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SpaceX continues water landing test in latest Space Station resupply mission

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SpaceX has completed their second launch in less than four days, and the company’s 14th Cargo Dragon mission has successfully made it to a safe parking orbit where it will make its way to the International Space Station over the next two days.

Carrying nearly 5,800 pounds of perishables, experiments, and scientific equipment to be bolted to the outside of the ISS, this particular Cargo Dragon flew once before in 2016, while the booster that lifted it above Earth’s thin atmosphere was tasked with launching CRS-12 in August 2017. According to Jessica Jensen, SpaceX’s Director of Dragon Mission Management, this particularly Dragon capsule was the first to fly with upgraded water sealing, meaning that it was considerably easier (and thus cheaper) for SpaceX to refurbish and refly. The only items that had to be replaced this time around were the heatshield, trunk, and parachutes, and this experience will undoubtedly translate into Dragon 2 (Cargo Dragon), likely ensuring exceptional reuse characteristics for that the company’s next-gen capsule.

Sadly, CRS-14’s doubly flight-proven launch also marked yet another expended booster – B1039 happened to be the first Block 4 version of Falcon 9’s stage to fly a mission. Jensen described that SpaceX – accustomed to making these decisions on a case-by-case basis – had chosen to expend this particular booster after concluding that the benefits of testing extreme booster trajectories and recovery profiles outweighed the difficulty (and cost) of refurbishing a Block 4 booster for a third launch. In this case, B1039 would have been the best option if SpaceX had any desire to fly a booster more than twice before the introduction of the purpose-driven, next-generation Block 5 reusability upgrade – Block 4 was clearly not built to fly more than twice without an uneconomical amount of refurbishment.

https://twitter.com/_TomCross_/status/980912458280947722

While no specific details were given and live coverage shown of the soft-landing, it’s presumed that B1039 continued in the footsteps of water landings that followed GovSat-1 and Hispasat 30W-6 in January 2018 and March 2018. These uniquely aggressive landing attempts are all believed to have ignited three Merlin 1D engines rather than the single engine typically ignited for landing burns, providing a more efficient use of propellant reserves at the cost of extreme acceleration (G) forces and far slimmer margins of error. The ultimate promise of these tests, if successful, is to allow SpaceX the option of recovering boosters during missions with heavier payloads and higher orbits.

SpaceX continues a cautious regiment of tests for the newest Falcon 9 upgrade, Block 5. (Reddit /u/HollywoodSX)

The imminent NET April 24 inaugural launch of SpaceX’s rapid reuse Falcon 9 “Block 5” will mark the beginning of a new era of rocketry for SpaceX, where expendable missions are likely to become a rarity. Expending a single Block 5 booster could fairly be perceived as throwing away the potential revenue and income from anywhere from 5-100 future re-flights. As such, SpaceX has every reason to expend non-Block 5 boosters with the hope of ensuring that fewer new-generation rockets end up expended after launch.

Intriguingly, Jensen also noted in a prelaunch briefing that SpaceX’s Cargo Dragons are certified for as many as three orbital reuses – a possibility as SpaceX steps towards completing all 20 of its contracted CRS-1 missions, the final five of which are scheduled to resupply the ISS between now and early 2020. After the final CRS-1 launch, NASA has already awarded SpaceX and Orbital ATK contracts for CRS-2, a second Commercial Resupply Services contract that will begin in 2020 and fly on OATK’s upgraded Cygnus and SpaceX Dragon 2, potentially repurposing recovered Crew capsules in the case of SpaceX.

Up next on the SpaceX calendar are a number of conferences and presentations over the next two or three weeks, followed by SpaceX NASA TESS mission on April 16 and the debut of Falcon 9 Block 5 for the launch of Bangabandhu-1, April 24. SES-12 may be launched sometime in early May or late April, and the next West coast launch of Iridium-6/GRACE-FO is expected to occur NET May 10.

Follow us for live updates, behind-the-scenes sneak peeks, and a sea of beautiful photos from our East and West coast photographers.

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Pauline Acalin  Twitter

Eric Ralph Twitter

Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

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Tesla Model Y L gets suspension complaints in over odd issue China

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Credit: @TeslaNewswire/X

The Tesla Model Y L is arguably the most hyped trim of the all-electric crossover, other than the Performance configuration that comes with white-knuckle speed and sports car-level handling.

However, it is not all perfect. Tesla owners in China who took delivery of the Model Y L, denoted with an L to highlight its longer wheelbase, are experiencing what they are referring to as “collapsing” of the rear wheels, as suspension issues appear to be an issue with some of the builds.

The gap between the wheel arch and tire has narrowed to the point that “not even a single finger” could fit, according to a report from Car News China. The failures are not tied to a specific mileage, as one owner said that after just 9,000 kilometers (5,600 miles), they noticed the suspension issue when their car was fully loaded.

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Another one had the issue at 30,000 kilometers (18,640 miles) and noticed that the wheel gap shrank to two fingers, so not as drastic as the person who reported a similar issue at 9,000 km.

Tesla Model Y L is gaining momentum in China’s premium segment

Along with the visual recognition of the issue, others are saying the sagging is causing abnormal wear on the inside of the tires. Extra weight and instant torque already provide additional stress on the tires in electric vehicles during normal operation, so it is no surprise that this is another complaint.

There has been no recall issued by Tesla, and the company has not yet publicly acknowledged the issue.

Some are suggesting that owners use a “finger test” to self-diagnose whether there is an issue with the suspension. There should be four fingers between the tire and the wheel well; anything less than that starts to get dicey.

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Tesla Cybercab event gains steam ahead of massive launch

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Credit: TechOperator | X

Tesla is starting to truly tease and hype its groundbreaking Cybercab event, which takes place tomorrow in Austin, Texas. It will be the first time members of the public will be able to ride in a Cybercab, a vehicle without any manual controls, on public roads.

Tesla has been dropping some hype on X over the past several days, but this morning, the excitement has truly started to build up for the event. Although Cybercab has been unveiled before, this is truly Tesla’s announcement that it is ready to start offering autonomous rides for public passengers in its new ride-hailing-geared vehicle for the first time.

The hype has started with a variety of different social media posts that are a true indication that Tesla is preparing for something big. Teasing so much of the potential of Cybercab, including its ability to truly revolutionize how people hail rides for local travel, is what the big idea for the event entails. The time that many Tesla owners, fans, and investors have been waiting for is potentially here:

The event has remained slim on details. Even invitees are still awaiting true details about what the event will entail, where they’ll go, and what is in store for the evening. This is pretty typical for an event run by Tesla; they keep things under wraps for the most part until the very last minute.

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However, there is no secret about what the real intention of Tesla is for this event: it is going to be a huge reveal party for a vehicle that has no steering wheel and no pedals. It is a truly massive step for the company moving forward.

Speculation persists as to whether this is going to be an event that simply announces that rides will begin with the Cybercab, or it will be something more substantial. Tesla has said in the past that they plan to sell the Cybercab to the general public in what could become a great way to earn passive income by adding it to a more global fleet of Robotaxi-geared vehicles.

Tomorrow, the show begins in Austin, and the Cybercab goes live at some capacity; we just don’t know exactly how quite yet.

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SpaceX tells the FCC that Starship Flight 14 is going to orbit

SpaceX filed with the FCC for Starship Flight 14, its first true orbital launch attempt.

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SpaceX has asked the Federal Communications Commission for permission to fly Starlink terminals during Starship’s fourteenth flight test, and the filing lays out a genuine trip to orbit, something the program has never attempted.

Every Starship flight so far, including Flight 13’s successful splashdown in the Indian Ocean on July 24, has flown a suborbital arc that ends with the ship reentering the atmosphere within the same hour it launches. The FCC paperwork describes a mission profile built around an actual orbital insertion instead.

The payload is the other half of the story. Flight 13 carried 20 production Starlink V3 satellites, but because that mission never reached orbit, the satellites reentered along with the ship rather than joining the constellation, something Teslarati covered in detail after SpaceX released footage shot from one of those satellites as it drifted away from Starship in space. Flight 14 is designed to close that gap. If the orbital insertion holds, the roughly 20 V3 satellites onboard would separate into an operational orbit and could eventually go into service, each one rated for about 1 terabit per second of downlink capacity by SpaceX’s own account.

SpaceX announces new Starbase for ‘thousands of Starship launches annually’

Elon Musk first flagged the orbital attempt during SpaceX’s August 4 earnings call, the company’s first as a public entity following its June IPO under the ticker SPCX. He also floated catching the ship with the Starbase tower on the same flight, an idea he walked back on August 20, saying the catch attempt would more likely come “in a few months,” as Teslarati reported at the time. Flight 14 will instead target a splashdown for the ship in the Indian Ocean, the same recovery method used since Flight 12.

Hardware has been catching up to the ambition. Booster 21 completed a full 33-engine static fire on August 28, and Ship 41 finished its own six-engine test the week before. An airspace briefing circulated to pilots on August 20 listed September 15 as the target date, later than the end of August window Musk mentioned on the earnings call, though SpaceX has not confirmed a launch date publicly and Starship schedules routinely slip while hardware and FAA paperwork line up.

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The FCC filing itself does not guarantee a launch date. It covers communications authority, and not flight readiness, considering SpaceX still needs Ship 41 fully stacked and cleared by the FAA before Flight 14 can fly. But the filing is a real marker of intent and it puts a specific regulatory process behind what had so far only been Musk’s word on the earnings call.

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