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SpaceX’s drone ships near return-to-action with Block 5 Falcon 9 landings
Teslarati photographer Pauline Acalin’s recent trips to drone ship Just Read The Instructions’ berth in Port of San Pedro shows that SpaceX technicians are nearly done preparing the hibernating vessel for a return to Falcon 9 rocket recoveries in the Pacific Ocean, a ten-month drought likely to end for good on July 20th.
Although it’s hard to believe, SpaceX’s West Coast autonomous spaceport drone ship (ASDS) has been effectively marooned at its Port of Los Angeles berth for more than nine full months, with the vessel’s last recovery occurring just after the October 9 launch of ten Iridium NEXT satellites, the fourth of five SpaceX Vandenberg launches in 2017 (and the fourth of four West Coast booster landings).
SpaceX’s West coast drone ship Just Read The Instructions getting some much needed fresh paint in 2017. (Instagram, anonymous)
Three months after that October mission and booster recovery, SpaceX expended their next California launch and marked the beginning of a streak of eight missions where flight-proven Block 3 and 4 boosters could have been recovered but no attempts were made. While intermixed with the spectacle of Falcon Heavy’s dual side booster landings at LZ-1, the debut launch and recovery of Falcon 9 Block 5, and two other Block 4 booster recoveries, the majority of SpaceX’s launches since December 2017 have been treated as expendable – put simply, the company decided that recovering and refurbishing twice-flown boosters of older Falcon 9 blocks was not worth the effort and expense.
Instead, those well-worn boosters were expended in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans after partially supporting a series of experimental tests designed to gather additional data on the recovery envelope of SpaceX’s partially reusable rockets. The rationale makes sense – SpaceX fundamentally sacrificed some of its older, less-reusable Falcon 9 boosters for the sake of knowledge that may allow their highly reusable Falcon 9 Block 5 predecessors a better chance of successfully landing even after exceptionally fast, hot, and high-energy recoveries, a necessity if the upgraded rockets are to be reused 10 to 100 times, as is the goal.
Although Just Read The Instructions spent several months without a full complement of maneuvering thrusters, thanks in part to efforts to keep its besieged East coast sister Of Course I Still Love You operational, photographer Pauline Acalin’s photos over the last several months show that the vessel now has four full thrusters installed and ready to bring it back into rocket recovery action in the Pacific Ocean.
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- SpaceX’s drone ship Just Read The Instructions and fairing catcher Mr Steven at their Port of San Pedro berths, May 2018. Note the four bright blue thrusters visible aboard JRTI, three installed and one on deck. (Pauline Acalin)
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- The aggressive Atlantic Ocean landing of Thaicom-8’s Falcon 9 first stage. (SpaceX)
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- Iridium-1’s successful and scenic landing on Pacific drone ship JRTI, January 2017. This could be an increasingly rare occurrence in the Pacific, thanks to SpaceX’s new land-based landing zone. (SpaceX)
Still, the abrupt return to expendable rocket launches after a year – 2017 – filled to the brim with 18 of 18 successful launches and 14 of 14 successful landings led to a decidedly fascinating vein of disapproval in the SpaceX enthusiast and broader spaceflight fan communities – people had grown accustomed to the adrenaline-soaked thrill of routine Falcon 9 rocket landings. Some expressed worries that regularly and intentionally expending large hunks of metal in the ocean could harm their ecosystems and was tantamount to littering. None the wiser, every other launch provider in the world continues to expend all of their rocket boosters without any attempts at recovery like the nearly all non-Shuttle rocket launches in the past six decades, and their tepidly reusable next-generation rockets are unlikely to even begin attempting hardware recovery until the mid-2020s at the earliest.
Frankly, SpaceX’s abrupt successes with orbital-class rocket recovery struck a chord with observers, demonstrating just how intuitive attempting to recover expensive rocket hardware really is, while also bringing into clear focus the actual insanity of failing to try and of the seemingly ad-hoc rationalization of expendable rocketry. Thankfully, we still have SpaceX, and the company’s spate of rocket booster sacrifices is likely just one expendable launch away from coming to an effective end for the indefinite future, with that particular launch – CRS-15 – scheduled less than two weeks from now, on June 29th.
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- B1045, tasked with launching NASA’s TESS exoplanet observatory, roughly 24 hours before liftoff. (Tom Cross)
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- After launching in April 2018, B1045 landed on OCISLY and is being refurbished for a second launch in just 5 days, on June 29. (Tom Cross)
After CRS-15, which will probably see its twice-flown Block 4 booster expended in the Atlantic, a combination of Block 5 Falcon 9s and Heavies will theoretically bring to an end the practice of expending orbital rocket boosters, at least on SpaceX’s watch. Considering that the upgraded boosters have been designed and built to launch as many as ten times with minimal refurbishment and potentially 100+ times with regular maintenance, the opportunity cost of an expended Block 5 rocket booster is so high that it is difficult to imagine SpaceX will be easily swayed to expend one until it’s flown at least several times prior.
We here at Teslarati eagerly await the imminent demise of expendable rockets, set to begin in earnest – at least for SpaceX – around July 19th and 20th with two Falcon 9 Block 5 launches on two coasts, one with Telstar 19V (Florida) and the other with Iridium-7 (California).
Follow us for live updates, peeks behind the scenes, and photos from Teslarati’s East and West coast photographers.
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Tom Cross – Twitter
Pauline Acalin – Twitter
Eric Ralph – Twitter
The Tesla Semi is entering a new Pilot Program with Paper Transport, LLC (PTI), a Wisconsin-based transportation provider. The company will test the Semi’s Long Range configuration through “dedicated operations within the Chicago market.”
Chicago presents an interesting challenge for the Semi, as it will be a colder-weather climate that will test the Semi’s ability to operate in lower temperatures and in potentially large accumulations of snow. This is something Tesla has been testing with the Semi in Alaska and even in Northern California during the colder months, but Chicago will present a truly tough midwestern winter.
Tesla Semi spotted on journey home after winter performance testing
PTI says it is using the Semi to evaluate its strategy of reducing transportation emissions while maintaining performance, reliability, and cost efficiency. These are major arguments for the Semi being introduced into new fleets.
CEO of PTI Tyler Ellison said:
“PTI has been a leader in sustainable transportation solutions for over 15 years. We take a consultative approach to helping customers identify and implement the right transportation solution for their network. Our partnership with Tesla expands our portfolio alongside renewable natural gas and intermodal, giving customers more ways to reduce Scope 3 emissions without compromising service or economics.”
PTI is far from the first company to adopt the Semi within a fleet, as Tesla entered strategic agreements with PepsiCo. and its subsidiary Frito-Lay for a Pilot Program that extended throughout the California region.
Tesla has let companies like those utilize the Semi to determine whether it would be suitable for their operations. Additionally, Tesla gets valuable information regarding the Semi’s performance, knowing what to improve and what is ideal for companies that will utilize the all-electric truck for regional and nationwide logistics.
PTI plans to utilize the Long Range configuration, which is priced at $290,000 and features a range of approximately 500 miles, a three-motor powertrain, up to 800 kW of drive power, and consumption of just 1.7 kWh per mile.
Tesla Semi pricing revealed after company uncovers trim levels
VP of Maintenance at PTI, Bryan Ellen, added:
“We are excited to partner with Tesla, leveraging their ever-evolving technology. We are bullish in our estimation of the parallels available between our dedicated model and the efficiency of their fully electric Class 8 tractor. We anticipate a growing synergy between our businesses as we work to facilitate this sustainable solution for our customers.”
PTI has logged more than 87 million miles using sources like compressed and renewable gas, but now is looking to take it a step further with fully electric operations.
Tesla revealed on Monday that it is building a new autonomous vehicle at Gigafactory Texas, its plant just outside of the City of Austin. This particular vehicle will be geared toward those who are in need of a wheelchair-accessible car that would require no human driver for operation.
According to a new report from Wired, Tesla’s Senior Policy Advisor, India Herdman, told members of the Washington D.C. City Council on Monday:
“We are in development for a purpose-built, wheelchair-accessible autonomous vehicle. We know that paratransit can be very difficult, and people who are confined to wheelchairs permanently should still be able to move around freely, so that is an active product being built by Tesla in Texas.”
This builds upon what CEO Elon Musk said last year on X, which confirmed the company was working on accessible rides within its Robotaxi platform, which currently is confined to the Model Y.
Absolutely
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 19, 2025
Tesla is also developing the Cybercab, which started employee rides last week. However, this vehicle is not necessarily geared toward wheelchair accessibility.
That leaves a major gap in the autonomous ride-sharing program that Tesla is attempting to build; the company has been pretty clear that it does not want to complicate its manufacturing lines by bringing in a wide array of body styles.
However, it seems necessary to have something larger that could help transport people to appointments when they cannot drive. For wheelchair accessibility, the Robovan, which was unveiled at the “We, Robot” event in October 2024, seems to be the most ideal solution:
Herdman did not indicate whether she was referring to the Robovan or if Tesla is building yet another body style that is geared toward full autonomy but also caters to the handicapped.
Tesla might need to develop something specifically for the handicapped in order to align with the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prevents discrimination against people with disabilities in transportation services. Uber was hit with a lawsuit late last year for “refusing to reasonably modify its policies, practices, or procedures where necessary to avoid discriminating against riders with disabilities.”
Tesla would obviously like to avoid this.
It will be interesting to see what Tesla will do with this project, and whether it will introduce something new to the market or just continue with the Robovan.
Tesla weirdly confirmed that its steering wheel-less and pedal-less Cybercab vehicle is now in the process of giving employees rides, a huge milestone for the vehicle program.
But the entire thing was super strange. On Friday, Tesla released a video stating that there was “Cool news from Giga Texas” and that employees were now taking rides in Cybercabs that have no manual controls. The units seen on public roads are engineering vehicles that have manual controls inside, a necessity as Tesla moved through the testing phase.
However, Tesla removed the video and reposted it shortly after with a more vague title. It seems like the employee rides are still going, but the video was adjusted slightly. The initial upload showed employees doing things like watching movies and adjusting the climate, but these snippets were removed in the second upload.
Cool news from Giga Texas pic.twitter.com/gvbG456Tzw
— Tesla Robotaxi (@robotaxi) July 11, 2026
Both images below were uploaded with the first video, but were removed after Tesla re-uploaded the announcement. These are not available in the second upload
Credit: Tesla
Credit: Tesla
Nevertheless, the announcement from Tesla is that the Cybercab is operating with employees inside who can control the vehicle’s audio, video, climate, and destination settings through their smartphone app.
Tesla has already been testing Cybercab engineering units, but last month, it was able to self-certify for SAE Level 4, which would enable unsupervised self-driving in Texas. The company is moving toward that, and the plans have always been to launch Cybercab rides this year.
The Cybercab is potentially looked at as the next generation of Tesla’s mobility leg. For the past 15 years, the company has been known as somewhat of an automaker, among many other things. However, these passenger vehicles that Tesla has manufactured are now moving into a new realm, as they will eventually drive themselves with no supervision thanks to the Full Self-Driving suite.
The Cybercab is just the next step of that: a true vehicle developed for the sole purpose of ride-hailing. It has no human controls, it has only two seats, and it will get passengers from Point A to Point B with no awkward driver, no need for manual inputs, and with no stress.
Tesla is moving forward with other developments related to the Cybercab project as well. However, the big announcement will come when Tesla finally announces that it is launching Cybercab rides to the general public, something that it plans to launch either late this year or early 2027.
Tesla Semi enters new Pilot Program with interesting challenge
Tesla is building a wheelchair-accessible Robotaxi
