on the last leg of its journey from McGregor, Texas to Cape Canaveral, Florida, indicating that a Block 5 booster recently glimpsed at SpaceX’s Texas testing facilities is likely a separate rocket, B1048. The booster meant for Crew Dragon’s first flight was confirmed by NASA officials to be B1051 in a March 2018 briefing, and the sighting of B1047 bodes very well for B1051’s shipment from the Hawthorne factory to Texas for static fire testing in the next two or three months, followed by its own journey from Texas to Florida before launching the first Crew Dragon spacecraft into orbit.
Falcon 9 B1047 is believed to be preparing to launch the Telstar 19V communications satellite sometime next month. Meanwhile, SpaceX is currently targeting 12:27am EDT on June 1 for the launch of the SES-12 satellite aboard one of the company’s final three operational flight-proven Block 4 rockets, although mediocre weather conditions place the risk of a scrub at ~60%.
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Tesla’s AI Chief just hinted at something big for FSD v14 lite owners
Tesla’s AI chief suggests the newest FSD v14 Lite build may finally go wide release.
Tesla’s head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, noted on Sunday that the newest FSD v14 Lite build rolling out to Hardware 3 cars is likely the version that goes to wide release, the strongest signal yet that Tesla is near to closing out an early access phase that Hardware 3 owners have waited more than a year for.
Elluswamy made the comment in response to an extensive review from Tesla owner Zack, known on X as @BLKMDL3, who tested software version 2026.20.6.10 and detailed the changes in a lengthy post. “FSD v14 Lite (for Tesla AI3 hardware vehicles) review.
The update restarts a rollout that had stalled after its initial release. Tesla began pushing FSD v14 Lite to Hardware 3 early access drivers on June 29, bringing driving behavior learned on the newer Hardware 4 computer down to the more limited chip that has powered Tesla vehicles built between 2019 and early 2023. That release, as we covered in detail, gave roughly 4 million HW3 vehicles their first meaningful update since being frozen on version 12.6 in early 2025.
Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ Release Notes: new capabilities and features
The latest build adds features that bring Hardware 3 closer in line with what Hardware 4 owners already have. FSD can now start directly from park without a brake pedal confirmation, a change Zack called a small but meaningful quality of life improvement. The interface also picks up the blue “P” park icon, approaching destination alerts, and a dedicated Self-Driving app with streak tracking, all details previously exclusive to the AI4 branch of v14, as outlined in Tesla’s original release notes.
The stakes around Hardware 3 go beyond software polish. Tesla sold the Full Self-Driving package for years on the promise that every vehicle equipped with it had the hardware needed to eventually drive itself without supervision. That promise broke down during Tesla’s Q1 2026 earnings call, when Musk acknowledged HW3 cars could not run unsupervised FSD, prompting Tesla to offer trade-in discounts and hardware retrofits alongside the Lite software track.
Tesla confirmed HW3 can’t do Unsupervised FSD but there’s more to the story
Tesla has continued to frame v14 Lite as the primary path forward for the HW3 fleet, telling owners in April that international markets would follow the U.S. rollout once regulatory approvals came through. For now, HW3 owners in the early access group are the only ones running the new build. A broader rollout would mark the second major software delivery to the legacy fleet since Tesla first released FSD v14 to Hardware 4 vehicles, and the first sign since June that the Lite program is still moving rather than stuck in early access limbo.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk sends first warning to SpaceX short sellers
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.
Elon Musk reveals what Tesla stock surge could do to Bill Gates
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.
News
Tesla reveals first vehicle model to receive Starlink integration
Tesla has evidently revealed which of its vehicle models will be the first to receive Starlink integration: the Cybercab.
Tesla’s Santana Row showroom now has a full-fledged display of the Cybercab, with an extensive bit of information hung around an exhibit that seems to reveal the vehicle’s newest feature: an integrated Starlink antenna that will enable secure and reliable internet access during trips.

Credit: @Starscream_SJC | X
Cybercab is geared toward autonomous ride-hailing for one or two passengers. The production units rolling off the lines at Gigafactory Texas are built without steering wheels or pedals, meaning when public rides begin, passengers will not need to interact with a human being or control the vehicle in any way outside of what appears on the center screen for their entertainment during the ride.
Tesla Santana Row will be reopening tomorrow with a full focus on self-driving. Everything in the showroom is about Robotaxi and Cybercab with stats and information about the technology. The Cybercab on display is the production model. pic.twitter.com/yIUYdOGFOp
— Shaun Cassidy (@Starscream_SJC) July 20, 2026
Along the display, Tesla wrote this message about Cybercab:
“Cybercab is built for autonomy. It has no steering wheel, no side mirrors, and no pedals. It goes where you tell it to go and how you want it to, so you can relax along the way. It is hyper aware and responsive to your surroundings, monitoring other drivers, responding to emergency vehicles, utilizing its expertise in the rarest scenarios to help keep you safe.”
Tesla has been teasing a potential Starlink integration for quite some time now. In December, the company hinted at potential Starlink internet terminal integration within its vehicles in a patent that described a vehicle roof assembly with integrated radio frequency (RF) transparency.
The company wrote in its patent application that a new roof design built with materials that differ from the standard metallic or glass elements used in today’s cars would allow it to integrate modern vehicular technologies, in particular, ones that require radio frequency transmission and reception.
Tesla suggested high-strength polymer blends, like Polycarbonate, Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene, or Acrylonitrile Styrene Acrylate.
This is the first time we’ve seen Tesla officially confirm the Starlink integration into the Cybercab. It’s not much of a surprise considering the company’s intention behind the Cybercab, which is to make travel autonomous.
Productivity will now be at a maximum during a work-related commute, while the center screen could be utilized for Netflix or potentially even live TV for those who are heading to dinner or to a fun activity.


