Years before the space agency’s flagship Europa Clipper mission is scheduled to lift off, NASA and SpaceX are already determining the specifics of the launch – including which Falcon Heavy boosters will support it.
On July 23rd, 2021, after years of rumors, NASA officially announced that it no longer planned to launch Europa Clipper on its own SLS rocket and would instead contract with SpaceX to send the spacecraft to Jupiter on a Falcon Heavy. In terms of sheer prestige, no other mission on Falcon Heavy’s manifest comes close. Expected to weigh around six tons (~13,000 lb), Europa Clipper is a building-sized spacecraft that aims to orbit Jupiter for years, performing dozens of flybys of the planet’s icy moons – several of which almost certainly have liquid oceans.
Europa – the mission’s namesake – is its primary focus and whether or not the funding or political motivation for such an ambitious mission transpires, Europa Clipper was always partially meant to be a scouting mission for a nuclear-powered lander. On its own, though, Clipper has already blown past its original $2B budget target from 2013 and is now on track to cost more than $4.5B, making it the most expensive NASA mission currently in development – second only to the ~$9B James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). In other words, NASA is entrusting SpaceX to launch what is perhaps the most expensive mission to the outer solar system in the history of planetary exploration.
That makes it all the more noteworthy that NASA has already given the okay for SpaceX to plan to launch Europa Clipper on a Falcon Heavy rocket with at least two of its three boosters already flight-proven. According to mission scientist Bob Pappalardo, Clipper Mission Design Lead Brett Buffington revealed in spacecraft “System Integration Review” that SpaceX intends to reuse two Falcon Heavy side boosters that are currently scheduled to debut as early as next year on a different NASA mission. Known as Psyche, that mission – also scheduled to fly on Falcon Heavy – is scheduled to launch no earlier than (NET) August 2022 and is designed to explore an asteroid that’s believed to be almost entirely composed of metal.
With Europa Clipper scheduled to launch NET October 2024, that undoubtedly makes this the earliest a Falcon booster assignment has ever been confirmed – and probably the earliest SpaceX itself has assigned flight-proven boosters to a specific mission. It also makes those particular boosters quite special. Unlike Psyche, which will leave plenty of margin for SpaceX to recover at least two of Falcon Heavy’s three boosters, Europa Clipper will need almost every ounce of performance the rocket can give to send the much larger spacecraft much faster and further. Barring a major surprise, that means that Falcon Heavy will launch Europa Clipper in a fully expendable configuration.
For SpaceX, being able to use at least two flight-proven proven boosters on that expendable mission will make expending two Falcon Heavy boosters – which are otherwise capable of launching at least ten times in their lifetimes – a much easier pill to swallow. For NASA, the space agency is likely already familiar with the reality that flight-proven hardware actually improves schedule confidence, which is crucial for a mission like Europa Clipper thanks to its 21-day launch window.
Nonetheless, it does still raise the question of whether NASA will allow SpaceX to fly Psyche’s Falcon Heavy side boosters once or even twice more in the more than two years they’ll otherwise have to spend in storage between Psyche and Europa Clipper. A Falcon Heavy rocket is currently scheduled to launch a commercial Moon lander and NASA’s VIPER Moon rover as early as Q4 2023. Most recently, NASA purchased a Falcon Heavy to launch NOAA’s GOES-U weather satellite NET Q2 2024. In 2022 alone, SpaceX also has at least three other non-NASA missions scheduled to launch before Psyche, raising another possibility that Psyche itself might fly on once-flown boosters that would then fly a third, fourth, or even fifth time with Europa Clipper.
That might seem like an unlikely possibility but NASA has already shown that it’s happy to launch Cargo Dragons on boosters with multiple non-NASA missions in their pasts and will soon launch DART – an asteroid impact spacecraft – on another Falcon booster that last launched Starlink satellites. Additionally, with Arabsat 6A and STP-2, SpaceX already demonstrated in 2019 that it can launch Falcon Heavy, recover its two side boosters, and relaunch those same boosters on a different Falcon Heavy mission less than two months later – and for the US military, no less.
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Anti-Tesla union leader ditches X, urges use of Threads instead
Tesla Sweden and IF Metall have been engaged in a bitter dispute for over two years now.
Marie Nilsson, chair of Sweden’s IF Metall union and a prominent critic of Tesla, has left X and is urging audiences to follow the union on Meta’s Threads instead.
Tesla Sweden and IF Metall have been engaged in a bitter dispute for over two years now.
Anti-Tesla union leader exits X
In a comment to Dagens Arbete (DA), Nilsson noted that her exit from X is not formally tied to IF Metall’s long-running labor dispute with Tesla Sweden. Still, she stated that her departure is affected by changes to the platform under Elon Musk’s leadership.
“We have stayed because many journalists pick up news there. But as more and more people have left X, we have felt that the standard has now been reached on that platform,” she said.
Jesper Pettersson, press officer at IF Metall, highlighted that the union’s departure from X is only indirectly linked to Tesla Sweden and Elon Musk. “Indirectly it does, since there is a lot of evidence that his ownership has caused the change in the platform to be so significant.
“We have nevertheless assessed that the platform had value for reaching journalists, politicians and other opinion leaders. But it is a microscopic proportion of the public and our members who are there, and now that value has decreased,” Petterson added.
IF Metall sees Threads as an X alternative
After leaving X, IF Metall has begun using Threads, Meta’s alternative to the social media platform. The union described the move as experimental, noting that it is still evaluating how effective the platform will be for outreach and visibility.
Pettersson acknowledged that Meta also does not operate under Sweden’s collective bargaining model, but said the union sees little alternative if it wants to remain visible online.
“In a perfect world, all large international companies would be supporters of the Swedish model when they come here. But unfortunately, the reality is not like that. If we are to be visible at all in this social media world, we have to play by the rules of the game. The alternative would be to become completely invisible, and that would not benefit our members,” he said.
Despite many recent rumors and various reports, Elon Musk confirmed today that SpaceX is not developing a phone based on Starlink, not once, but twice.
Today’s report from Reuters cited people familiar with the matter and stated internal discussions have seen SpaceX executives mulling the idea of building a mobile device that would connect directly to the Starlink satellite constellation.
Musk did state in late January that SpaceX developing a phone was “not out of the question at some point.” However, He also said it would have to be a major difference from current phones, and would be optimized “purely for running max performance/watt neural nets.”
Not out of the question at some point. It would be a very different device than current phones. Optimized purely for running max performance/watt neural nets.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 30, 2026
While Musk said it was not out of the question “at some point,” that does not mean it is currently a project SpaceX is working on. The CEO reaffirmed this point twice on X this afternoon.
Musk said, “Reuters lies relentlessly,” in one post. In the next, he explicitly stated, “We are not developing a phone.”
Reuters lies relentlessly
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 5, 2026
We are not developing a phone
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 5, 2026
Musk has basically always maintained that SpaceX has too many things going on, denying that a phone would be in the realm of upcoming projects. There are too many things in the works for Musk’s space exploration company, most notably the recent merger with xAI.
SpaceX officially acquires xAI, merging rockets with AI expertise
A Starlink phone would be an excellent idea, especially considering that SpaceX operates 9,500 satellites, serving over 9 million users worldwide. 650 of those satellites are dedicated to the company’s direct-to-device initiative, which provides cellular coverage on a global scale.
Nevertheless, there is the potential that the Starlink phone eventually become a project SpaceX works on. However, it is not currently in the scope of what the company needs to develop, so things are more focused on that as of right now.
Tesla has added a notable improvement to its Dashcam feature after complaints from owners have pushed the company to make a drastic change.
Perhaps one of the biggest frustrations that Tesla owners have communicated regarding the Dashcam feature is the lack of ability to retain any more than 60 minutes of driving footage before it is overwritten.
It does not matter what size USB jump drive is plugged into the vehicle. 60 minutes is all it will hold until new footage takes over the old. This can cause some issues, especially if you were saving an impressive clip of Full Self-Driving or an incident on the road, which could be lost if new footage was recorded.
This has now been changed, as Tesla has shown in the Release Notes for an upcoming Software Update in China. It will likely expand to the U.S. market in the coming weeks, and was first noticed by NotaTeslaApp.
The release notes state:
“Dashcam Dynamic Recording Duration – The dashcam dynamically adjusts the recording duration based on the available storage capacity of the connected USB drive. For example, with a 128 GB USB drive, the maximum recording duration is approximately 3 hours; with a 1 TB or larger USB drive, it can reach up to 24 hours. This ensures that as much video as possible is retained for review before it gets overwritten.”
Tesla Adds Dynamic Recording
Instead of having a 60-minute cap, the new system will now go off the memory in the USB drive. This means with:
- 128 GB Jump Drive – Up to Three Hours of Rolling Footage
- 1TB Jump Drive – Up to 24 Hours of Rolling Footage
This is dependent on the amount of storage available on the jump drive, meaning that if there are other things saved on it, it will take away from the amount of footage that can be retained.
While the feature is just now making its way to employees in China, it will likely be at least several weeks before it makes its way to the U.S., but owners should definitely expect it in the coming months.
It will be a welcome feature, especially as there will now be more customization to the number of clips and their duration that can be stored.
Anti-Tesla union leader ditches X, urges use of Threads instead
Elon Musk confirms SpaceX is not developing a phone
