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SpaceX CEO Elon Musk reveals next-generation Starlink satellite details
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has revealed the first technical details about the company’s next-generation Starlink ‘Gen2’ satellite design, confirming that it will far outmatch the current generation of satellites by almost every measure.
Speaking in an onsite interview and Starbase tour with YouTuber Tim Dodd (The Everyday Astronaut), Musk – largely unprovoked – revealed that SpaceX has already built at least one functional Starlink Gen2/V2.0 satellite prototype and shipped it to the South Texas Starship factory, where it is currently being stored. More importantly, Musk also provided the first direct specifications for the next-generation spacecraft, stating that each Starlink V2.0 satellite will weigh about 1.25 tons (~2750 lb), measure about seven meters (~23 ft) long, and be almost an order of magnitude more capable than the “Starlink 1” satellites they’ll ultimately supersede.
Almost ten months after SpaceX first revealed its updated plans for a next-generation, 30,000-satellite constellation, those details have confirmed a few key points of speculation about the future of Starlink.
The 1st #SpaceX #Starlink Gen 2 #satellite has been produced. It’s 7 meters long & 1.2 tons, @elonmusk says. Note: that’s 4-5X more massive than Gen 1!
Musk adds, the new version will be almost an order of magnitude more capable than Starlink 1 in terms of useful data throughput.— Stan Shull (@stanshull) May 26, 2022
Back in August 2021, I surmised that just like it has with Falcon 9, SpaceX would again try to optimize its new Starlink V2.0 satellite design to take maximum advantage of Starship’s launch performance. In an updated Starlink Gen2 filing, the company conveniently revealed that a version of the constellation optimized for Starship would be structured such that the rocket could launch an entire orbital plane (one ring of satellites spaced evenly around the Earth) in one go. In that constellation variant, all but ~500 (1.5%) of almost 30,000 spacecraft would be stationed in planes of 110 or 120 satellites, meaning that it was safe to assume that SpaceX meant that every Starship would nominally carry 110-120 satellites. Using Musk’s latest optimistic Starship performance estimate of 150 tons to low Earth orbit (LEO), that all but guaranteed that a Starship-optimized Starlink V2.0 satellite would weigh up to 1250 kilograms.
Musk has now explicitly confirmed that each Starlink V2.0 satellite will weigh… “about one and a quarter tons” or 1250 kilograms. Starlink V1.0 and V1.5 satellites weigh around 260 and 310 kilograms, respectively, meaning that Starlink V2.0 satellites will be about a bit more than four times heavier than V1.5 and a bit less than five times heavier than V1.0.
Musk also revealed that V2.0 satellites will be “almost an order of magnitude more capable than Starlink 1.” He refused to call that capability bandwidth or throughput, the traditional method of describing a communication satellite’s total performance, but Starlink V1.0 satellites are believed to have a total bandwidth of 18 gigabits per second (18 Gbps). As of today, it’s unknown if Starlink V1.5 – a significant upgrade – also added more bandwidth, nor if Musk was referring to that latest Starlink V1.x iteration. But even if he was comparing V2.0 with the earliest V1.0 satellites, it’s possible that each Starlink V2.0 satellite could add around 140-160 Gbps to the 30,000-satellite constellation.
Ultimately, specific numbers aren’t needed to emphasize the importance of the details Musk provided. If true, they mean that Starlink V2.0 will pack roughly twice as much usable bandwidth into a given unit of satellite mass compared to V1.x. Combined with the fact that Starship could offer ~10 times as much performance to LEO as Falcon 9, a single Starship launch could theoretically expand total network capacity roughly twenty times more than one Falcon 9 launch. For example, each Falcon 9 launch of 60 260-kilogram Starlink V1.0 satellites added about 1080 Gbps of instantaneous bandwidth to the constellation. A Starship launch of 120 1250-kilogram Starlink V2.0 satellites could add around 19,000 Gbps (19 terabits per second).
Even despite those massive advantages, SpaceX’s Starlink Gen2 ambitions still leave it no slack whatsoever. If the FCC approves its license request, SpaceX would need to launch half of the constellation within six years – equivalent to around 130 Starship launches or 22 Starship launches per year. In comparison, Falcon 9 – a rocket that’s ten times smaller, less reusable, and has been flying since 2010 – did not achieve 22 launches in one year until 2020. For Starship to have any hope of achieving the cadence Starlink Gen2 requires, SpaceX would have to ramp up launches of the largest rocket ever built at a truly miraculous pace and suffer very few failures or setbacks along the way.
As immense as the challenge may be, the potential rewards are just as high. A constellation of 30,000 Starlink V2.0 satellites – if spaced evenly around the Earth – could have a total bandwidth of ~1250 terabits per second (Tbps) available over land (excluding Antarctica) at any given second. Even if half of that bandwidth is needed for backhaul and routing, the total installed bandwidth of global internet infrastructure was estimated to be 600 Tbps in 2020. Starlink will always be bottlenecked by the number of satellites that can be simultaneously available over any single point on Earth, so the constellation will never be able to match a ground network 1:1 with the same installed capacity, but it’s safe to assume that Starlink Gen2 could serve tens or even hundreds of millions of users located anywhere on Earth if SpaceX is able to build it.
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Tesla FSD (Supervised) is about to go on “widespread” release
In a comment last October, Elon Musk stated that FSD V14.2 is “for widespread use.”
Tesla has begun rolling out Full Self-Driving (Supervised) V14.2, and with this, the wide release of the system could very well begin.
The update introduces a new high-resolution vision encoder, expanded emergency-vehicle handling, smarter routing, new parking options, and more refined driving behavior, among other improvements.
FSD V14.2 improvements
FSD (Supervised) V14.2’s release notes highlight a fully upgraded neural-network vision encoder capable of reading higher-resolution features, giving the system improved awareness of emergency vehicles, road obstacles, and even human gestures. Tesla also expanded its emergency-vehicle protocols, adding controlled pull-overs and yielding behavior for police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances, among others.
A deeper integration of navigation and routing into the vision network now allows the system to respond to blocked roads or detours in real time. The update also enhances decision-making in several complex scenarios, including unprotected turns, lane changes, vehicle cut-ins, and interactions with school buses. All in all, these improvements should help FSD (Supervised) V14.2 perform in a very smooth and comfortable manner.
Elon Musk’s predicted wide release
The significance of V14.2 grows when paired with Elon Musk’s comments from October. While responding to FSD tester AI DRIVR, who praised V14.1.2 for fixing “95% of indecisive lane changes and braking” and who noted that it was time for FSD to go on wide release, Musk stated that “14.2 for widespread use.”
FSD V14 has so far received a substantial amount of positive reviews from Tesla owners, many of whom have stated that the system now drives better than some human drivers as it is confident, cautious, and considerate at the same time. With V14.2 now rolling out, it remains to be seen if the update also makes it to the company’s wide FSD fleet, which is still populated by a large number of HW3 vehicles.
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Tesla FSD V14.2 starts rolling out to initial batch of vehicles
It would likely only be a matter of time before FSD V14.2 videos are posted and shared on social media.
Tesla has begun pushing Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14.2 to its initial batch of vehicles. The update was initially observed by Tesla owners and veteran FSD users on social media platform X on Friday.
So far, reports of the update have been shared by Model Y owners in California whose vehicles are equipped with the company’s AI4 hardware, though it would not be surprising if more Tesla owners across the country receive the update as well.
Based on the release notes of the update, key improvements in FSD V14.2 include a revamped neural network for better detection of emergency vehicles, obstacles, and human gestures, as well as options to select arrival spots.
It would likely only be a matter of time before FSD V14.2 videos are posted and shared on social media.
Following are the release notes of FSD (Supervised) V14.2, as shared on X by longtime FSD tester Whole Mars Catalog.
Release Notes
2025.38.9.5
Currently Installed
FSD (Supervised) v14.2
Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14.2 includes:
- Upgraded the neural network vision encoder, leveraging higher resolution features to further improve scenarios like handling emergency vehicles, obstacles on the road, and human gestures.
- Added Arrival Options for you to select where FSD should park: in a Parking Lot, on the Street, in a Driveway, in a Parking Garage, or at the Curbside.
- Added handling to pull over or yield for emergency vehicles (e.g. police cars, fire trucks, ambulances.
- Added navigation and routing into the vision-based neural network for real-time handling of blocked roads and detours.
- Added additional Speed Profile to further customize driving style preference.
- Improved handling for static and dynamic gates.
- Improved offsetting for road debris (e.g. tires, tree branches, boxes).
- Improve handling of several scenarios including: unprotected turns, lane changes, vehicle cut-ins, and school busses.
- Improved FSD’s ability to manage system faults and improve scenarios like handling emergency vehicles, obstacles on the road, and human gestures.
- Added Arrival Options for you to select where FSD should park: in a Parking Lot, on the Street, in a Driveway, in a Parking Garage, or at the Curbside.
- Added handling to pull over or yield for emergency vehicles (e.g. police cars, fire trucks, ambulances).
- Added navigation and routing into the vision-based neural network for real-time handling of blocked roads and detours.
- Added additional Speed Profile to further customize driving style preference.
- Improved handling for static and dynamic gates.
- Improved offsetting for road debris (e.g. tires, tree branches, boxes).
- Improve handling of several scenarios, including unprotected turns, lane changes, vehicle cut-ins, and school buses.
- Improved FSD’s ability to manage system faults and recover smoothly from degraded operation for enhanced reliability.
- Added alerting for residue build-up on interior windshield that may impact front camera visibility. If affected, visit Service for cleaning!
Upcoming Improvements:
- Overall smoothness and sentience
- Parking spot selection and parking quality
The Tesla Model X has always been one of the company’s most loved vehicles, despite its low sales figures, which can be attributed to its high price tag.
However, the Model X has been a signature item on Tesla’s menu of cars, most notably recognized by its Falcon Wing Doors, which are aware of its surroundings and open according to what’s around it.
But recent improvements to the Model X were looking slim to none, but it appears most of the fixes actually happened under the body, at least according to Tesla’s Vice President of Powertrain, Lars Moravy.
In a recent interview with Car and Driver, Moravy detailed all of the changes to the 2026 iteration of the vehicle, which was about 400 pounds lighter than it was originally. The biggest change is a modification with the rear motor, switching from an induction-type motor to a permanent-magnet design and optimizing the half-shafts, which shed about 100 pounds.
Tesla also got “almost 80 pounds out of the interior bits and pieces,” which “included making parts thinner, different manufacturing process choices, and incorporating airbag-deployment requirements into the headliner fabric,” the report said.
Additionally, the standard five-passenger, bench seat configuration saved 50 pounds by ditching pedestal mounting. This also helped with practicality, as it helped the seat fold flat. Engineers at Tesla also saved 44 pounds from the high-voltage wiring through optimizing the wiring from the charge-port DC/DC converter and switching from copper to aluminum wiring.
Tesla makes a decision on the future of its flagship Model S and Model X
Tesla also simplified the cooling system by reducing the number of radiators. It also incorporated Nürburgring cooling requirements for the Plaid variant, which saved nearly 30 pounds.
Many Tesla fans will be familiar with the megacastings, manufactured in-house by presses from IDRA, which also saves more than 20 pounds and boosts torsional stiffness by around 10 percent. Tweaks to the suspension also saved 10 pounds.
People were truly disappointed with what Tesla did with the Model S and Model X, arguing that the cars needed a more severe exterior overhaul, which might be true. However, Tesla really did a lot to reduce the weight of the vehicle, which helps increase range and efficiency. According to Grok, every 200 pounds removed adds between 7 and 15 percent to range estimations.
This makes sense considering the range estimations both increased by 7 percent from the Model X’s 2025 configuration to the 2026 builds. Range increased on the All-Wheel-Drive trim from 329 miles to 352 miles, while the Plaid went from 314 miles to 335 miles.
Tesla FSD (Supervised) is about to go on “widespread” release
Tesla FSD V14.2 starts rolling out to initial batch of vehicles
