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SpaceX drone ship sails through Panama Canal on the way to California
For the third time ever, one of SpaceX’s “autonomous spaceport drone ships” has successfully transited the Panama Canal on its way to a new home port.
This time around, similar to drone ship Just Read The Instructions’ (JRTI) original 2015 journey from a Louisiana shipyard to Port of Los Angeles, drone ship Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY) headed west through the Panama Canal on June 25th, 2021. Unlikely JRTI, though, OCISLY was already operational and had supported almost four dozen successful Falcon booster landings before SpaceX decided to move the storied drone ship from Port Canaveral, Florida to Port of Long Beach, California.
A bit less than four years after Just Read The Instructions debuted on the West Coast, SpaceX sent the drone ship back east in August 2019, leaving the company’s Vandenberg Air/Space Force Base (VAFB) launch pad without an at-sea booster recovery capability ever since. Perhaps unsurprisingly, SpaceX has only launched once out of VAFB in the last two years. Now, though, the company intends to restart West Coast launches with a vengeance – and soon.
SpaceX’s primary motivation: a growing need to deliver a large number of Starlink satellites to polar – rather than semi-equatorial – orbits. Just last month, SpaceX’s 28th dedicated Starlink launch carried the constellation past the 1600-satellite milestones for the first time ever. Comprised of a little over 4400 satellites split between five orbital ‘shells,’ that milestone meant that the Starlink constellation’s first phase is now more than a third complete.
It also means that SpaceX has effectively finished the first of those five shells once all ~1584 satellites finish raising their orbits. A second nearly identical shell of 1584 satellites will eventually complete the constellation’s semi-equatorial foundation. In principle, those two shells of ~3200 satellites are enough to serve internet to ~99% of humanity.
Polar satellites will allow SpaceX to truly provide internet anywhere on Earth. Perhaps most importantly, polar Starlink satellites with optical (i.e. laser) interlinks would allow the constellation to serve uninterrupted, high-quality internet to all aircraft and ships – two major connectivity markets currently trapped with solutions that are either offer a terrible user experience or are extraordinarily expensive (and still mediocre).
Once operational on the West Coast, drone ship OCISLY should allow SpaceX to begin fleshing out Starlink’s polar shells with dedicated launches almost immediately. OCISLY is currently on tracked to arrive at Port of Long Beach around July 6th, leaving SpaceX more than three weeks to prepare for a polar Starlink launch before the month is out. Recently, FCC filings have also indicated that SpaceX intends to perform dedicated polar Starlink launches from California and Florida – though the latter missions will take a significant performance hit to make that happen.
According to Musk, Starlink is about six weeks away from achieving uninterrupted global coverage (excluding the poles) and six months away from offering uninterrupted coverage anywhere on Earth. It’s unclear how much of Starlink’s three polar shells will have to be completed before the constellation can truly provide uninterrupted coverage to those living in Earth’s polar regions but it’s likely that achieving that feat in six months will be a challenge.
Accounting for the inherently less efficient nature of polar launches and assuming approximately 50 Starlink satellites per polar launch, SpaceX will likely need to complete 12-20 polar missions to achieve full global coverage. Though unlikely, both of SpaceX’s first dedicated polar Starlink launches from the East and West Coasts could potentially occur in late July or early August.
Elon Musk
Why automakers keep turning down Elon Musk’s Tesla Full Self-Driving offer
Elon Musk confirms no automaker has ever accepted Tesla’s offer to license Full Self-Driving software.
Elon Musk gave a brief answer on X Monday that confirmed that Tesla’s standing offer to license Full Self-Driving to other automakers still has zero takers. Sawyer Merritt wrote that “Tesla has for years openly invited other automakers to license FSD. None of them have accepted,” responding to a prediction from Boom Supersonic founder Blake Scholl that Tesla would eventually open FSD the way it opened its Supercharger network to rival brands. Musk’s reply to Merritt was one word: “Exactly.”
It is not the first time Musk has made this point. He said something similar in November, when he called legacy automakers reluctance to adopt FSD “crazy,” and Tesla has floated the offer publicly since at least 2021. Scholl’s prediction touches on something real. Once NACS became the de facto charging standard, adoption from Ford, GM, Rivian and others followed within about a year. FSD licensing was supposed to work the same way once Tesla built enough of a lead that switching made sense for everyone.
Tesla has for years openly invited other automakers to license FSD. None of them have accepted. https://t.co/kgz4idpoUM
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) September 22, 2026
The case for licensing now is stronger than it was two years ago. Waymo and Zoox are logging hundreds of thousands of unsupervised autonomous miles, along with Tesla’s own Robotaxi fleet. Every automaker still selling driver assist systems that lag FSD has given the robotaxi conversation to Tesla, Waymo and Zoox by default. Licensing FSD would let a GM or a Ford compete on the same field without spending a decade and billions of dollars building a stack from scratch, the same argument Tesla made when it opened the Supercharger network to bring more EVs onto its chargers.
But FSD is not a connector standard. As one reply to Musk’s post pointed out, licensing FSD is not a software license the way NACS was a plug spec. It requires adopting Tesla’s eight camera layout and its onboard compute architecture, meaning a licensee’s cars would effectively become Tesla hardware wearing someone else’s badge. That is the visible obstacle. The less visible one is data. A licensed FSD stack would report back the same telemetry Tesla collects from its own fleet, giving Tesla a continuous read on how a competitor’s cars are actually driven, where they struggle, and how often drivers intervene. For an automaker trying to build its own autonomy program, or simply trying to keep its build quality and safety record private, handing Tesla that visibility could be a bigger cost than the hardware bill. It is the reason the Supercharger comparison only goes so far. Opening a charging plug cost Tesla very little. Opening FSD would cost a rival something it cannot get back.
Tesla has reopened reservations for its long-delayed next-generation Roadster, asking buyers for a $50,000 deposit just days before an October 1 reveal event in Waco, Texas. The move revives a reservation process first launched in 2017 and later paused when Tesla pulled pricing from its website in 2021.
The reservation page requires an immediate $5,000 credit-card payment, described as fully refundable, followed by a $45,000 wire transfer due within 10 days, which is identical to what was expected previously. Reservations are not considered final until the wire clears.
The structure matches the 2017 terms Tesla used when it first collected deposits after unveiling a prototype. Tesla has not published a confirmed retail price or production start date on the order page.
Go buy a Roadster pic.twitter.com/n7rhouAmIS
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) September 21, 2026
The October 1 event is scheduled in Waco, about 90 minutes north of Tesla’s Austin headquarters and near SpaceX’s McGregor rocket test site. Tesla sent invitations to existing reservation holders and posted a “Go for launch” teaser on September 12.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) established a temporary flight restriction over the McGregor area from September 18 through October 2, consistent with plans for a demonstration involving SpaceX-designed cold-gas thrusters. Elon Musk has previously described the optional package as enabling extreme acceleration or brief hovering. Tesla has said the event will include pricing, specifications, and production targets.
The second-generation Roadster was first shown in November 2017 during Tesla’s Semi launch. Musk promised production in 2020, with claimed performance of 0-60 mph in 1.9 seconds, more than 250 mph top speed, and roughly 620 miles of range.
Those targets have slipped repeatedly.
Tesla later pointed to 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025-2026 before indicating production would not begin until 2027 or 2028 at Gigafactory Texas. Design work has continued, with reports of a sharper, Cybertruck-influenced look replacing the original curvy prototype.
Original reservation holders who paid $50,000 in 2017, or $250,000 for the Founders Series, have waited nearly nine years without a production car. Some high-profile customers canceled. Tesla’s decision to reopen orders now, after previously shutting them down, tests whether new buyers will commit substantial funds before seeing a finalized production vehicle. The October 1 event is intended to answer remaining questions about what those buyers will actually receive and when.
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is heading to Czechia after the Czech Ministry of Transport recognised the Dutch RDW’s provisional type approval, making the country the seventh EU member state to clear the system for public roads. Tesla Europe announced on 21 September 2026 that “FSD Supervised is now approved in Czechia” and that rollout “will begin soon.”
The decision marks a notable reversal. Earlier in 2026, Prague had declined to automatically recognise the Netherlands’ April approval, citing concerns over speed-limit compliance, traffic-sign recognition and driver-attention monitoring, and arguing that a coordinated EU approach was preferable. Officials said months of expert review, talks with Tesla and other member states, and real-world data from countries already using the system resolved those issues.
🚨 Tesla FSD heading to Czechia 🇨🇿 pic.twitter.com/mkzlM9QjrB
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) September 21, 2026
“Safety remains the top priority,” the ministry stated.
FSD Supervised remains a Level 2 driver-assistance system: the driver must stay engaged and is legally responsible. Eligible vehicles need AI4, the company’s most up-to-date hardware version. Tesla is expected to push the feature over the air in the coming days, following the pattern seen after earlier national approvals.
Europe’s rollout began when Dutch regulator RDW issued a provisional EU type approval on 10 April 2026 after extensive testing. Mutual recognition then produced a rapid cascade: Lithuania (20 May), Estonia (29 May), Denmark (9 June), Belgium (10 June) and Slovenia (7 September). Czechia now completes that list of seven.
The approvals cover only a modest share of the EU population, but they add political weight ahead of a 6 October vote by the Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles. A qualified majority, at least 15 of 27 member states representing 65 percent of the EU population, could open the remaining markets, including large ones such as Germany, France, Italy and Spain that have so far preferred to wait for a bloc-wide decision.
For Czech Tesla owners, the immediate prize is access to the same supervised highway and city driving already available in the other six countries. For Tesla, each new market generates additional European driving data and strengthens the case that FSD Supervised can operate safely under the continent’s varied road rules. The Czech approval is therefore both a local milestone and another incremental step toward a wider European launch.
Why automakers keep turning down Elon Musk’s Tesla Full Self-Driving offer
Tesla Roadster is available for order once again following brief hold
