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SpaceX Dragon XL could double as a crew cabin for lunar space station
A recent modification to SpaceX’s Dragon XL lunar cargo resupply contract with NASA suggests that the spacecraft could be used as an extra crew cabin and bathroom at a lunar space station known as Gateway.
The contract modification was made around April 1st of this year and provided SpaceX around $121,000 to complete the latest study on the potential utility of its expendable Dragon XL spacecraft beyond the primary goal of resupplying a space station orbiting the Moon. Designed to deliver at least five metric tons (~11,000 lb) of pressurized and unpressurized cargo to Gateway, Dragon XL will launch on SpaceX’s own Falcon Heavy rocket – currently the only super heavy-lift launch vehicle in operation – and meant to heavily borrow from hardware and systems already developed for Crew and Cargo Dragon.
NASA first announced its selection of SpaceX for the Gateway Logistics Services (GLS) contract back in March 2020. More than a year later, very little has been said (or visibly done) to progress from that announcement to a true contract – an unusually long period of inactivity for such a significant program.
Of note, as recently as April 2021, NASA officials made it clear that they were still in the cryptic process of “reviewing” the Artemis program, leading to such a long delay between the GLS award announcement and finalization of an actual contract with SpaceX. Of note, back when it was announced, NASA’s nominal plan was to begin Dragon XL cargo deliveries as early as 2024 to support the Artemis Program’s first crewed Moon landing attempt.
Since then, however, other crucial aspects – namely the concept of operations and Human Lander System (HLS) meant to carry astronauts to and from the Moon – have evolved significantly. Weeks after NASA’s GLS announcement, the space agency awarded approximately $1 billion to three prospective HLS providers – SpaceX, Dynetics, and a team led by Blue Origin. A little over a year later, NASA announced a shocking decision to award that initial HLS Moon landing demonstration contract to SpaceX and SpaceX alone.
More or less simultaneously, NASA it made it clear that it was seriously studying the possibility of performing Artemis-3 – the first crewed Moon landing attempt in half a century – without Gateway. Along those lines, the SLS-launched Orion spacecraft and HLS lander (a custom variant of SpaceX’s Starship) would dock directly in lunar orbit instead of separately docking to Gateway to transfer crew. NASA’s decision to solely select Starship as its future Moon lander was so surprising in large part because of how starkly the vehicle’s potential capabilities contrast with the rest of the Artemis Program.
As many have already noted, the very existence of a Starship with capabilities close to what SpaceX is working towards – now a practical inevitability for the company to complete its HLS contract – brings into question the architecture NASA has proposed for Artemis. Currently, the nominal plan is to launch astronauts into an exotic high lunar orbit with NASA’s own SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft – an inconvenient orbit only needed to make up for said spacecraft’s shortcomings. Prior to recent developments, Orion would then dock with Gateway. The HLS vehicle would follow and crew would eventually transfer to the lander, which would then carry 2+ astronauts to and from the surface of the Moon and re-dock with Gateway, followed by Orion returning those astronauts to Earth.
Given that Starship offers enough pressurized volume to rival even the vast International Space Station (ISS) in a single launch, the entire concept of Gateway – an almost inhumanely tiny space station – becomes dubious. If Orion also doesn’t need Gateway to transfer its astronauts to the lander, which NASA has all but confirmed, it’s difficult to see what value Gateway could offer outside of a very expensive technology demonstration. Including a planned Falcon Heavy launch of the first two Gateway segments, station production, and the possible need for expensive Dragon XL cargo deliveries, Gateway could easily end up costing NASA $4-5 billion before it hosts a single astronaut.
NASA is already deeply concerned about the apparent likelihood of Congress systematically underfunding the HLS and Artemis programs outside of SLS and Orion, going as far as selecting just a single HLS provider after clearly indicating a desire for redundancy given enough funding. NASA’s HLS contract with SpaceX is expected to cost around $2.9 billion. The next cheapest option – Blue Origin’s proposal – would reportedly cost around $6 billion. In other words, if NASA were able to stop work and Gateway and redirect that funding elsewhere, it could almost already afford two HLS providers without a larger budget.
Given that NASA has selected SpaceX for HLS and GLS, it’s not impossible to imagine that the space agency is growing increasingly aware that Gateway and Dragon XL look more than a little redundant beside the Starship vehicle NASA itself is now funding SpaceX to realize. For now, though, work on all three programs continue. Most recently, NASA and SpaceX are studying the possibility of adding a toilet and using Dragon XL as an extra crew cabin and bathroom to augment the tiny habitable volume of Gateway’s lone habitat. Only time will tell where the cards ultimately fall.
Elon Musk
SpaceX (SPCX) IPO is live today at $135: Here’s exactly what you need to know
SpaceX priced its historic IPO at $135 per share today, raising a record $75 billion.
SpaceX officially priced its initial public offering at $135 per share, offering 555,555,555 shares of Class A common stock and raising $75 billion in what is the largest IPO in stock market history. Shares are set to begin trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on Friday, June 12, under the ticker symbol SPCX. The previous record holder was Saudi Aramco’s 2019 offering at $29 billion, followed by Alibaba’s $22 billion offering in 2014.
At $135 per share and roughly 555.6 million shares, the implied valuation sits near $1.75 trillion, which would make SpaceX roughly the seventh largest company in the United States, just above Tesla’s current market cap. Regular investors can request shares at the IPO price through Robinhood, Fidelity, Charles Schwab, SoFi, and E*TRADE, though the deal is heavily oversubscribed and most retail allocations will be partial or unfilled. Once trading opens June 12, anyone with a brokerage account can buy SPCX on the open market.
SpaceX’s amended S-1 is sparking a major Tesla merger conversation
The valuation is anchored primarily by Starlink. Starlink crossed 10 million subscribers as of February 2026 and is adding 750,000 to 1.5 million new users per month, with the connectivity segment already posting a $1.19 billion profit last quarter. The offering also bundles in xAI following SpaceX’s all-stock merger earlier this year, adding Grok and the Colossus supercomputer to the investment thesis. As Teslarati reported, Starlink ended 2025 with $10 billion in revenue, a figure analysts project could reach $24 billion by end of 2026.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives has been vocal in his support. “I think the time is right,” Ives said, adding that the offering expands the Elon Musk ecosystem rather than competing with Tesla. An average 12-month price target of $165 per share represents roughly 22% upside from the IPO price. Not everyone agrees – Motley Fool noted xAI is spending $1 billion per month playing catch-up to OpenAI and Anthropic.
Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 with a single stated purpose. “Elon founded SpaceX with a goal to change humanity, to make us a multi-planet species,” CFO Bret Johnsen said in the company’s retail roadshow video this week. Musk himself has been more direct: “We are building the systems and technologies necessary to provide global connectivity on Earth and beyond, to understand the true nature of the universe, and to extend the light of consciousness to the stars.”
Investor's Corner
Tesla unfolded its first European “folding Supercharger”
Tesla’s folding Supercharger just arrived in Europe and it changes how fast charging expands.
Tesla’s Folding Unit Supercharger has officially landed in Europe, with the company teasing a new installation in its effort for a broader rollout targeting major motorway rest stops across the European continent in Q3 2026. The arrival marks a notable shift in how Tesla is thinking about network expansion, moving from hardware performance alone to engineering the logistics chain itself.
While Tesla did not reveal the exact location for the new folding Supercharger in Europe, the photo shared on X heavily suggests that this maybe somewhere in Norway. Historically, whenever Tesla rolls out an entirely new infrastructure architecture in Europe, whether it was the original Supercharger stalls years ago or these brand-new modular V4 “Folding Units”, Norway is almost always the designated launch pad because of its unmatched EV adoption rate and supportive infrastructure
The Folding Unit, introduced in March 2026, is a factory pre-assembled V4 charging station built on an industrial hinge system mounted to a heavy-duty concrete base. The entire assembly arrives on site ready to unfold and connect. Tesla confirmed the units feature telescopic light poles specifically designed for easy transportation and fast on-site deployment, a detail that signals how carefully the logistics chain has been engineered alongside the hardware itself. The design allows 33% more stalls per delivery truck, cuts installation time roughly in half, and reduces overall deployment costs by more than 20% compared to traditional installations.
Tesla’s newest “Folding V4 Superchargers” are key to its most aggressive expansion yet
Tesla also noted telescopic light poles which provide benefits over traditional Supercharger installations that require fixed-height poles that are awkward to ship, slow to position on site, and often require separate crews and equipment to erect before charging hardware can even be staged. By engineering poles that compress for transit and extend on arrival, Tesla has removed one of the quieter bottlenecks in the physical deployment process. Every hour saved on a light pole installation is an hour redirected toward getting stalls energized. At scale, across dozens of new sites per quarter, those hours add up to a meaningful acceleration in how quickly a location goes from approved permit to serving its first customer.
Each Folding Unit pairs a single V4 power cabinet with eight charging posts. The V4 cabinet delivers up to 500 kW per stall for passenger vehicles and up to 1.2 MW for the Tesla Semi, supporting twice the stalls per cabinet at three times the power density of its predecessor. Longer cables make every new station immediately usable by non-Tesla vehicles, a priority as Tesla continues opening its network to Ford, GM, Rivian, Hyundai, Stellantis, and others.
As Teslarati reported when the Folding Unit was first unveiled, Tesla’s Gigafactory New York produced its final V3 Supercharger cabinet in March 2026 after more than seven years and 15,000 units, completing a full pivot to V4 production. The European arrival of the folding design is the next chapter in that transition.
Faster and cheaper deployment means Tesla can justify building in markets and corridors that were previously too expensive to serve, filling the coverage gaps that have slowed EV adoption outside major urban centers.
First Folding Unit Superchargers in Europe 🇪🇺 https://t.co/KNfYWJukkL pic.twitter.com/YR1udIpH1i
— Tesla Charging (@TeslaCharging) June 10, 2026
Tesla has stunned by gaining yet another approval for its Full Self-Driving suite in Europe, its second in two days and its fifth overall.
Belgium will be the latest country to allow Tesla owners to utilize FSD on public roads in Europe, joining a quickly growing list that started with the Netherlands, Lithuania, and Estonia.
On Tuesday, Denmark announced its approval of the FSD suite, which has now been followed by Belgium just one day later.
The country’s Minister of Mobility, Annick De Ridder, announced the approval on her X account, stating that she had just signed the approval of Tesla FSD. It now goes to the country’s homologation department for the last step of the approval process.
De @Tesla community houdt hier al geruime tijd de vinger aan de pols over de toelating voor de FSD-technologie op onze Vlaamse en Belgische wegen.
Uit waardering voor jullie niet-aflatende interesse (en aanmoediging 😉), krijgen jullie hierbij de primeur: ik heb net de toelating… pic.twitter.com/Yrps4OHTj8— Annick De Ridder (@AnnickDeRidder) June 10, 2026
The Belgian approval is one of mighty importance because it truly shows how quickly countries in Europe could greenlight the FSD suite consecutively. Approvals are already coming in relatively quickly, which is a great sign.
Perhaps the next big development that could come from FSD approvals in Europe is an approval from a country like England, Italy, France, Spain, or Germany. It would be something to see how FSD would perform in a major European metro, such as London, Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Rome, or Berlin.
Getting Full Self-Driving in Spain and England will be such huge milestones for Tesla. I am so excited to see how FSD performs in Madrid, Barcelona, and London, specifically.
The ultimate test will always be Mumbai or New Delhi. Excited for India’s eventual approval! https://t.co/paw9Ch1qmL pic.twitter.com/9RdDERVSSJ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 9, 2026
Full Self-Driving does an excellent job of roaming around major U.S. cities like New York and Los Angeles, but other high-profile international cities of significance would truly mark a line in the sand for Tesla, which can simply enable any vehicle in its customer-owned fleet to run FSD with the correct approvals.
SpaceX (SPCX) IPO is live today at $135: Here’s exactly what you need to know
Tesla unfolded its first European “folding Supercharger”
