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SpaceX recovers fairing intact for the first time, Starlink communicating back to Earth

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9 years ago

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With the launch of PAZ and two of their own Starlink demo satellites, SpaceX has completed its fourth successful launch of 2018, and continued an aggressive series of reusability-focused flight-tests.

Amazingly, the company managed to successfully recover a fairing intact for the first time ever, an absolutely crucial step towards ramping the Falcon family’s launch cadence and reusability. According to CEO Elon Musk, SpaceX’s fairing recovery vessel Mr. Steven missed the fairing by a few hundred meters, meaning that the fairing gently landed in the Pacific Ocean, rather than Mr. Steven’s now-famous fairing recovery net. This is quite possibly the first time in aerospace history that an orbital rocket’s payload fairing has been recovered intact, and the fairing in question looks very much intact.

As mentioned by Musk, that massive piece of hardware had to survive reentry into Earth’s atmosphere at no less than Mach 8, considerably more than two times faster than the famous SR-71 Blackbird spy plane. While the fairing’s parafoil appears to have sunk after being quickly detached, careful observers will note three vertical bars at its three corners, almost certainly the points where that parafoil attaches to them and allows it to gently float down to the ocean surface.  While not nearly as consequential as SpaceX’s growing expertise with Falcon booster recovery and reuse, each fairing – made largely of carbon fiber composites – takes a huge amount of time and effort to complete, and cost upwards of $3 million each ($6m for both halves). In this sense, SpaceX has managed to recover a pallet of cash, as Musk humorously likened the effort fairing reuse to in 2017.

Given just how good the fairing’s condition appears to be, as well as the calm sea states, it’s very likely that SpaceX will try to pick up the landed fairing with a crane, although that would require a different vessel – Mr. Steven has no crane! Teslarati’s Pauline Acalin will undoubtedly be checking out the Port of San Pedro once Mr. Steven has returned to shore, in hopes of capturing the first-ever photos of a recovered orbital rocket fairing.

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Falcon 9 roars into the dark California sky with PAZ and Starlink. (Pauline Acalin)

Starlink hopes tempered despite apparent success

While only mentioned a few times during the webcast, the Falcon 9 that launched earlier today was also carrying additional co-passengers – two SpaceX demonstration satellites, in this case. Confirmed to have successfully deployed and begun communicating with SpaceX ground control, this is another huge accomplishment for SpaceX and marks their first-ever steps into dedicated satellite manufacturing and operation. Despite the significance of this event, SpaceX was keen to lower expectations for the satellite internet network, named Starlink. The following statement was provided during the webcast:

“Even if these satellites work as planned, we still have considerable technical work ahead of us to design and deploy a low Earth orbit satellite constellation. If successful, [this system] would provide people in low to moderate population densities around the world with affordable, high-speed internet access, including many that have never had internet access before.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/BfgTyTzgYVm/

For all intents and purposes, this appears to be a significant departure from previous statements given about Starlink by the rocket company. The explicit mention of “low and moderate” population densities being the only focus of service contrasts heavily with a general sense that Starlink was intended from the outset to provide universal internet around the globe to anyone who could afford the service. This certainly serves as a confirmation that there are major technological hurdles that will need to be overcome for Starlink to become the universal internet many have come to hope for from SpaceX – it would appear that it will be quite difficult to serve high-density populations with SpaceX’s current choice of technologies for their constellation.

Still, the demand is undeniably there. Even readers of Teslarati expressed an immediate desire to ditch their cable companies and ISPs, both in the US and abroad. If SpaceX can make it happen, they will have hordes of eager ISP-hating internet users desperate for any alternatives, and your author is proudly among them. The badly served aside, it sounds like SpaceX may be pivoting towards Starlink as a method of connecting the underserved – mainly those in rural or undeveloped areas. Even in the US, this is a major problem for those that do not live near large cities, and US ISPs are exceptionally anti-consumer in these situations – often times charging obscene costs for cable installation or outright refusing to provide coverage. Starlink could be a boon for those individuals in the US and elsewhere, especially where a simple lack of infrastructure is the cause. Much of Africa suffers from this, although mobile networks have become a backbone for a relatively unique pattern of mobile phone usage.

Here’s to hoping that SpaceX manages to once again rise to an exceptional technological challenge. As with all R&D efforts, the company’s satellite effort would be helped immensely with additional funds, and thankfully Falcon 9 Block 5 is very nearly ready to fly its first missions. This highly reusable iteration of the rocket could enable SpaceX to fly dozens of missions with a single Falcon 9 booster, and would thus enable unprecedented profit margins for a launch company, at least in the interim. Eventually, SpaceX is bound to bring down its prices for the customer, but the first need to recoup their reusability and Falcon Heavy investments, while also ensuring a sound business plan to support the development of their BFR and BFS vehicles that may one day enable the colonization of space. Starlink may be another beneficiary of those profits, and could itself one day act as a source of reliable funding for SpaceX’s interplanetary endeavors.

Teslarati   –   Instagram – Twitter

Tom Cross – Twitter

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Pauline Acalin – Twitter

Eric Ralph – Twitter

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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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SpaceX makes history, catching Starship from orbit for the first time

SpaceX caught Starship’s upper stage with its launch tower for the first time on Saturday.

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5 hours ago

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November 14, 2026

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Ship 42 fires its engines as it descends toward the Starbase launch tower’s chopstick arms, moments before SpaceX caught a Starship upper stage for the first time on Flight 15. (Credit: SpaceX)
Ship 42 fires its engines as it descends toward the Starbase launch tower’s chopstick arms, moments before SpaceX caught a Starship upper stage for the first time on Flight 15. (Credit: SpaceX)

SpaceX caught a Starship upper stage with its launch tower for the first time on Saturday, bringing Ship 42 back to Starbase after roughly 22 and a half hours in orbit on Flight 15. No company has ever returned the upper stage of an orbital rocket to its launch site and caught it.

Ship 42 lifted off Friday evening on top of Booster 22, reached orbit and deployed all 26 of its Starlink V3 satellites. Three of those satellites carried cameras to photograph the ship’s heat shield, and SpaceX said the imagery showed it was in good shape for reentry, allowing controllers to pass on a backup splashdown option overnight. By Saturday morning, SpaceX posted on X that “Pad and tower systems are go for catch.” After about 14 orbits, the ship fired its engines to leave orbit, came back through the atmosphere and was caught by the tower’s chopstick arms.

 

The catch salvages a flight that started with a setback. Super Heavy did not make it back to the tower on Friday. “We were initially go for a catch, but in the later stages of the coast, the booster aborted itself for a GNC issue that it detected and that put it into its landing offshore,” SpaceX’s Dan Huot said. The booster hovered over the Gulf of Mexico before its flight termination system triggered and it came down in the water.

Elon Musk said Saturday that the booster ran short on propellant because its engines slightly underperformed. The fix, he wrote, is better engine consistency with Raptor V3.2 and a flight software change to cut the engines “about one second earlier” so enough fuel is left for the return. “This booster loss does not change our timeline to reach high volume, fully reusable Starship flights,” Musk added.

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The ship is the harder half of that goal, and the one SpaceX had never recovered. Super Heavy has now been caught three times, most recently in March 2025, while every previous ship ended in the ocean or was lost. Falcon 9 lands its boosters routinely but throws its upper stage away on every launch. Musk described a full Starship recovery on SpaceX’s third quarter earnings call as a “profound technology milestone,” and Saturday’s catch shows the hardest piece of it can work.

That piece matters for nearly everything SpaceX is planning. Reusable ships are what make the economics of launching Starlink V3 satellites at scale work, along with the Starmind orbital compute constellation. NASA’s Artemis lunar lander also depends on refilling Starships in orbit with repeated tanker flights, which requires vehicles that can fly again quickly. Musk has said he expects Starship to reach a weekly launch cadence in the first half of 2027.

Flight 15 also improved on the last Starship mission in September, which reached orbit but ended after about three hours with a Pacific splashdown when some engines shut down. Before this flight, SpaceX had shown an animation of the ship catch during its earnings webcast, and Musk put the odds of pulling it off on the first try at “more likely than not,” as Teslarati reported.

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Tesla Cybercab ownership will come with plenty of strings attached

Published

14 hours ago

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November 14, 2026

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla’s long-promised Cybercab is finally available for personal purchase, at least for a select few in the Austin area. But it’s far from a straightforward ownership experience.

The $29,990 price tag comes with a stack of restrictions that redefine what “owning” the vehicle actually means. The two-seat, steering-wheel-free Robotaxi, previously limited to Tesla’s own fleet, now carries contractual terms that limit where it can go, how it can be used, and whether it can even move without an active paid subscription.

Opening Night of Orders

Late on November 13, Tesla announced that select customers were being invited to order a Cybercab for personal use.

Tesla Cybercab goes on sale for $29,990, slated for December deliveries

The estimated purchase price is $29,990 before taxes, paired with a non-refundable $1,000 deposit and an estimated December 2026 delivery in Austin, Texas. The first month of the required :Autonomy Subscription,” priced at $299 per month is included.

After that, the vehicle needs an active subscription to operate at all. The announcement confirmed that customer sales had begun, albeit on an invite-only basis rather than a public order page.

The Fine Print for Buyers

For those invited to order, the agreements (Cybercab Order Agreement, Terms of Use, and Autonomy Subscription Agreement) impose significant constraints. Major points include:

  • A mandatory Autonomy Subscription (currently listed at $299 per month on the order screen, first month included) is required; without it, the Cybercab will not operate.
  • Personal, non-commercial use only; ride-hailing, Robotaxi network participation, delivery, or rental requires separate written authorization or product enablement from Tesla.
  • Operation restricted to Tesla-enabled Robotaxi geofences and supported service areas, which the company can expand, shrink, or alter; the vehicle may be technologically prevented from operating outside them.
  • No unauthorized modifications (including wraps, window tint, or wheel changes) without Tesla or an authorized provider.
  • Restricted resale and transfer: written permission required, with contractual damages of at least $50,000 (or full transaction value if higher) for unauthorized sales; Tesla also reserves repurchase rights at a company-determined fair market value, with the owner covering return costs.
  • Safety or improper-use “strikeouts” (three or more) can trigger a one-week suspension of autonomous features without prorated refund.
  • Owners remain responsible for insurance, registration, charging, parking, and general cleaning; the subscription covers certain maintenance items such as tires, windshields, filters, and camera cleaning, plus limited towing.
  • Manual controls on the touchscreen allow only short-distance movement up to about 2 mph and require a valid driver’s license; they are not for public-road driving.

Why These Terms Might Exist

Tesla’s approach prioritizes control over a vehicle designed without traditional human controls and intended primarily as transport-as-a-service, something that Musk has hinted toward for some time now. Restricting commercial use and modifications could be as much of a software integrity, safety, and data collection effort as it is a safety effort.

Fleet consistency could also be in regulatory scrutiny early on in the Cybercab’s days of public operation.

The subscription model generates ongoing revenue beyond the low vehicle price and ensures the car remains connected and updatable, something that will keep the Cybercab as safe as possible as new updates roll out.

Buyback and resale limits reduce the risk of vehicles circulating outside Tesla’s operational and service ecosystem.

It apperas that personal ownership is secondary to the broader Robotaxi network strategy, as Musk has previously stated that the vast majority of Cybercabs would remain Tesla-owned.

Pickup Locations and Musk’s Pricing View

Initial deliveries are estimated for Austin, but personal vehicles are able to operate in any of Tesla’s Robotaxi geofences:

Those who have been invited to order can also have their personal Cybercab delivered to numerous locations in Texas, including:

  • Austin
  • Dallas
  • Houston
  • San Antonio
  • Fort Worth

As far as the monthly “Autonomy Subscription,” it appears Musk already wants it to be low. He acknowledged last night on X that the subscription price is too high. Along with detailing that the Cybercab will be available nationwide as regulatory approval is received, Musk said the monthly fee should match the cost of FSD and Premium Connectivity, which is about $115 per month.

The launch marks a milestone for unsupervised personal autonomous vehicles, but the fine print makes clear that buyers are purchasing a highly constrained asset whose usefulness is tightly bound to Tesla’s software, service network, and geographic approvals.

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Tesla Cybercab goes on sale for $29,990, slated for December deliveries

Published

1 day ago

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November 13, 2026

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla has officially put the Cybercab up for sale, revealing a bargain price and a $299 per month “Autonomy Subscription” that could hit customer hands as soon as December.

The offer requires a $299 monthly Autonomy Subscription, with the first month included in the purchase price, along with a $1,000 non-refundable order deposit. Tesla’s ordering interface shows deliveries targeted for Austin, Texas.

Tesla says that the Cybercab is making transportation more efficient, affordable and accessible than ever before, and that buyers can order their own Cybercab for personal use.

The Cybercab is Tesla’s dedicated robotaxi, a gold-finished, two-passenger vehicle without a steering wheel or pedals, designed from the outset for unsupervised autonomous operation. It has been in limited Robotaxi service in Austin since September 2026, operating alongside Tesla’s larger fleet of Model Y vehicles.

Production takes place at Gigafactory Texas, which launched earlier this year. Tesla has stated for some time that it planned to put Cybercabs on sale by the end of the year, and it looks like they will come through on that promise if everything goes according to plan.

The Autonomy Subscription is mandatory for the vehicle to operate because it is void of a steering wheel and pedals. Tesla notes that the subscription and regular vehicle maintenance are required, indicating that personal owners will depend on the company’s software and service infrastructure rather than traditional ownership models.

One month of the subscription is included with purchase and subsequent months are billed separately until canceled.

This limited personal-sales opening marks a shift from Tesla’s earlier emphasis on fleet and transport-as-a-service operations. During the Q3 2026 Earnings Call, executives indicated that the vast majority of Cybercabs would remain Tesla-owned and used for rideshare service, while still aiming to place some vehicles with customers by year-end.

Elon Musk has previously targeted a price below $30,000, which was a huge point of emphasis for the Cybercab being the central point of Tesla’s “transportation-as-a-service” model.

Availability remains restricted to invited customers rather than a public order page, and the initial deliveries are expected only in the Austin area where unsupervised Robotaxi operations are already active. Buyers will need to accept the geographic and operational constraints of current autonomous deployment, as the vehicle cannot be driven manually outside supported zones.

The move gives a small number of early buyers the chance to own Tesla’s dedicated autonomous vehicle at the long-discussed sub-$30,000 price point, while the bulk of production continues to support the company’s expanding Robotaxi network.

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