After yesterday’s successful Starlink-26 launch, SpaceX is now more than half of the way to completing eight orbital Falcon 9 launches in six weeks.
On April 23rd, after a one-day delay for bad weather, SpaceX launched four astronauts on a flight-proven Falcon 9 booster – and in a flight-proven Dragon capsule – in a historic spaceflight first. Six days later, the company aced its 24th operational Starlink launch, followed by two more 60-satellite Starlink missions on May 4th and May 9th – the latter of which marked the first time a single Falcon 9 booster completed ten orbital-class launches. Finally, Falcon 9 completed yet another Starlink launch on May 15th – this time carrying 52 flat-packed internet satellites and two third-party payloads as part of SpaceX’s fourth Starlink rideshare mission.
However, after launching 234 satellites, four astronauts, and five Falcon 9s – and recovering all five boosters – in 22 days, SpaceX is far from finished.
Some two weeks ago, the bulk of SpaceX’s June launch manifest had already more or less fallen into place with three specific dates in the first half of the month. A few days prior to Starlink-26’s successful launch, what is likely SpaceX’s fourth and final launch of May 2021 also came into focus.
Unsurprisingly another Starlink mission, Starlink-28 is now scheduled to launch no earlier than (NET) 2:59 pm EDT (18:59 UTC) on May 26th – 11 days after Starlink-26. Of note, SpaceX has chosen Falcon 9 booster B1063 to support the mission. That booster debuted in November 2020 at California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) and was transported to Florida two months ago. Starlink-28 will be its second launch.
Up next, SiriusXM’s 7-ton SXM-8 radio satellite arrived at SpaceX’s payload integration facilities in Florida earlier this month and is scheduled to launch as early as 12:25 am EDT (4:25 UTC) on June 1st. The mission could slip a few days but is still likely to launch in early June.
Less than three days later, a rare new Falcon 9 booster could launch SpaceX’s second upgraded Cargo Dragon spacecraft – also new – on NASA’s CRS-22 space station resupply mission. Earlier today, NASA confirmed that the mission is on track to launch on June 3rd – likely around 1pm EDT (15:00 UTC).
If the weather, space station, and SpaceX’s rockets, spacecraft, and pad facilities cooperate, the completion of those three upcoming missions would mark eight successful Falcon 9 launches – carrying two Dragon spacecraft, four astronauts, and almost 300 satellites to orbit – in less than six weeks (41 days). If SpaceX manages that feat and averages one launch every five days, the company will have completed ~45% of its 2021 launches in ~26% of the year to date – a clear pattern of acceleration.
In the same period, a SpaceX Crew Dragon also safely returned four astronauts to Earth after the longest crewed spaceflight in US history (May 2nd) and the company successfully launched and landed a full-size Starship prototype for the first time (May 5th).
Elon Musk
Elon Musk gives his most telling Tesla-SpaceX merger conversation yet
Elon Musk hinted a Tesla-SpaceX merger could be coming, and Wall Street is taking notice.
Elon Musk gave his clearest signal yet that Tesla and SpaceX could eventually combine, telling the All-In Summit in Los Angeles that the two companies’ deepening collaboration makes the question worth asking. Sawyer Merritt first surfaced the highlight on X Tuesday.
Asked directly why Tesla and SpaceX remain separate given how closely they already work together, Musk told hosts at the summit: “Great question there. With all this collaboration, on so many levels, who can imagine what action one might take when there’s so much close collaboration in so many areas.” SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell, who joined Musk on stage, added that SpaceX personnel have already moved into xAI to fill leadership and engineering gaps, saying the businesses are integrating “faster than I thought,” though “not fully integrated yet,”
The comments landed on top of merger speculation that has been building on Wall Street for months. JPMorgan has called a tie-up “strategically coherent on paper,” pointing to overlapping ambitions in AI, robotics, energy, transportation and space. Jefferies went further, estimating Musk could retain roughly 55.3 percent voting control in a deal structured without a premium, a scenario that would still leave room for Tesla shareholders to come out ahead. On Kalshi, traders now put the odds of a merger before 2028 at 66 percent.
Tesla’s stake in SpaceX, still under one percent, traces back to its earlier investment in xAI, which converted to SpaceX equity after SpaceX absorbed the AI company. The two are also jointly building Terafab, a chip facility in Austin meant to serve both Tesla’s AI computing needs and SpaceX’s satellite ambitions. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives has stood by a 2027 merger timeline for months, and Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest recently floated a similar case, an idea Musk pushed back on directly at the time.
Another Tesla SpaceX merger prediction by ARK Invest has Elon Musk talking
The timing adds another layer. Tesla has scheduled an October 1 unveiling for its next generation Roadster at a venue near SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas test site, using the phrase “Go for launch” in its promotional material. Both stocks dipped roughly 2 percent Monday before recovering slightly in premarket trading Tuesday, with SpaceX shares up about 0.4 percent and Tesla essentially flat.
Musk stopped short of confirming anything is in motion. But unlike his past denials of a corporate restructuring, this response didn’t rule one out, and it came with Shotwell sitting next to him describing an integration that’s already underway.
The Tesla Roadster unveiling is getting hyped up by the company’s CEO Elon Musk, who has been a big reason the product has such high expectations due to delayed timelines and a constant need to make it even more insane than before.
Tesla announced on September 12 that it would officially unveil the Roadster in Waco, Texas, on October 1, ending years of patience for fans and reservation holders who have waited for the all-electric supercar to enter production since 2017.
Musk has said that this event will be well worth the wait on several occasions, and last year on the Joe Rogan Experience, he said that there should be a closing chapter to supercars- the end of cars that aren’t focused on safety.
He said:
“Whether it’s good or bad, it will be unforgettable. My friend Peter Thiel once reflected that the future was supposed to have flying cars, but we don’t have flying cars. I think if Peter wants a flying car, he should be able to buy one. I think it has a shot at being the most memorable product unveil ever. This is some crazy technology in this car. Let’s just put it this way: if you took all the James Bond cars and combined them, it’s crazier than that.”
Musk’s teases have continued, and now that the event is roughly two weeks away, it seems like Roadster is finally going to show up and blow some minds:
It’s out of this world
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 13, 2026
Excitement guaranteed
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 13, 2026
Tesla has definitely dragged out the development of the Roadster, but there is a good reason for it.
Tesla has been working on many other projects, most notably self-driving efforts to increase passenger safety, and those simply took priority over the Roadster, a low-volume, high-performance sports car that has a lightning-fast acceleration rate of 0-60 MPH in just 1.1 seconds, could potentially fly, and contributes very little to the company’s mission.
However, many people have the Roadster on pre-order through the referral program or with their own money, and it is time that Tesla delivers on that.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s Boring Company has big plans for Las Vegas by year’s end
Elon Musk’s Boring Company says Vegas Loop stations will double by year end once again.
The Boring Company says the Vegas Loop’s station count will double by the end of the year, tying the target to a hiring push for drivers and operations managers in Las Vegas. “Vegas Loop is getting bigger – the station count will double by end of year!” the company wrote in a post on X, attaching listings for a Loop driver and a senior Loop operations manager.
The number checks out against what’s already public, with the Vegas Loop currently running 14 operational stations, while the Boring Company’s own project page lists 28 as the target for the end of 2026.
Vegas Loop is getting bigger – the station count will double by end of year!
Urgently hiring exceptional and enthusiastic Drivers and Ops Managers.
Apply here!
Driverhttps://t.co/ZUPXBYTONb
Senior Loop Ops Managerhttps://t.co/mV6V22V8jH pic.twitter.com/IZ9FqIw8WY
— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) September 14, 2026
Much of that growth is tied to tunnels that are already built and waiting on an opening date. A roughly two-mile dual tunnel system under Paradise Road, connecting Westgate to a planned station at 4744 Paradise Road, is expected to open in stages over the coming weeks, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority chief executive Steve Hill told the Review-Journal last week. New stations at 4744 Paradise, Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, and the former Gordon Biersch site would come online with it, several of them built to speed up rides to Harry Reid International Airport ahead of Formula 1’s Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Clark County entitled Vegas Loop for 123 stations after approving 19 more in August, as Teslarati reported at the time. Entitlement and construction move at different speeds on this project, so county approval alone does not guarantee a station opens on any particular schedule.
Clark County approved 18 additional stations back in 2023, part of a plan that pushed the system’s target to 69 stations across 65 miles, doubling the network on paper for the first time. The target kept climbing after that, to roughly 93 stations by the end of that year and 104 by last year, before August’s vote pushed it to 123. This week’s announcement is the first time that doubling language has been attached to stations actually running rather than stations merely approved on a county map.
Ridership gives some sense of what a denser network could carry. Boring Company executive Mike Baier said in July that the Vegas Loop already moves around 40,000 passengers on busy convention days, a total that tops most light rail systems in the country despite the system running on a fraction of its planned tunnel mileage. Company leadership has projected ridership could triple or quadruple once the airport connector tunnels fully open.
Boring Company did not say which stations beyond those already under construction would open by year end, or whether the hiring push points to a fleet expansion alongside the new stops.
Elon Musk gives his most telling Tesla-SpaceX merger conversation yet
Tesla Roadster unveiling is getting hyped up by Elon Musk
