News
SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft set to static fire SuperDraco abort thrusters after delays
Originally scheduled for early November, SpaceX now plans to static fire a Crew Dragon capsule’s SuperDraco abort thrusters no earlier than Wednesday, November 13th. Success would pave the way for SpaceX to launch the spacecraft’s in-flight abort (IFA) before the end of 2019.
In April 2019, a bad design choice finally reared its head, triggering an oxidizer leak and exotic titanium chemical fire that lead to the catastrophic explosion of Crew Dragon capsule C201, the first upgraded spacecraft to successfully launch, dock with the ISS, and return to Earth. That explosion occurred shortly after a successful Draco maneuvering thruster test and just milliseconds before the planned ignition of C201’s eight SuperDraco abort thrusters.
SpaceX planned on reusing flight-proven Crew Dragon capsule C201 to complete its In-Flight Abort (IFA) test, in which the spacecraft will attempt to escape from Falcon 9 during Max Q, the most aerodynamically stressful period of launch. After C201’s premature demise, SpaceX was forced to reassign new Crew Dragon spacecraft already in production, and capsule C205 – previously assigned to Dragon’s Demo-2 astronaut launch debut – was delivered to SpaceX’s Florida launch facilities in early October.
C205 will now support SpaceX’s IFA test. However, prior to launch, SpaceX (or NASA, or both entities) want to ensure that the fixes and upgrades retroactively applied to Crew Dragon will prevent C201’s failure mode from reoccurring. This proof will come in the form of a static fire test identical to the one that caused C201’s explosion. Dragon capsule C205 will be loaded with liquid dinitrogen tetroxide (also known as NTO or N2O4) and monomethylhydrazine (MMH) fuel and fire its much smaller Draco maneuvering thrusters.
Lastly, C205 will ignite its eight SuperDraco abort thrusters – capable of producing more than 570 kN (128,000 lbf) of combined thrust – to conclude the static fire acceptance test. NASA and SpaceX will likely analyze the results together, while SpaceX will refurbish and refuel the spacecraft as expediently as possible. If everything goes as planned, Crew Dragon C205 will be integrated with its disposable trunk section and transported to Launch Complex 39A sometime in late-November or December.
In an impressive demonstration of SpaceX’s ability to work fast, the company managed to determine the cause of C201’s explosion, correct design flaws, prove those corrections with extensive testing, modify Crew Dragon C205 in light of those changes, and ship the completed spacecraft to Florida in less than six months. NASA Commercial Crew Program Manager Kathy Lueders, rare to heap praise, deemed SpaceX’s response “a pretty phenomenal turnaround.”
NASASpaceflight reporter Michael Baylor says that Crew Dragon’s static fire is now scheduled no earlier than the morning of November 13th, a delay of 11 days from the static fire’s first known target, November 2nd. It’s unclear what triggered the delay, but it would be unsurprising for SpaceX to be treading with extreme caution in a bid to avoid another serious Crew Dragon anomaly.
If all goes as planned during the test and the post-test inspections raise no red flags, SpaceX and NASA will likely be ready to launch Crew Dragon’s IFA test some 4-6 weeks after. Stay tuned for updates.
Check out Teslarati’s Marketplace! We offer Tesla accessories, including for the Tesla Cybertruck and Tesla Model 3.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk and Tesla AI Director share insights after empty driver seat Robotaxi rides
The executives’ unoccupied tests hint at the rapid progress of Tesla’s unsupervised Robotaxi efforts.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk and AI Director Ashok Elluswamy celebrated Christmas Eve by sharing personal experiences with Robotaxi vehicles that had no safety monitor or occupant in the driver’s seat. Musk described the system’s “perfect driving” around Austin, while Elluswamy posted video from the back seat, calling it “an amazing experience.”
The executives’ unoccupied tests hint at the rapid progress of Tesla’s unsupervised Robotaxi efforts.
Elon and Ashok’s firsthand Robotaxi insights
Prior to Musk and the Tesla AI Director’s posts, sightings of unmanned Teslas navigating public roads were widely shared on social media. One such vehicle was spotted in Austin, Texas, which Elon Musk acknowleged by stating that “Testing is underway with no occupants in the car.”
Based on his Christmas Eve post, Musk seemed to have tested an unmanned Tesla himself. “A Tesla with no safety monitor in the car and me sitting in the passenger seat took me all around Austin on Sunday with perfect driving,” Musk wrote in his post.
Elluswamy responded with a 2-minute video showing himself in the rear of an unmanned Tesla. The video featured the vehicle’s empty front seats, as well as its smooth handling through real-world traffic. He captioned his video with the words, “It’s an amazing experience!”
Towards Unsupervised operations
During an xAI Hackathon earlier this month, Elon Musk mentioned that Tesla owed be removing Safety Monitors from its Robotaxis in Austin in just three weeks. “Unsupervised is pretty much solved at this point. So there will be Tesla Robotaxis operating in Austin with no one in them. Not even anyone in the passenger seat in about three weeks,” he said. Musk echoed similar estimates at the 2025 Annual Shareholder Meeting and the Q3 2025 earnings call.
Considering the insights that were posted Musk and Elluswamy, it does appear that Tesla is working hard towards operating its Robotaxis with no safety monitors. This is quite impressive considering that the service was launched just earlier this year.
Elon Musk
Starlink passes 9 million active customers just weeks after hitting 8 million
The milestone highlights the accelerating growth of Starlink, which has now been adding over 20,000 new users per day.
SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service has continued its rapid global expansion, surpassing 9 million active customers just weeks after crossing the 8 million mark.
The milestone highlights the accelerating growth of Starlink, which has now been adding over 20,000 new users per day.
9 million customers
In a post on X, SpaceX stated that Starlink now serves over 9 million active users across 155 countries, territories, and markets. The company reached 8 million customers in early November, meaning it added roughly 1 million subscribers in under seven weeks, or about 21,275 new users on average per day.
“Starlink is connecting more than 9M active customers with high-speed internet across 155 countries, territories, and many other markets,” Starlink wrote in a post on its official X account. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell also celebrated the milestone on X. “A huge thank you to all of our customers and congrats to the Starlink team for such an incredible product,” she wrote.
That growth rate reflects both rising demand for broadband in underserved regions and Starlink’s expanding satellite constellation, which now includes more than 9,000 low-Earth-orbit satellites designed to deliver high-speed, low-latency internet worldwide.
Starlink’s momentum
Starlink’s momentum has been building up. SpaceX reported 4.6 million Starlink customers in December 2024, followed by 7 million by August 2025, and 8 million customers in November. Independent data also suggests Starlink usage is rising sharply, with Cloudflare reporting that global web traffic from Starlink users more than doubled in 2025, as noted in an Insider report.
Starlink’s momentum is increasingly tied to SpaceX’s broader financial outlook. Elon Musk has said the satellite network is “by far” the company’s largest revenue driver, and reports suggest SpaceX may be positioning itself for an initial public offering as soon as next year, with valuations estimated as high as $1.5 trillion. Musk has also suggested in the past that Starlink could have its own IPO in the future.
News
NVIDIA Director of Robotics: Tesla FSD v14 is the first AI to pass the “Physical Turing Test”
After testing FSD v14, Fan stated that his experience with FSD felt magical at first, but it soon started to feel like a routine.
NVIDIA Director of Robotics Jim Fan has praised Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14 as the first AI to pass what he described as a “Physical Turing Test.”
After testing FSD v14, Fan stated that his experience with FSD felt magical at first, but it soon started to feel like a routine. And just like smartphones today, removing it now would “actively hurt.”
Jim Fan’s hands-on FSD v14 impressions
Fan, a leading researcher in embodied AI who is currently solving Physical AI at NVIDIA and spearheading the company’s Project GR00T initiative, noted that he actually was late to the Tesla game. He was, however, one of the first to try out FSD v14.
“I was very late to own a Tesla but among the earliest to try out FSD v14. It’s perhaps the first time I experience an AI that passes the Physical Turing Test: after a long day at work, you press a button, lay back, and couldn’t tell if a neural net or a human drove you home,” Fan wrote in a post on X.
Fan added: “Despite knowing exactly how robot learning works, I still find it magical watching the steering wheel turn by itself. First it feels surreal, next it becomes routine. Then, like the smartphone, taking it away actively hurts. This is how humanity gets rewired and glued to god-like technologies.”
The Physical Turing Test
The original Turing Test was conceived by Alan Turing in 1950, and it was aimed at determining if a machine could exhibit behavior that is equivalent to or indistinguishable from a human. By focusing on text-based conversations, the original Turing Test set a high bar for natural language processing and machine learning.
This test has been passed by today’s large language models. However, the capability to converse in a humanlike manner is a completely different challenge from performing real-world problem-solving or physical interactions. Thus, Fan introduced the Physical Turing Test, which challenges AI systems to demonstrate intelligence through physical actions.
Based on Fan’s comments, Tesla has demonstrated these intelligent physical actions with FSD v14. Elon Musk agreed with the NVIDIA executive, stating in a post on X that with FSD v14, “you can sense the sentience maturing.” Musk also praised Tesla AI, calling it the best “real-world AI” today.
Elon Musk and Tesla AI Director share insights after empty driver seat Robotaxi rides
Starlink passes 9 million active customers just weeks after hitting 8 million
