SpaceX’s newest drone ship is on its way out into the Atlantic Ocean for a Starlink mission that will break the company’s record for annual launch cadence.
Somewhat confusing known as Starlink Shell 4 Launch 3 or Starlink 4-3, the batch of 53 laser-linked V1.5 satellites is scheduled to fly before Starlink 4-2 for unknown reasons and at the same time as Starlink 2-3 is scheduled to fly before Starlink 2-2 on the West Coast. Regardless of the seemingly unstable launch order, perhaps related to the recent introduction of Starlink’s new V1.5 satellite design, drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas’ (ASOG) November 27th Port Canaveral confirms that SpaceX is more or less on track to launch Starlink 4-3 no earlier than (NET) 6:20 pm EST (23:20 UTC) on Wednesday, December 1st.
In a bit of a return to stride after launching 20 times in the first six months but only three times in the entire third quarter of 2021, Starlink 4-3 is currently the first of four or even five SpaceX launches scheduled in the last month of the year. Nevertheless, if Starlink 4-3 is successful, it will also set SpaceX up to cross a milestone unprecedented in the history of satellite launches.
Specifically, Starlink 4-3 is SpaceX’s 16th dedicated Starlink launch of 2021 and will mark 951 Starlink satellites safely delivered to orbit since January 20th. If, as CEO Elon Musk has telegraphed is the plan, SpaceX intends to complete one more dedicated Starlink launch in December (either Starlink 2-2 or 2-3), the company could round out 2021 having launched more than a thousand satellites in a single year.
Thanks to Starlink, 2020 was the first year in history in which more than a thousand satellites (technically 1283) were launched into orbit. Now, in 2021, there’s a good chance that SpaceX Starlink launches alone will account for more than a thousand satellites launched in one year. Altogether, SpaceX will likely end the year having singlehandedly launched a total of more than 1240 satellites in 2021 – and despite only completing 3-4 Starlink launches in the last seven months of the year compared to 13 in the first five months.
For SpaceX and Starlink, that’s great news. In March and November 2018, the FCC approved two SpaceX applications to launch and operate constellations of ~4400 and ~7500 Starlink satellites – a total of around 11,900 satellites. To avoid having its licenses revoked, SpaceX – like all other FCC constellation applicants – is required to launch half of its licensed constellation within six years of its license receipts and full constellation within nine years. For SpaceX, that means it has to launch at least ~2200 satellites operating around 550 km (340 mi) and ~3750 satellites operating around 350 km (~220 mi) by March and November 2024, respectively.
With a bit less than 1700 Starlink satellites currently functioning in orbit, even if SpaceX merely repeats its 2021 cadence, it will be on track to outright finish Starlink’s first 4400-satellite phase by mid-2024 and should easily cross the halfway mark by mid-2022 – years ahead of schedule for both. However, simultaneously hitting Starlink’s very low Earth orbit (VLEO) deployment milestones will still be a massive challenge. Given that SpaceX has yet to launch a single VLEO Starlink spacecraft three years after license approval, it now has less than three years to launch ~3750 VLEO satellites on top of at least 500 more LEO satellites.
If SpaceX can replicate its H1 2021 Starlink launch cadence throughout 2022, completing at least 26 launches in 52 weeks, it may actually have a shot at pulling off a cadence close to what is needed to meet its FCC deployment requirements (an average of 1400 satellites per year for the next three years). If SpaceX simply aims for the average annual numbers needed to complete the full ~11,900-satellite Starlink constellation by November 2027, it will need to launch around 1800-2000 satellites per year – equivalent to 35-40 Falcon 9 rockets.
Tesla Robotaxi ride-hailing without a Safety Monitor is proving to be a difficult task, according to some riders who made the journey to Austin to attempt to ride in one of its vehicles that has zero supervision.
Last week, Tesla officially removed Safety Monitors from some — not all — of its Robotaxi vehicles in Austin, Texas, answering skeptics who said the vehicles still needed supervision to operate safely and efficiently.
BREAKING: Tesla launches public Robotaxi rides in Austin with no Safety Monitor
Tesla aimed to remove Safety Monitors before the end of 2025, and it did, but only to company employees. It made the move last week to open the rides to the public, just a couple of weeks late to its original goal, but the accomplishment was impressive, nonetheless.
However, the small number of Robotaxis that are operating without Safety Monitors has proven difficult to hail for a ride. David Moss, who has gained notoriety recently as the person who has traveled over 10,000 miles in his Tesla on Full Self-Driving v14 without any interventions, made it to Austin last week.
He has tried to get a ride in a Safety Monitor-less Robotaxi for the better part of four days, and after 38 attempts, he still has yet to grab one:
Wow just wow!
It’s 8:30PM, 29° out ice storm hailing & Tesla Robotaxi service has turned back on!
Waymo is offline & vast majority of humans are home in the storm
Ride 38 was still supervised but by far most impressive yet pic.twitter.com/1aUnJkcYm8
— David Moss (@DavidMoss) January 25, 2026
Tesla said last week that it was rolling out a controlled test of the Safety Monitor-less Robotaxis. Ashok Elluswamy, who heads the AI program at Tesla, confirmed that the company was “starting with a few unsupervised vehicles mixed in with the broader Robotaxi fleet with Safety Monitors,” and that “the ratio will increase over time.”
This is a good strategy that prioritizes safety and keeps the company’s controlled rollout at the forefront of the Robotaxi rollout.
However, it will be interesting to see how quickly the company can scale these completely monitor-less rides. It has proven to be extremely difficult to get one, but that is understandable considering only a handful of the cars in the entire Austin fleet are operating with no supervision within the vehicle.
Tesla has given its biggest hint that Full Self-Driving in Europe is imminent, as a new feature seems to show that the company is preparing for frequent border crossings.
Tesla owner and influencer BLKMDL3, also known as Zack, recently took his Tesla to the border of California and Mexico at Tijuana, and at the international crossing, Full Self-Driving showed an interesting message: “Upcoming country border — FSD (Supervised) will become unavailable.”
FSD now shows a new message when approaching an international border crossing.
Stayed engaged the whole way as we crossed the border and worked great in Mexico! pic.twitter.com/bDzyLnyq0g
— Zack (@BLKMDL3) January 26, 2026
Due to regulatory approvals, once a Tesla operating on Full Self-Driving enters a new country, it is required to comply with the laws and regulations that are applicable to that territory. Even if legal, it seems Tesla will shut off FSD temporarily, confirming it is in a location where operation is approved.
This is something that will be extremely important in Europe, as crossing borders there is like crossing states in the U.S.; it’s pretty frequent compared to life in America, Canada, and Mexico.
Tesla has been working to get FSD approved in Europe for several years, and it has been getting close to being able to offer it to owners on the continent. However, it is still working through a lot of the red tape that is necessary for European regulators to approve use of the system on their continent.
This feature seems to be one that would be extremely useful in Europe, considering the fact that crossing borders into other countries is much more frequent than here in the U.S., and would cater to an area where approvals would differ.
Tesla has been testing FSD in Spain, France, England, and other European countries, and plans to continue expanding this effort. European owners have been fighting for a very long time to utilize the functionality, but the red tape has been the biggest bottleneck in the process.
Tesla Europe builds momentum with expanding FSD demos and regional launches
Tesla operates Full Self-Driving in the United States, China, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship V3 gets launch date update from Elon Musk
The first flight of Starship Version 3 and its new Raptor V3 engines could happen as early as March.
Elon Musk has announced that SpaceX’s next Starship launch, Flight 12, is expected in about six weeks. This suggests that the first flight of Starship Version 3 and its new Raptor V3 engines could happen as early as March.
In a post on X, Elon Musk stated that the next Starship launch is in six weeks. He accompanied his announcement with a photo that seemed to have been taken when Starship’s upper stage was just about to separate from the Super Heavy Booster. Musk did not state whether SpaceX will attempt to catch the Super Heavy Booster during the upcoming flight.
The upcoming flight will mark the debut of Starship V3. The upgraded design includes the new Raptor V3 engine, which is expected to have nearly twice the thrust of the original Raptor 1, at a fraction of the cost and with significantly reduced weight. The Starship V3 platform is also expected to be optimized for manufacturability.
The Starship V3 Flight 12 launch timeline comes as SpaceX pursues an aggressive development cadence for the fully reusable launch system. Previous iterations of Starship have racked up a mixed but notable string of test flights, including multiple integrated flight tests in 2025.
Interestingly enough, SpaceX has teased an aggressive timeframe for Starship V3’s first flight. Way back in late November, SpaceX noted on X that it will be aiming to launch Starship V3’s maiden flight in the first quarter of 2026. This was despite setbacks like a structural anomaly on the first V3 booster during ground testing.
“Starship’s twelfth flight test remains targeted for the first quarter of 2026,” the company wrote in its post on X.
Tesla Robotaxi ride-hailing without a Safety Monitor proves to be difficult
Tesla gives its biggest hint that Full Self-Driving in Europe is imminent
