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SpaceX set to launch reused Dragon on a new Falcon 9 as NASA requests delay

Falcon 9 B1050 lifts off during the first Block 5 launch of Cargo Dragon.(Tom Cross)

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An electrical fault aboard the International Space Station (ISS) has forced NASA to delay SpaceX’s CRS-17 Cargo Dragon launch from May 1st to May 3rd, giving the station’s crew more time to fix the issues at hand.

A new Falcon 9 Block 5 booster is tasked with launching the spacecraft and completed a static fire test at SpaceX’s LC-40 pad on April 27th. The Cargo Dragon capsule, however, completed its first orbital resupply mission (CRS-12) in September 2017 and has since been refurbished for a second launch. After CRS-17, three launches remain on SpaceX’s CRS1 NASA contract between now and early 2020, after which Dragon 2 (i.e. Crew Dragon) is expected to take over. However, a recent failure during a Crew Dragon test have thrown those plans into question.

Cargo Dragon’s 17th mission

Known as C113, the CRS-12 capsule is the last Dragon 1 manufactured by SpaceX, leaving a fleet of five flight-proven spacecraft for SpaceX to complete the eight remaining ISS resupply missions under its Commercial Resupply Services 1 (CRS1) contract. CRS-17 is the latest installment in SpaceX’s ISS resupply saga and is manifested with ~2500 kg (5500 lb) of cargo.

Along for the ride are NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3 (OCO-3) and the multi-experiment STP-H6 investigation, two large pieces of hardware that will be delivered to the ISS in Dragon’s unpressurized trunk. After being berthed to the ISS, astronauts will unpack dozens of packages stored inside Cargo Dragon’s cabin. Sometime later, the station’s Canadarm2 will be used to grab OCO-3 and STP-H6 and install each on the outside of the space station, where they will hopefully live long and scientifically fruitful lives.

SpaceX and NASA have assigned a new Falcon 9 Block 5 booster – likely B1056 – to launch CRS-17. To preserve the scene of Crew Dragon C201’s April 20th explosion, the booster will attempt to land around 20 miles (32 km) offshore aboard drone ship Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY). Originally scheduled for April 25th, CRS-17 was delayed to the 26th, 30th, 1st, and now May 3rd, most of which were requested by NASA for ISS scheduling purposes.

The latest delay – from May 1st to no earlier than (NET) May 3rd – was triggered by an unexpected electrical fault aboard the ISS, cutting the redundancy of its Canadarm2 (SSRMS) control systems from two strings to one. In other words, Canadarm2 – used to ‘grapple’ and berth spacecraft like Cargo Dragon and Cygnus to the station – is now just one electrical fault away from being rendered inoperable. CRS-17 will stay grounded until two-string (i.e. single fault) redundancy is returned to Canadarm2 and additional impacted systems.

In the event that ISS astronauts and NASA ground control are able to repair the electrical systems in a timely fashion, CRS-17 is scheduled to launch at 3:11 am EDT (07:11 UTC) on May 3rd.

The International Space Station was captured in October 2018 during a Soyuz fly-around. (NASA/Roscosmos)

In the shadow of Crew Dragon

A recent catastrophic failure of Crew Dragon (i.e. Dragon 2) raises serious questions about SpaceX’s follow-up CRS2 contract, but the nominal plan involves retiring Dragon 1 after CRS-20 and flying all future cargo missions with flight-proven Crew Dragon spacecraft. In the likely event that Crew Dragon C201’s failure delays SpaceX’s CRS2 schedule by several months, there are contingency plans to continue flying refurbished Dragon 1 spacecraft.

However, each Dragon 1 was designed for a maximum of three orbital missions, meaning that SpaceX’s current capsule fleet can support no more than six additional resupply missions before they reach the end of their usable lifespans. SpaceX thus has two potential buffer missions – CRS-21 and CRS-22 – that could theoretically account for up to a year of Dragon 2 delays. Beyond that, additional Dragon 2 delays could create a gap where NASA would have to supply the ISS without SpaceX’s services.

In a best-case scenario, SpaceX and NASA will quickly uncover an unequivocal culprit of C201’s catastrophic explosion, fix the technical and organizational failures that allowed it to happen, and be back on their feet in no time. In reality, it’s likely that the failure will delay future Crew Dragon (and thus Dragon 2) launches by a minimum of 6-12 months. SpaceX will likely need to change up the launch order of its capsules, reassigning DM-2’s Crew Dragon to the in-flight abort (IFA) test and the US Crew Vehicle 1 (USCV-1) Crew Dragon to SpaceX’s first crewed demonstration mission (DM-2). After such a serious and potentially fatal failure, it’s even possible that NASA will require an additional uncrewed orbital launch before permitting SpaceX to fly astronauts on Crew Dragon.

Given that SpaceX’s nominal CRS2 plan involved lightly modifying and reusing Dragon 2s after crewed missions, the future (and schedule) of the company’s Cargo and Crew contracts are intimately intertwined. With any luck, SpaceX and NASA will be able to solve the technical, organizational, and logistical problems now facing them and ensure a stable future for Dragon 2. In the meantime, Cargo Dragon’s CRS-17 mission offers SpaceX a chance to partially verify that Cargo Dragon C201’s issues are are relegated to Dragon 2 and Dragon 2 alone.

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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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SpaceX just combined Grok, Cursor, and X into one mega plan

SpaceXSI merges Grok, Cursor, and X Premium into one plan, raising questions for Tesla owners.

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SpaceX Super Intelligence has rolled out The X Subscription, a single plan that combines Grok, Grok Bot, Cursor, and X Premium.

There are five levels, including a free plan that includes daily Grok access and a starter allowance for Cursor’s coding agents. Plus is $8 per month, Premium is $30, Super is $100, and Ultra is $200. Usage scales as you move up, with Premium offering four times the Plus allowance, Super 15 times, and Ultra 50 times. Annual billing brings the prices down a bit further, with Premium at $300 per year.

The $30 Premium tier is where SpaceXSI says it packs the benefits of SuperGrok, Cursor Pro, and X Premium+, which previously added up to $90 per month. Grok Bot, the agent that handles tasks like ordering food or managing a calendar, is included from Premium upward but not on Plus. Paid plans share one weekly usage pool across Grok and Cursor, and each plan includes at least twice the coding usage of the comparable Cursor plan. Third party models in Cursor remain available on Premium and above, but they are billed separately at API list prices.

That last detail matters because of what has happened around Cursor this year. SpaceX exercised its option to buy the company for $60 billion in June, and the deal closed in August. Weeks later, OpenAI said it will cut Cursor’s access to its models on November 12. Bundling Cursor with Grok usage gives SpaceXSI a reason to steer developers toward its own models.

Tesla integrates Grok Bot into its vehicles for the ultimate personal assistant

For Tesla owners, the connection is Grok Bot. Tesla brought it into its vehicles last month, and at that point access inside the car was limited to SuperGrok Heavy subscribers. Grok Bot is now enabled across every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y Robotaxi fleet. Neither SpaceXSI nor Tesla has said how the new plans change inside the car access for owners, or whether a $30 Premium subscription now covers Grok Bot in a personal Tesla. That is the question owners will want answered first.

The company is also changing its name along the way. The rollout follows the rebrand Musk announced on October 4, when he said SpaceXAI would become SpaceXSI, and the plan page now carries that branding.

The X Subscription is available to new customers starting now, and SpaceXSI says it will reach everyone globally over the next few days. Existing SuperGrok, Cursor, and X Premium subscribers do not have to switch. The option to move will appear gradually in billing settings, with a prorated refund for the unused time on the old plan. Switching is permanent once the accounts are unified, and old plans are closed to new sign ups.

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Energy

Taiwan power firm bets big on Tesla Megapacks as AI data center thirst grows

Taiwan’s Apollo Power orders 260 Tesla Megapacks, betting AI data centers will need more electricity.

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Concept render of Tesla Megapack farm supporting an AI Data Center in Taiwan
Concept render of Tesla Megapack farm supporting an AI Data Center in Taiwan

A Taiwanese power company has ordered 260 Tesla Megapack 2XL units, roughly 1GWh of storage, betting that electricity rather than chips will decide how fast AI data centers come online. Apollo Power signed the contract with Tesla’s Taiwan energy arm on October 8, according to the company’s filing with the Taiwan stock exchange.

The filing says the units are meant for behind the meter storage and resilient grid projects, with delivery in batches from the end of 2027 and sites operating in 2028. Apollo and Tesla did not disclose a price, citing a confidentiality agreement. Apollo plans to pay for the equipment through a cash capital increase and bank financing, and it noted the purchase is not revenue and does not mean it holds firm orders from its partners.

Biggo reported that only about 33 units are under signed customer contracts, with roughly 150 more in negotiation. The same report put total project investment near NT$130 billion, but that figure includes installation work, with the equipment itself making up about 40 to 50 percent. In other words, a large share of this order is Apollo reserving supply ahead of demand. Apollo’s chairman told local media global large storage supply is tight, which is why the company locked in the units early, according to Yahoo Taiwan Finance.

Tesla Taiwan partners with Costco to sell vehicles

Apollo also launched an AI data center and grid resilience alliance with Phison, Gigabyte and Shihlin Electric. The pitch rests on a pilot at Phison’s Zhunan plant, where Apollo and Tesla Energy Taiwan installed grid forming Megapack 2XLs in June. Tesla Energy Taiwan general manager Sun Hsiao-Han said the project went from demo to 1GWh in four months, and that Tesla Energy has deployed more than 50GWh worldwide.

Taiwan’s cabinet has approved amendments that would require large energy users to install their own generation and storage, which gives enterprise storage a regulatory tailwind.

The deal fits a pattern Teslarati has tracked. Tesla’s Megablock targets 1GWh commissioned in 20 business days, a pitch aimed squarely at fast moving data center builds. Megapacks already back xAI’s Colossus in Memphis and a 400MW AI campus in Brazil. Sun Media adds that Megapack 2XL was named among the first products in Nvidia’s DSX Ready qualification for battery storage in AI factories.

Deliveries are more than a year away, so the real test is how much of that 260 unit order turns into signed customer contracts.

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Lifestyle

Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi’s real advantage won’t be the ride service

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Concept art of a Tesla Cybercab in Las Vegas Strip as rendered via Grok

For a century, the car has asked the same thing of its owner, which is basically to pay attention. Even the best ride-hailing app like Uber or Lyft only moved the problem into someone else’s hands. You stopped driving, but you still sat in a stranger’s car, while half listening, and wondering whether to take a phone call in the car without being rude. The Cybercab has no wheel, no pedals and no driver. With Grok @bot now live inside it, it becomes something else entirely, and I think that matters more than the fleet count that everyone is tracking.

Grok @bot is an agent, not a voice assistant. A rider signs in once, and from then on can say what they need and watch it happen. Order dinner from a favorite restaurant. Fill the grocery cart. Move money, answer email, adjust a calendar, push a work project forward. Tesla engineer Yun-Ta Tsai confirmed it is enabled across every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y fleet, and Tesla’s own pitch is that Full Self-Driving handles the commute while Grok handles the errands.

Think about what that does to a thirty minute ride. Uber sells you a trip, while Waymo sells you the same trip in a more private setting. Tesla is selling the thirty minutes themselves, returned to you with an assistant attached. Errands that used to eat a Saturday get done between pickup and drop off. The ride stops being dead time between two places and becomes a place of its own.

Tesla integrates Grok Bot into its vehicles for the ultimate personal assistant

Best of all, your Bots follow you into any Cybercab, and presumably your own Tesla, then logs you out automatically when you step out. Anyone can bolt a chatbot onto a screen, but much harder to own the vehicle, the autonomy stack and the assistant at once. It also quietly ties SpaceX’s Super Intelligence business to Tesla’s fleet, after Tesla converted its xAI stake into SpaceX equity. The relationship between those two companies is getting harder to describe as separate.

This is also where the hard questions start, because an agent that can spend your money in a vehicle other people also ride in needs some answers. How does it handle a voice it shouldn’t trust? What gets recorded, who can see it, and for how long? What happens when a rider leaves halfway through a task?

If Tesla gets those answers right, the scoreboard changes. We have been counting Cybercabs and wait times. The more telling number may be what riders accomplish per trip. That is data almost no one else will ever have, and it is the real reason to watch Grok @bot.

What do you think? Leave me a comment.

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