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SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches second batch of 40 OneWeb satellites

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SpaceX has successfully completed its second launch for OneWeb, carrying another 40 of the London-based company’s small communications satellites into orbit.

Similar to SpaceX’s own Starlink constellation, OneWeb’s primary goal is to serve internet to customers almost anywhere on Earth, particularly in places where traditional high-bandwidth connectivity is currently unavailable or unlikely to ever be available.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s (CCSFS) LC-40 pad at 11:50 pm EST on Monday, January 9th. The rocket performed perfectly, extending Falcon 9’s record-breaking streak to 168 launches since its last failure. No rocket in history has launched more times between failures. Flying for the second time in 44 days, Falcon 9 booster B1076 supported the boost phase of OneWeb’s 16th launch; lifting the payload, fairing, and an expendable Falcon upper stage most of the way out of Earth’s atmosphere.

A spectacular long-exposure photo of Falcon 9’s OneWeb F16 launch, return, and landing. (Richard Angle)

Traveling about 3800 miles per hour (1.7 kilometers per second) at an altitude of 70 kilometers (44 mi), B1076 separated from the upper stage and boosted back to the Florida coast. Measuring around 48 meters (160 ft) tall and 3.2 meters (6 ft) wide, the Falcon 9 first stage gently touched down a few miles from where it lifted off at SpaceX’s LZ-1 landing pad. According to Next Spaceflight, B1076 will be converted into a Falcon Heavy side booster to support EchoStar’s Jupiter 3 communications satellite launch as early as May 2023.

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Once in orbit, Falcon 9’s expendable upper stage was tasked with deploying 40 new OneWeb satellites in batches of three, wrapping up around 95 minutes after liftoff (1:25 am EST/06:25 UTC). Assuming all F16 satellites are healthy, OneWeb will have 540 working satellites in orbit. OneWeb needs 588 satellites in orbit to achieve full, global coverage with zero spares. Including spares, OneWeb plans to pause launches once 648 satellites are in orbit. The company has permission from the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to launch up to 716 first-generation satellites.

OneWeb has plans for three more launches after F16, which is SpaceX’s second launch for the company. F16 and F18 will also launch on Falcon 9 rockets, while F17 will rely on India’s LVM 3 (GSLV Mk3) rocket. The constellation should be completed by mid-2023.

Falcon 9 produced an arrow-like streak in this long-exposure of SpaceX’s OneWeb F16 launch. (Richard Angle)
B1076 roars off the launch pad. (Richard Angle)

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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Anti-Tesla union leader ditches X, urges use of Threads instead

Tesla Sweden and IF Metall have been engaged in a bitter dispute for over two years now. 

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UK Government, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Marie Nilsson, chair of Sweden’s IF Metall union and a prominent critic of Tesla, has left X and is urging audiences to follow the union on Meta’s Threads instead.

Tesla Sweden and IF Metall have been engaged in a bitter dispute for over two years now. 

Anti-Tesla union leader exits X

In a comment to Dagens Arbete (DA), Nilsson noted that her exit from X is not formally tied to IF Metall’s long-running labor dispute with Tesla Sweden. Still, she stated that her departure is affected by changes to the platform under Elon Musk’s leadership.

“We have stayed because many journalists pick up news there. But as more and more people have left X, we have felt that the standard has now been reached on that platform,” she said. 

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Jesper Pettersson, press officer at IF Metall, highlighted that the union’s departure from X is only indirectly linked to Tesla Sweden and Elon Musk. “Indirectly it does, since there is a lot of evidence that his ownership has caused the change in the platform to be so significant. 

“We have nevertheless assessed that the platform had value for reaching journalists, politicians and other opinion leaders. But it is a microscopic proportion of the public and our members who are there, and now that value has decreased,” Petterson added.

IF Metall sees Threads as an X alternative

After leaving X, IF Metall has begun using Threads, Meta’s alternative to the social media platform. The union described the move as experimental, noting that it is still evaluating how effective the platform will be for outreach and visibility.

Pettersson acknowledged that Meta also does not operate under Sweden’s collective bargaining model, but said the union sees little alternative if it wants to remain visible online.

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“In a perfect world, all large international companies would be supporters of the Swedish model when they come here. But unfortunately, the reality is not like that. If we are to be visible at all in this social media world, we have to play by the rules of the game. The alternative would be to become completely invisible, and that would not benefit our members,” he said. 

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Elon Musk confirms SpaceX is not developing a phone

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elon musk phone
Photo: Boss Hunting.com.au

Despite many recent rumors and various reports, Elon Musk confirmed today that SpaceX is not developing a phone based on Starlink, not once, but twice.

Today’s report from Reuters cited people familiar with the matter and stated internal discussions have seen SpaceX executives mulling the idea of building a mobile device that would connect directly to the Starlink satellite constellation.

Musk did state in late January that SpaceX developing a phone was “not out of the question at some point.” However, He also said it would have to be a major difference from current phones, and would be optimized “purely for running max performance/watt neural nets.”

While Musk said it was not out of the question “at some point,” that does not mean it is currently a project SpaceX is working on. The CEO reaffirmed this point twice on X this afternoon.

Musk said, “Reuters lies relentlessly,” in one post. In the next, he explicitly stated, “We are not developing a phone.”

Musk has basically always maintained that SpaceX has too many things going on, denying that a phone would be in the realm of upcoming projects. There are too many things in the works for Musk’s space exploration company, most notably the recent merger with xAI.

SpaceX officially acquires xAI, merging rockets with AI expertise

A Starlink phone would be an excellent idea, especially considering that SpaceX operates 9,500 satellites, serving over 9 million users worldwide. 650 of those satellites are dedicated to the company’s direct-to-device initiative, which provides cellular coverage on a global scale.

Nevertheless, there is the potential that the Starlink phone eventually become a project SpaceX works on. However, it is not currently in the scope of what the company needs to develop, so things are more focused on that as of right now.

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Tesla adds notable improvement to Dashcam feature

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla has added a notable improvement to its Dashcam feature after complaints from owners have pushed the company to make a drastic change.

Perhaps one of the biggest frustrations that Tesla owners have communicated regarding the Dashcam feature is the lack of ability to retain any more than 60 minutes of driving footage before it is overwritten.

It does not matter what size USB jump drive is plugged into the vehicle. 60 minutes is all it will hold until new footage takes over the old. This can cause some issues, especially if you were saving an impressive clip of Full Self-Driving or an incident on the road, which could be lost if new footage was recorded.

This has now been changed, as Tesla has shown in the Release Notes for an upcoming Software Update in China. It will likely expand to the U.S. market in the coming weeks, and was first noticed by NotaTeslaApp.

The release notes state:

“Dashcam Dynamic Recording Duration – The dashcam dynamically adjusts the recording duration based on the available storage capacity of the connected USB drive. For example, with a 128 GB USB drive, the maximum recording duration is approximately 3 hours; with a 1 TB or larger USB drive, it can reach up to 24 hours. This ensures that as much video as possible is retained for review before it gets overwritten.”

Tesla Adds Dynamic Recording

Instead of having a 60-minute cap, the new system will now go off the memory in the USB drive. This means with:

  • 128 GB Jump Drive – Up to Three Hours of Rolling Footage
  • 1TB Jump Drive – Up to 24 Hours of Rolling Footage

This is dependent on the amount of storage available on the jump drive, meaning that if there are other things saved on it, it will take away from the amount of footage that can be retained.

While the feature is just now making its way to employees in China, it will likely be at least several weeks before it makes its way to the U.S., but owners should definitely expect it in the coming months.

It will be a welcome feature, especially as there will now be more customization to the number of clips and their duration that can be stored.

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