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SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket aces first interplanetary launch
SpaceX has aced its first operational interplanetary launch, sending NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft on its way out of the Earth-Moon system as part of the world’s first planetary defense mission.
Right on time, SpaceX’s flight-proven Falcon 9 booster lifted off at 10:21 pm PST with an expendable upper stage, new fairing, and the ~630 kg (~1400 lb) DART spacecraft in tow, reaching a nominal low Earth parking orbit about eight minutes later. Half a minute after the second stage’s first engine ‘cutoff’ (SECO-1), booster B1063 safely landed on drone ship Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY), wrapping up its third orbital-class launch and spaceflight in twelve months.
Around 28 minutes after liftoff, Falcon 9’s orbital second stage fired up for the second and final time. In just 53 seconds, Falcon 9’s upper stage accelerated from a stable velocity (relative to Earth’s surface) of 7.5 kilometers per second (4.7 mi/s) to almost 11.1 km/s (6.9 mi/s), sending DART (and itself) from low Earth orbit (LEO) to an Earth escape trajectory that will ultimately leave them in orbit around the sun.
As the second Falcon hardware to reach interplanetary space, the upper stage will gradually passivate itself – depressurizing and safing batteries and flight termination systems as it prepares to spend the rest of its inactive life orbiting the sun. DART, on the other hand, has only just begun its mission. As previously discussed on Teslarati, DART is designed to slam into asteroid moon Dimorphos no earlier than September 2022 while traveling 6.6 km/s (4.1 mi/s).
“If DART succeeds, NASA anticipates it will be able to observe a slight 1.5% change in Dimorphos’ orbital period (how long it takes to orbit Didymos) with Earth-based telescopes. Perhaps one day – building upon DART, follow-up reconnaissance mission HERA, and other asteroid missions like Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx – NASA and other space agencies will team up to develop a fleet of planetary defense spacecraft that can intentionally redirect asteroids that threaten Earth, preventing catastrophic impacts like the one that likely wiped out 75% of species and virtually all nonavian dinosaurs around 66 million years ago.”
Teslarati.com — November 23rd, 2021
If successful, the tiny DART spacecraft will prove that as long as an asteroid is spotted early enough, other tiny spacecraft can feasibly redirect them by slamming into them at very high speeds. In effect, if one or several space agencies or governments then decide to pursue planetary defense seriously enough, humanity – through technology, science, and cooperation – will be able to avoid the cosmic fate that’s befallen the dinosaurs and millions of other species before us. Put simply, if the dinosaurs had had a spacecraft and capability like what DART hopes to demonstrate, they could still be roaming the Earth today.
Given that CEO Elon Musk’s entire motivation for founding the company and pursuing spaceflight was to help make humanity multiplanetary and protect against mass-extinction events like those that befell the dinosaurs, it’s only fitting that SpaceX ultimately won NASA’s DART launch competition and sent the DART spacecraft on its way to Dimorphos as part of the first true planetary defense test in history.
Tesla has officially launched public Robotaxi rides in Austin, Texas, without a Safety Monitor in the vehicle, marking the first time the company has removed anyone from the vehicle other than the rider.
The Safety Monitor has been present in Tesla Robotaxis in Austin since its launch last June, maintaining safety for passengers and other vehicles, and was placed in the passenger’s seat.
Tesla planned to remove the Safety Monitor at the end of 2025, but it was not quite ready to do so. Now, in January, riders are officially reporting that they are able to hail a ride from a Model Y Robotaxi without anyone in the vehicle:
I am in a robotaxi without safety monitor pic.twitter.com/fzHu385oIb
— TSLA99T (@Tsla99T) January 22, 2026
Tesla started testing this internally late last year and had several employees show that they were riding in the vehicle without anyone else there to intervene in case of an emergency.
Tesla has now expanded that program to the public. It is not active in the entire fleet, but there are a “few unsupervised vehicles mixed in with the broader robotaxi fleet with safety monitors,” Ashok Elluswamy said:
Robotaxi rides without any safety monitors are now publicly available in Austin.
Starting with a few unsupervised vehicles mixed in with the broader robotaxi fleet with safety monitors, and the ratio will increase over time. https://t.co/ShMpZjefwB
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) January 22, 2026
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
The Robotaxi program also operates in the California Bay Area, where the fleet is much larger, but Safety Monitors are placed in the driver’s seat and utilize Full Self-Driving, so it is essentially the same as an Uber driver using a Tesla with FSD.
In Austin, the removal of Safety Monitors marks a substantial achievement for Tesla moving forward. Now that it has enough confidence to remove Safety Monitors from Robotaxis altogether, there are nearly unlimited options for the company in terms of expansion.
While it is hoping to launch the ride-hailing service in more cities across the U.S. this year, this is a much larger development than expansion, at least for now, as it is the first time it is performing driverless rides in Robotaxi anywhere in the world for the public to enjoy.
Tesla has scheduled its Earnings Call for Q4 and Full Year 2025 for next Wednesday, January 28, at 5:30 p.m. EST, and investors are already preparing to get some answers from executives regarding a wide variety of topics.
The company accepts several questions from retail investors through the platform Say, which then allows shareholders to vote on the best questions.
Tesla does not answer anything regarding future product releases, but they are willing to shed light on current timelines, progress of certain projects, and other plans.
There are five questions that range over a variety of topics, including SpaceX, Full Self-Driving, Robotaxi, and Optimus, which are currently in the lead to be asked and potentially answered by Elon Musk and other Tesla executives:
- You once said: Loyalty deserves loyalty. Will long-term Tesla shareholders still be prioritized if SpaceX does an IPO?
- Our Take – With a lot of speculation regarding an incoming SpaceX IPO, Tesla investors, especially long-term ones, should be able to benefit from an early opportunity to purchase shares. This has been discussed endlessly over the past year, and we must be getting close to it.
- When is FSD going to be 100% unsupervised?
- Our Take – Musk said today that this is essentially a solved problem, and it could be available in the U.S. by the end of this year.
- What is the current bottleneck to increase Robotaxi deployment & personal use unsupervised FSD? The safety/performance of the most recent models or people to monitor robots, robotaxis, in-car, or remotely? Or something else?
- Our Take – The bottleneck seems to be based on data, which Musk said Tesla needs 10 billion miles of data to achieve unsupervised FSD. Once that happens, regulatory issues will be what hold things up from moving forward.
- Regarding Optimus, could you share the current number of units deployed in Tesla factories and actively performing production tasks? What specific roles or operations are they handling, and how has their integration impacted factory efficiency or output?
- Our Take – Optimus is going to have a larger role in factories moving forward, and later this year, they will have larger responsibilities.
- Can you please tie purchased FSD to our owner accounts vs. locked to the car? This will help us enjoy it in any Tesla we drive/buy and reward us for hanging in so long, some of us since 2017.
- Our Take – This is a good one and should get us some additional information on the FSD transfer plans and Subscription-only model that Tesla will adopt soon.
Tesla will have its Earnings Call on Wednesday, January 28.
Elon Musk shared an incredible detail about Tesla Cybercab’s potential efficiency, as the company has hinted in the past that it could be one of the most affordable vehicles to operate from a per-mile basis.
ARK Invest released a report recently that shed some light on the potential incremental cost per mile of various Robotaxis that will be available on the market in the coming years.
The Cybercab, which is detailed for the year 2030, has an exceptionally low cost of operation, which is something Tesla revealed when it unveiled the vehicle a year and a half ago at the “We, Robot” event in Los Angeles.
Musk said on numerous occasions that Tesla plans to hit the $0.20 cents per mile mark with the Cybercab, describing a “clear path” to achieving that figure and emphasizing it is the “full considered” cost, which would include energy, maintenance, cleaning, depreciation, and insurance.
Probably true
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 22, 2026
ARK’s report showed that the Cybercab would be roughly half the cost of the Waymo 6th Gen Robotaxi in 2030, as that would come in at around $0.40 per mile all in. Cybercab, at scale, would be at $0.20.
Credit: ARK Invest
This would be a dramatic decrease in the cost of operation for Tesla, and the savings would then be passed on to customers who choose to utilize the ride-sharing service for their own transportation needs.
The U.S. average cost of new vehicle ownership is about $0.77 per mile, according to AAA. Meanwhile, Uber and Lyft rideshares often cost between $1 and $4 per mile, while Waymo can cost between $0.60 and $1 or more per mile, according to some estimates.
Tesla’s engineering has been the true driver of these cost efficiencies, and its focus on creating a vehicle that is as cost-effective to operate as possible is truly going to pay off as the vehicle begins to scale. Tesla wants to get the Cybercab to about 5.5-6 miles per kWh, which has been discussed with prototypes.
Additionally, fewer parts due to the umboxed manufacturing process, a lower initial cost, and eliminating the need to pay humans for their labor would also contribute to a cheaper operational cost overall. While aspirational, all of the ingredients for this to be a real goal are there.
It may take some time as Tesla needs to hammer the manufacturing processes, and Musk has said there will be growing pains early. This week, he said regarding the early production efforts:
“…initial production is always very slow and follows an S-curve. The speed of production ramp is inversely proportionate to how many new parts and steps there are. For Cybercab and Optimus, almost everything is new, so the early production rate will be agonizingly slow, but eventually end up being insanely fast.”
BREAKING: Tesla launches public Robotaxi rides in Austin with no Safety Monitor
Tesla Earnings Call: Top 5 questions investors are asking
