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SpaceX Falcon 9 crushes next-gen ULA Vulcan rocket on cost in first competition
The United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) next-generation Vulcan Centaur rocket appears to have made it through what could be described as its first real competition with SpaceX and its Falcon 9 workhorse.
The US Space Force (or Air Force) awarded both rockets two launch contracts each on March 9th, marking the second award under “Phase 2” of a new National Security Space Launch (NSSL; formerly Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle or EELV) agreement. The culmination of a multi-year competition, NSSL Phase 2 calcified in late 2020 when the US military ultimately chose ULA and SpaceX as its primary launch providers for the better part of the next decade.
The final Phase 2 agreement followed Phase 1, in which the USAF committed up to $2.3 billion to assist Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman, and ULA in their efforts to develop future military launch capabilities. SpaceX submitted a proposal but didn’t win funds. Even though the ULA-SpaceX dichotomy was already a more or less fixed outcome before the competition even began, the US military still managed to dole out almost $800 million to Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman before announcing that neither provider had been selected for Phase 2.
Notably, as part of Phase 1, ULA is on track to receive nearly $1 billion in USSF/USAF aid to develop its next-generation Vulcan Centaur rocket and ensure that it meets all of the military’s exacting, unique requirements. SpaceX, on the other hand, received a sum total of $0 from that opaque slush fund to meet the exact same requirements as ULA.
For Phase 2, the US military arbitrarily split the roughly two-dozen launch contracts up for grabs into a 60/40 pile. Even more bizarrely, the USAF did everything in its power to prevent two of the three rockets it had just spent more than $1.7 billion to help develop from receiving any of those two or three-dozen available launch contracts – all but literally setting $800M of that investment on fire. Short of comical levels of blind ineptitude, verging on criminal negligence, the only possible explanation for the US military’s behavior with NSSL Phase 1 and Phase 2 is a no-holds-barred effort to guarantee that ULA and its Vulcan Centaur rocket would have zero real competition.
The arbitrary 60:40 split of the final Phase 2 contract ‘lot’ further supports that argument. A government agency objectively interested in securing the best possible value and redundancy for its taxpayer-provided money would logically exploit a $1.7B investment as much as possible instead of throwing two-thirds of its ultimate value in the trash. On its own, a block-buy scenario – even with a leading goal of selecting two providers – is fundamentally inferior to an open competition for each of the dozens of launch contracts at hand.
Further, selecting the block-buy option and failing to split those contracts 50:50 makes it even clearer that the USAF’s only steadfast NSSL Phase 2 goal was to guarantee ULA enough Vulcan launch contracts for the company to be comfortable and (most likely) not lose money on a rocket that has yet to demonstrate an ability to compete on the commercial launch market.
Amazingly, despite multiple handicaps in the form of a 60:40 contract split and what amounts to a $1B subsidy that explicitly disadvantages its only competitor, ULA’s Vulcan rocket still appears to be ~40% more expensive than SpaceX’s Falcon 9. In the latest round of NSSL Phase 2 contracts, seemingly the first in which ULA’s Vulcan Centaur rocket was selected, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 received two East Coast launch contracts worth slightly less than $160M, averaging out to less than $80M each.
Outfitted with four of a possible zero, two, four, or six strap-on solid rocket boosters (SRBs), Vulcan Centaur received two launch contracts for $224M – an average of $112M each. Assuming ULA wins exactly 60% (~15) of the Phase 2 launch contracts up for grabs and receives no more than $1 billion in USAF development funding through NSSL Phase 1, some $67 million will have to be added to the cost of each announced Vulcan launch contract to get a truly accurate picture. In the case of the rocket’s first two contracts, the real average cost of each Vulcan Centaur launch could thus be closer to $179M ($112M+$67M).
According to ULA CEO Tory Bruno, both Vulcan missions are to “high-energy orbits,” whereas a USAF official told Spaceflight Now that SpaceX’s two Falcon 9 contracts were to “lower-energy orbits.” In Vulcan’s defense, if Bruno’s “high-energy orbit” comment means a circular geostationary orbit (GEO) or a very heavy payload to an elliptical geostationary transfer orbit (GTO), it’s possible that SpaceX would have had to use Falcon Heavy to complete the same contracts. Against Falcon Heavy’s established institutional pricing and excluding ULA’s $1B Phase 1 subsidy, Vulcan Centaur is reasonably competitive.
Ultimately, even with several significant cards stacked against it, SpaceX appears likely to continue crushing entrenched competitors like ULA and Arianespace on cost while still offering performance and results equivalent to or better than even than their “next-generation” rockets.
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Tesla Cybercabs take over Austin’s F1 weekend
Tesla Cybercabs swarmed Austin’s F1 Grand Prix as sightings hit a record during race weekend.
Tesla’s driverless Cybercabs used the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix in Austin as their biggest public stress test yet. On Sunday afternoon, Tesla head of AI software Ashok Elluswamy quoted a photo from X user Ben Steindl showing a long line of gold Cybercabs and Model Y Robotaxis stacked up on a road near Circuit of the Americas. “Robotaxis as far as the eye can see!” Elluswamy wrote. Steindl’s original post was more matter of fact: “@Tesla @robotaxi is busy for the Austin F1.”
The fleet also handled the trip home. The race started at 3 p.m. Central, and once it ended, Cybercab Spotter, an account that logs Cybercab sightings around Austin, posted that “People are requesting Cybercabs to get home.”
Robotaxis as far as the eye can see! 🤩
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) October 25, 2026
Tesla set this up days in advance without announcing it. Late on October 22, rider David Moss posted Robotaxi app screenshots showing the Austin service area wrapping around the track toward Elroy and FM 812, with ride requests open until 1 a.m. A banner in the app read “Last call is 1am · Limited to nearby dropoffs.” Austin rides ended at 11 p.m. as recently as early October, as Teslarati reported, before moving to midnight on October 17.
Not every rider got dropped at the gate. Early app searches showed spots like COTA Karting as “Service blocked,” and one rider who took a Cybercab to the track Friday said the rideshare area was less than a 20 minute walk from the front gate.
The weekend also produced a new activity record. Cybercab Spotter counted 1,250 Cybercab sightings in Austin on Saturday, qualifying day. The previous high was 1,072 on October 16. Sightings count the same car more than once, so they measure how busy the fleet is rather than how big it is. For size, the Texas automated vehicle registry listed 463 Cybercabs at midday Sunday, up from the 300+ Tesla claimed on October 10, when Elluswamy also said Dallas is next for Cybercab.
The track was out of reach for Tesla’s main rival. Waymo runs in Austin only through Uber, and its service area stops well short of COTA. Waymo did not announce any race day service.
Tesla has not said how many rides it gave to and from the circuit, or whether the expanded zone and 1 a.m. cutoff will stay after race weekend. On the third quarter earnings call, Elluswamy said 2 a.m. service is coming “pretty soon” and that Tesla plans to run Robotaxi around the clock before the end of the year. The company is also aiming to hand the first Cybercabs to customers before 2026 ends, which would put cars like these outside Tesla’s own fleet for the first time.
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Tesla makes good on its Cybercab promise in just two weeks
Tesla Cybercab riders can now pull up a rear camera view and darken the screen.
Tesla has given Cybercab passengers a way to see what is behind them, along with a way to turn the cabin screen off entirely.
Riders in Austin can now bring up a live rearview camera feed on the Cybercab’s center display in the middle of a trip. Austin rider Ethan McKanna spotted the change late Friday night, posting from a ride that “You can now open the camera to view what’s behind you in Cybercab!” His photo shows a strip of rear camera video across the top of the screen, with another Cybercab following on a bridge. Sawyer Merritt shared the image Saturday and wrote that it “sounds like” there is also a new quiet mode that darkens the entire screen for riders who want to relax, sleep, or avoid a bright display at night.
The camera view goes beyond the rear feed. Tesla UI software engineer Evan, who posts as @CarCoder, replied to McKanna with a tip: “You can also tap it to see more cameras, and swipe it up or down to hide and show.” Until now, the Cybercab only showed its rear and repeater feeds on the “Please Exit Safely” screen at the end of a ride, so passengers could check for cyclists and traffic before opening a door.
Quiet mode surfaced a day earlier. Austin rider Jackson Blatz posted a video Friday morning of the new Robotaxi interface in a Cybercab with the option. Tesla has not published release notes for either feature.
The rear camera view moved quickly from request to release. Earlier this month, Cybercab rider Dan Burkland asked Tesla to let passengers pull up the rear and repeater cameras whenever they want, “especially for peace of mind.” Evan answered “In development,” as Teslarati reported at the time. About two weeks later, riders have it.
The feature fills a gap created by the Cybercab’s design. With no steering wheel, no pedals, no mirrors and no rear window, a passenger has no natural way to glance behind the car. The eight exterior cameras that feed Tesla’s autonomy software were already on board, so the change only required software.
There is also an AI angle to how it was built. Yun-Ta Tsai, a senior staff engineer on Tesla’s AI team, quoted Merritt’s post and wrote that the “(human) camera view tuning is optimized with Grok and implements part of the algorithm by directly programming the fixed-function hardware, so I don’t even need to check the datasheet.” Tsai did not say which part of the algorithm Grok handled. Grok already plays a bigger role inside the vehicle, with Grok Bot now enabled across every Cybercab and the Model Y Robotaxi fleet after Tesla brought the agent into its cars in September.
The two features join a busy week of changes for riders in Austin, which also brought a redesigned Live Activity for iPhone and Apple Watch and live trip sharing. They also arrive as Tesla prepares the Cybercab for life outside its own fleet. On the third quarter earnings call, Lars Moravy said the company is aiming to deliver Cybercabs to customers before the end of 2026. Tesla has not said whether the camera view and quiet mode will also come to its Model Y Robotaxis.
Elon Musk
Tesla shows what Roadster drivers will see on screen before thruster activation
Tesla’s Roadster video reveals a fighter jet inspired cockpit with a 5,500 PSI thruster gauge.
Tesla has given future owners their clearest look yet at the cockpit of its next generation Roadster. In a 34 second video posted to X on Friday afternoon, the company walked through the car’s touchscreen with a caption: “Inspired by fighter jet cockpits, Roadster’s interface was designed around the pilot.”
The clip opens on a black screen with red graphics and a 3D wireframe of the car, which sits beside the Roadster’s squared off yoke. Tapping parts of the model brings up controls for the rear wing, including low drag and high downforce positions, along with a charging page with a charge limit bar and a small music player. A row of tabs along the bottom reads Home, Vehicle, Listen, Climate and Navigate.
Most of the video is spent in Track Mode. The dashboard shows a live circuit map, a list of session lap times, brake and motor temperatures, and pressure and temperature readouts for each tire. A setup page lets the driver pick Auto, Low Drag, High Downforce or Custom aero modes, adjust aero balance and brake balance, and switch stability and traction control off. Along the bottom, a status bar reads “Thruster · 5,500 PSI” next to a “Boost Ready” indicator.
That gauge ties the software to the hardware Tesla showed off near Waco, Texas on October 15. The Thrust and Rocket versions use cold gas thrusters fed by carbon overwrapped pressure vessels, and Tesla lists 0 to 60 mph times of under 0.9 seconds and under 0.59 seconds for them, as Teslarati detailed in its breakdown of the three Roadster configurations. The base Performance car relies on a fan and ground sealing system for grip, and the aero settings on screen match the active wings and suction setup covered in our look at how the Roadster generates downforce.
The Roadster layout is a departure from the rest of Tesla’s lineup. Instead of a map centered screen, the Roadster puts the car itself at the center of the home page, and Tesla’s Roadster page lists two smaller forward displays alongside the main touchscreen. Tesla has not said whether any of the Track Mode telemetry will make its way to the Model 3 Performance or other vehicles.
The interface could still change before deliveries. Elon Musk said at the event that Roadster production will begin in 2028, and Tesla says the flagship Rocket version is not approved for public road use. Reservations are open with a $50,000 payment, while Thrust is listed as a limited release and Rocket is invite only.
Those who want to see the car in person will get their first chance this weekend. The Roadster goes on display in the lobby of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles from October 24 to 27, according to Sawyer Merritt, the first time the public will be able to view it up close.
Tesla Cybercabs take over Austin’s F1 weekend
Tesla makes good on its Cybercab promise in just two weeks
