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SpaceX Falcon fairing recovery vessel Mr. Steven tests out new limbs at sea

Mr. Steven took to sea to test out a new recovery-related appendage - purpose unknown - on November 12. (Pauline Acalin)

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7 years ago

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After a week or so spent installing a new and moderately ambiguous arm on the nose of Falcon fairing recovery vessel Mr. Steven, SpaceX’s recovery crew performed a number of high-speed sea trials a few miles off the shore of Port of Los Angeles, testing out something.

Just a few days later, Mr. Steven returned to the general region surrounding Catalina Island, where – by all appearances – SpaceX technicians performed the most recent Falcon fairing drop/catch test. Using a helicopter to pick up the test-dedicated fairing half from a barge, eventually dropping it from around 10,000 feet, this offers Mr. Steven a much higher volume of controlled attempts at both catching a parasailing fairing and optimizing the technology and recovery methods involved.

Over the last few weeks, Teslarati photographer Pauline Acalin has reliably kept up with Mr. Steven, documenting a variety of recent physical changes to the vessel. Most notably, these changes include the installation of a visible and quite curious stanchion (or arm) at the ship’s aft tip (nose). Simply due to a lack of any real information about the experiences of operating Mr. Steven and attempting to catch Falcon fairings, it’s all but impossible to know for sure what this new limb accomplishes or why it was needed in the first place.

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Armed to the teeth

More clear are general visual observations and the reasonable extrapolations that can be derived from them. At the simplest level, this new limb is clearly well-reinforced, at least no less so than any of Mr. Steven’s other arms and attachment points. Aside from a basic off-the-shelf ladder for crew and technician access, the stanchion plays host to four basic swinging arms with what looks like one or maybe one and a half degrees of freedom, allowing them to pivot roughly 180 degrees along the plane of the angle they were installed at.

 

Secured to the ends of those four simple arms are four heavy-duty coiled metal cables, themselves attached to the center of Mr. Steven’s two foremost arms (two cables per arm). Curiously, the ship’s Nov. 12 sea trials were conducted with just the bottom two cables attached to each respective arm, visible in photos of the outing. Upon returning from a Nov. 14 fairing drop-and-catch test, both upper and lower cable sets were seen attached to his aft arms. During the nearby sea trials, no clearly abnormal behavior – compared against previous trials at similar speeds and the same location – was observed, although the new metal cables were visibly taut or nearly so.

Given just how seemingly nuanced the utility of this new arm and cable combo seems to be, a few obvious conclusions and possible explanations can be drawn. Perhaps Mr. Steven experiences inconvenient arm bouncing while sailing at high speeds, particularly in high speeds, and holding his arms down serves to grease the metaphorical gears of fairing recovery. Maybe the recovery net – stretched between four large arms – is tensioned more than SpaceX fairing recovery engineers and technicians would like, partially shrinking the usable catching area by pulling each arm towards the center. Even more nuanced still, it may be the case that these new tensioning steel cables and stanchion make it easier for fairing halves to be processed after landing in Mr. Steven’s net, allowing the crew to accurately and rapidly move the fairing to an optimal section of the net.

More questions than answers

Regardless, none of these best-case, simple explanations for the new hardware satisfactorily mesh with the known facts surrounding Mr. Steven and Falcon fairing recovery in general. For any of the above scenarios to be true, one must essentially assume that SpaceX has already nailed down fairing recovery and catches or believes that the path to solving those problems is almost totally clear of obstacles. If not, it would feel more than a little like putting the cart before the horse (or the fairing before the net) to be optimizing Mr. Steven for operations that are – as of yet – out of reach.

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If SpaceX were so close to closing the fairing recovery gap, one would generally expect Mr. Steven to attempt fairing recoveries after all true Falcon 9 launches while also performing controlled drop test catch attempts. However, no such attempt was made after the October 7 launch of SAOCOM-1A and – according to CEO Elon Musk – Mr. Steven will not be attempting to catch Falcon 9’s fairing(s) after the imminent launch of SSO-A, expected to occur sometime after Thanksgiving (later this week).

For prompt updates, on-the-ground perspectives, and unique glimpses of SpaceX’s rocket recovery fleet check out our brand new LaunchPad and LandingZone newsletters!

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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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GM CEO Mary Barra says she told Biden to give Tesla and Musk EV credit

“He was crediting me, and I said, ‘Actually, I think a lot of that credit goes to Elon and Tesla…You know me, Andrew. I don’t want to take credit for things.”

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5 hours ago

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December 3, 2025

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General Motors CEO Mary Barra said in a new interview on Wednesday that she told President Joe Biden to credit Tesla and its CEO, Elon Musk, for the widespread electric vehicle transition.

She said she told Biden this after the former President credited her and GM for leading EV efforts in the United States.

During an interview at the New York Times Dealbook Summit with Andrew Ross Sorkin, Barra said she told Biden that crediting her was essentially a mistake, and that Musk and Tesla should have been explicitly mentioned (via Business Insider):

“He was crediting me, and I said, ‘Actually, I think a lot of that credit goes to Elon and Tesla…You know me, Andrew. I don’t want to take credit for things.”

Back in 2021, President Biden visited GM’s “Factory Zero” plant in Detroit, which was the centerpiece of the company’s massive transition to EVs. The former President went on to discuss the EV industry, and claimed that GM and Barra were the true leaders who caused the change:

“In the auto industry, Detroit is leading the world in electric vehicles. You know how critical it is? Mary, I remember talking to you way back in January about the need for America to lead in electric vehicles. I can remember your dramatic announcement that by 2035, GM would be 100% electric. You changed the whole story, Mary. You did, Mary. You electrified the entire automotive industry. I’m serious. You led, and it matters.”

People were baffled by the President’s decision to highlight GM and Barra, and not Tesla and Musk, who truly started the transition to EVs. GM, Ford, and many other companies only followed in the footsteps of Tesla after it started to take market share from them.

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Elon Musk and Tesla try to save legacy automakers from Déjà vu

Musk would eventually go on to talk about Biden’s words later on:

“They have so much power over the White House that they can exclude Tesla from an EV Summit. And, in case the first thing, in case that wasn’t enough, then you have President Biden with Mary Barra at a subsequent event, congratulating Mary for having led the EV revolution.”

In Q4 2021, which was shortly after Biden’s comments, Tesla delivered 300,000 EVs. GM delivered just 26.

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Tesla Full Self-Driving shows confident navigation in heavy snow

So far, from what we’ve seen, snow has not been a huge issue for the most recent Full Self-Driving release. It seems to be acting confidently and handling even snow-covered roads with relative ease.

Published

8 hours ago

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December 3, 2025

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Credit: Grok

Tesla Full Self-Driving is getting its first taste of Winter weather for late 2025, as snow is starting to fall all across the United States.

The suite has been vastly improved after Tesla released v14 to many owners with capable hardware, and driving performance, along with overall behavior, has really been something to admire. This is by far the best version of FSD Tesla has ever released, and although there are a handful of regressions with each subsequent release, they are usually cleared up within a week or two.

Tesla is releasing a modified version of FSD v14 for Hardware 3 owners: here’s when

However, adverse weather conditions are something that Tesla will have to confront, as heavy rain, snow, and other interesting situations are bound to occur. In order for the vehicles to be fully autonomous, they will have to go through these scenarios safely and accurately.

One big issue I’ve had, especially in heavy rain, is that the camera vision might be obstructed, which will display messages that certain features’ performance might be degraded.

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So far, from what we’ve seen, snow has not been a huge issue for the most recent Full Self-Driving release. It seems to be acting confidently and handling even snow-covered roads with relative ease:

Moving into the winter months, it will be very interesting to see how FSD handles even more concerning conditions, especially with black ice, freezing rain and snow mix, and other things that happen during colder conditions.

We are excited to test it ourselves, but I am waiting for heavy snowfall to make it to Pennsylvania so I can truly push it to the limit.

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Tesla hosts Rome Mayor for first Italian FSD Supervised road demo

The event marked the first time an Italian mayor tested the advanced driver-assistance system in person in Rome’s urban streets.

Published

13 hours ago

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December 3, 2025

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Credit: @andst7/X

Tesla definitely seems to be actively engaging European officials on FSD’s capabilities, with the company hosting Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri and Mobility Assessor Eugenio Patanè for a hands-on road demonstration. 

The event marked the first time an Italian mayor tested the advanced driver-assistance system in person in Rome’s urban streets. This comes amid Tesla’s push for FSD’s EU regulatory approvals in the coming year.

Rome officials experience FSD Supervised

Tesla conducted the demo using a Model 3 equipped with Full Self-Driving (Supervised), tackling typical Roman traffic including complex intersections, roundabouts, pedestrian crossings and mixed users like cars, bikes and scooters.

The system showcased AI-based assisted driving, prioritizing safety while maintaining flow. FSD also handled overtakes and lane decisions, though with constant driver supervision.

Investor Andrea Stroppa detailed the event on X, noting the system’s potential to reduce severe collision risks by up to seven times compared to traditional driving, based on Tesla’s data from billions of global fleet miles. The session highlighted FSD’s role as an assistance tool in its Supervised form, not a replacement, with the driver fully responsible at all times.

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Path to European rollout

Tesla has logged over 1 million kilometers of testing across 17 European countries, including Italy, to refine FSD for local conditions. The fact that Rome officials personally tested FSD Supervised bodes well for the program’s approval, as it suggests that key individuals are closely watching Tesla’s efforts and innovations.

Assessor Patanè also highlighted the administration’s interest in technologies that boost road safety and urban travel quality, viewing them as aids for both private and public transport while respecting rules.

Replies on X urged involving Italy’s Transport Ministry to speed approvals, with one user noting, “Great idea to involve the mayor! It would be necessary to involve components of the Ministry of Transport and the government as soon as possible: it’s they who can accelerate the approval of FSD in Italy.”

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