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SpaceX recovery ships head to sea for first 'whole-fairing' catch attempt
After a brisk day-long cruise into the Atlantic Ocean, SpaceX’s twin Falcon fairing recovery ships have reached the general landing area to prepare for their first true ‘whole-fairing’ catch attempt.
Formerly known as Mr. Steven, GO Ms. Tree and new sister ship GO Ms. Chief departed Port Canaveral on December 14th and arrived at their designated recovery roughly 36 hours later. Now stationed just shy of 800 km (500 mi) downrange of SpaceX’s LC-40 Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) launch site, the ships are in position and can begin to prepare for Falcon 9’s Kacific-1/JCSAT-18 launch.
Scheduled to lift off no earlier than (NET) 7:10 pm ET, December 16th (00:10 UTC, Dec 17), Falcon 9 will place the ~6800 kg (15,000 lb) Kacific-1/JCSAT-18 communications satellite in a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO). Falcon 9 booster B1056 will attempt its third landing around nine minutes after launch, to be followed 25 minutes later by satellite deployment from the rocket’s upper stage. deploying the satellite around thirty minutes after launch.
If all goes according to plan, another 12-15 minutes after Falcon 9’s second stage (S2) deploys the Kacific-1/JCSAT-18 satellite, the rocket’s payload fairing halves will begin their final approach towards recovery ships Ms. Tree and Ms. Chief. Just shy of identical twins, the two ships have been outfitted with custom arms, boom supports, and nets with the intention of quite literally catching payload fairing halves out of the air after orbital Falcon 9 (and Heavy) launches.
SpaceX’s fairing recovery development program has had a long and arduous journey from Mr. Steven’s (now Ms. Tree’s) arrival at the company’s Port of Los Angeles dock space (late-2017) to the ship’s first attempted fairing catch (February 2018) and first successful catch (June 2019). In the 20+ months SpaceX has been attempting fairing recoveries, at least a dozen intentional soft ocean landings and seven net catches have been attempted, with numerous successful splashdowns and recoveries ultimately followed by two consecutive catches in June and August 2019.
The fact that SpaceX consecutively caught two fairing halves a little over two months apart after five failed catch attempts suggests that the company has effectively solved the majority of the fairing recovery challenge, becoming the first company (or space agency) in the world to do so. Unfortunately, a three-month launch lull after the second successful catch precluded any rapid-fire follow-up attempts and when that lull came to an end on November 11th, Ms. Tree and Ms. Chief were both ready but were forced to abort the attempt by rough seas.
Both ships actually spent several weeks docked (or stranded) in a North Carolina port after that aborted mission, potentially indicating that SpaceX had to fly a team north to inspect both ships’ arms and ensure that they could make the journey back to Port Canaveral. They were ultimately cleared and returned to their home port around ten days later, where their arms and booms were immediately removed. It’s unclear why that removal occurred but SpaceX’s recovery team rapidly reinstalled their arms in just a few days, followed by their nets soon after.
Given that their first simultaneous (i.e. ‘whole-fairing’) catch attempt was aborted before it could start, it’s safe to say that December 16th’s hopeful attempt will be Ms. Tree’s and Ms. Chief’s first side-by-side recovery mission. Both ships have successfully reached the recovery zone, a step further than they managed to get on their November attempt. Coincidentally, that November launch happened to mark both SpaceX’s and the world’s first launch of a flight-proven payload fairing, both halves of which were recovered from the ocean and represented a more or less worst-case scenario for reuse.
And nevertheless, that reuse was a flawless success, marred only by the fact that Ms. Tree and Ms. Chief were unable to attempt to recover the world’s first twice-flown payload fairing. In short, all the conditions are right for what could be the world’s first successful recovery of both halves of an orbital-class payload fairing. If successful, SpaceX will have effectively closed the book on Falcon 9 and Heavy reusability development, having proven that both boosters and fairings can be reliably and routinely recovered and reused.
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Elon Musk
Tesla owners surpass 8 billion miles driven on FSD Supervised
Tesla shared the milestone as adoption of the system accelerates across several markets.
Tesla owners have now driven more than 8 billion miles using Full Self-Driving Supervised, as per a new update from the electric vehicle maker’s official X account.
Tesla shared the milestone as adoption of the system accelerates across several markets.
“Tesla owners have now driven >8 billion miles on FSD Supervised,” the company wrote in its post on X. Tesla also included a graphic showing FSD Supervised’s miles driven before a collision, which far exceeds that of the United States average.
The growth curve of FSD Supervised’s cumulative miles over the past five years has been notable. As noted in data shared by Tesla watcher Sawyer Merritt, annual FSD (Supervised) miles have increased from roughly 6 million in 2021 to 80 million in 2022, 670 million in 2023, 2.25 billion in 2024, and 4.25 billion in 2025. In just the first 50 days of 2026, Tesla owners logged another 1 billion miles.
At the current pace, the fleet is trending towards hitting about 10 billion FSD Supervised miles this year. The increase has been driven by Tesla’s growing vehicle fleet, periodic free trials, and expanding Robotaxi operations, among others.
Tesla also recently updated the safety data for FSD Supervised on its website, covering North America across all road types over the latest 12-month period.
As per Tesla’s figures, vehicles operating with FSD Supervised engaged recorded one major collision every 5,300,676 miles. In comparison, Teslas driven manually with Active Safety systems recorded one major collision every 2,175,763 miles, while Teslas driven manually without Active Safety recorded one major collision every 855,132 miles. The U.S. average during the same period was one major collision every 660,164 miles.
During the measured period, Tesla reported 830 total major collisions with FSD (Supervised) engaged, compared to 16,131 collisions for Teslas driven manually with Active Safety and 250 collisions for Teslas driven manually without Active Safety. Total miles logged exceeded 4.39 billion miles for FSD (Supervised) during the same timeframe.
Elon Musk
The Boring Company’s Music City Loop gains unanimous approval
After eight months of negotiations, MNAA board members voted unanimously on Feb. 18 to move forward with the project.
The Metro Nashville Airport Authority (MNAA) has approved a 40-year agreement with Elon Musk’s The Boring Company to build the Music City Loop, a tunnel system linking Nashville International Airport to downtown.
After eight months of negotiations, MNAA board members voted unanimously on Feb. 18 to move forward with the project. Under the terms, The Boring Company will pay the airport authority an annual $300,000 licensing fee for the use of roughly 933,000 square feet of airport property, with a 3% annual increase.
Over 40 years, that totals to approximately $34 million, with two optional five-year extensions that could extend the term to 50 years, as per a report from The Tennesean.
The Boring Company celebrated the Music City Loop’s approval in a post on its official X account. “The Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority has unanimously (7-0) approved a Music City Loop connection/station. Thanks so much to @Fly_Nashville for the great partnership,” the tunneling startup wrote in its post.
Once operational, the Music City Loop is expected to generate a $5 fee per airport pickup and drop-off, similar to rideshare charges. Airport officials estimate more than $300 million in operational revenue over the agreement’s duration, though this projection is deemed conservative.
“This is a significant benefit to the airport authority because we’re receiving a new way for our passengers to arrive downtown at zero capital investment from us. We don’t have to fund the operations and maintenance of that. TBC, The Boring Co., will do that for us,” MNAA President and CEO Doug Kreulen said.
The project has drawn both backing and criticism. Business leaders cited economic benefits and improved mobility between downtown and the airport. “Hospitality isn’t just an amenity. It’s an economic engine,” Strategic Hospitality’s Max Goldberg said.
Opponents, including state lawmakers, raised questions about environmental impacts, worker safety, and long-term risks. Sen. Heidi Campbell said, “Safety depends on rules applied evenly without exception… You’re not just evaluating a tunnel. You’re evaluating a risk, structural risk, legal risk, reputational risk and financial risk.”
Elon Musk
Tesla announces crazy new Full Self-Driving milestone
The number of miles traveled has contextual significance for two reasons: one being the milestone itself, and another being Tesla’s continuing progress toward 10 billion miles of training data to achieve what CEO Elon Musk says will be the threshold needed to achieve unsupervised self-driving.
Tesla has announced a crazy new Full Self-Driving milestone, as it has officially confirmed drivers have surpassed over 8 billion miles traveled using the Full Self-Driving (Supervised) suite for semi-autonomous travel.
The FSD (Supervised) suite is one of the most robust on the market, and is among the safest from a data perspective available to the public.
On Wednesday, Tesla confirmed in a post on X that it has officially surpassed the 8 billion-mile mark, just a few months after reaching 7 billion cumulative miles, which was announced on December 27, 2025.
Tesla owners have now driven >8 billion miles on FSD Supervisedhttps://t.co/0d66ihRQTa pic.twitter.com/TXz9DqOQ8q
— Tesla (@Tesla) February 18, 2026
The number of miles traveled has contextual significance for two reasons: one being the milestone itself, and another being Tesla’s continuing progress toward 10 billion miles of training data to achieve what CEO Elon Musk says will be the threshold needed to achieve unsupervised self-driving.
The milestone itself is significant, especially considering Tesla has continued to gain valuable data from every mile traveled. However, the pace at which it is gathering these miles is getting faster.
Secondly, in January, Musk said the company would need “roughly 10 billion miles of training data” to achieve safe and unsupervised self-driving. “Reality has a super long tail of complexity,” Musk said.
Training data primarily means the fleet’s accumulated real-world miles that Tesla uses to train and improve its end-to-end AI models. This data captures the “long tail” — extremely rare, complex, or unpredictable situations that simulations alone cannot fully replicate at scale.
This is not the same as the total miles driven on Full Self-Driving, which is the 8 billion miles milestone that is being celebrated here.
The FSD-supervised miles contribute heavily to the training data, but the 10 billion figure is an estimate of the cumulative real-world exposure needed overall to push the system to human-level reliability.
Tesla owners surpass 8 billion miles driven on FSD Supervised
The Boring Company’s Music City Loop gains unanimous approval
