News
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Block 5 boosters landing in great shape as competitors betray anxiety
SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell has announced that the company’s upgraded Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket – debuted in May 2018 – is making its way through peak-stress launches, reentries, and landings in “much better shape than anticipated”, ultimately meaning that Falcon 9 booster refurbishment can now take as little as four weeks between flights.
At the same time, Shotwell’s industry peers and competitors continue to betray some level of real anxiety about SpaceX’s meteoric rise and technological step up with displays of hyperbolic overconfidence.
Shotwell: Falcon 9 first stages come back in much better shape than anticipated. Have refurbishment time down to four weeks; goal is still a one-day turnaround next year. #WSBW
— Jeff Foust (@jeff_foust) September 11, 2018
Speaking on a panel of launch providers at 2018’s Paris-based World Satellite Business Week conference, the discussion was rich with banter and comparatively heated comments from leaders of companies like Arianespace, ILS (International Launch Services, a commercial arm of Roscosmos), ULA, and Blue Origin, as well as SpaceX’s own Gwynne Shotwell. As effortlessly confident as ever, Shotwell’s presence and, perhaps, the general state of the industry appeared to trigger some rather brash and thoroughly entertaining fireworks from other executives.
United Launch Alliance’s Tory Bruno, CEO of a company that has literally never recovered or reused any flown hardware from one of its launches, noted that ULA’s wholly-unproven and untested strategy for reuse – unlikely to begin flight tests before the mid-2020s – would likely be superior to SpaceX’s own approach, apparently owing to the fact that the company has yet to reuse their Falcon 9 boosters dozens of times. ULA has yet to so much as announce the rocket engines it will use on its next-generation expendable rocket, known as Vulcan, expected to conduct its first-ever launch no earlier than the second half of 2020. Their current Atlas 5, Delta II, and Delta IV launch vehicles are and will remain 100% expendable up to the end of their careers.
ULA’s Tory Bruno talks up component (engine) recovery the company is planning; notes that despite SpaceX technical successes with landing and reuse, haven’t yet demonstrated ability to reuse stages large number (10-20) times. #WSBW
— Jeff Foust (@jeff_foust) September 11, 2018
Nevertheless, ILS President Kirk Pysher didn’t let Bruno steal all of the allotted braggadocio, making the humorous claim that “our customers don’t care about reusability” so long as “their launch is on time, reliable, and at the right price point”. Indeed, if one could actually launch a fully expendable rocket at a price point competitive with an organically-priced reusable rocket (i.e. no artificial inflation to recoup $1 billion of investment in the tech, which SpaceX is choosing to do), Pysher’s statement would be 100% accurate. Instead, ILS can lay claim to no more than a tiny fraction of commercial launch contracts today, dramatically hobbled by the fact that development of the company’s only potential competitive advantage – Proton Medium – has been indefinitely frozen, likely killing the rocket.
https://twitter.com/FDF/status/1039532650355204102
All things considered, Shotwell remains a breath of fresh air in an increasingly stale group, stoic, factual, and straightforward in the face of cantankerous and withering titans of the rocket industry. Speaking last week to a Masters of Business Administration class in Madrid, Spain, Shotwell bluntly and rather accurately stated that “with the advent of SpaceX, I think everyone in the industry is happy except other launch providers.” Much like other similar sessions at conferences earlier this year and otherwise, today’s conference panel of launch provider executives certainly serves to drive home just how correct the SpaceX President is.
https://twitter.com/FDF/status/1039530577454686209
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Tesla Robotaxi ride-hailing without a Safety Monitor is proving to be a difficult task, according to some riders who made the journey to Austin to attempt to ride in one of its vehicles that has zero supervision.
Last week, Tesla officially removed Safety Monitors from some — not all — of its Robotaxi vehicles in Austin, Texas, answering skeptics who said the vehicles still needed supervision to operate safely and efficiently.
BREAKING: Tesla launches public Robotaxi rides in Austin with no Safety Monitor
Tesla aimed to remove Safety Monitors before the end of 2025, and it did, but only to company employees. It made the move last week to open the rides to the public, just a couple of weeks late to its original goal, but the accomplishment was impressive, nonetheless.
However, the small number of Robotaxis that are operating without Safety Monitors has proven difficult to hail for a ride. David Moss, who has gained notoriety recently as the person who has traveled over 10,000 miles in his Tesla on Full Self-Driving v14 without any interventions, made it to Austin last week.
He has tried to get a ride in a Safety Monitor-less Robotaxi for the better part of four days, and after 38 attempts, he still has yet to grab one:
Wow just wow!
It’s 8:30PM, 29° out ice storm hailing & Tesla Robotaxi service has turned back on!
Waymo is offline & vast majority of humans are home in the storm
Ride 38 was still supervised but by far most impressive yet pic.twitter.com/1aUnJkcYm8
— David Moss (@DavidMoss) January 25, 2026
Tesla said last week that it was rolling out a controlled test of the Safety Monitor-less Robotaxis. Ashok Elluswamy, who heads the AI program at Tesla, confirmed that the company was “starting with a few unsupervised vehicles mixed in with the broader Robotaxi fleet with Safety Monitors,” and that “the ratio will increase over time.”
This is a good strategy that prioritizes safety and keeps the company’s controlled rollout at the forefront of the Robotaxi rollout.
However, it will be interesting to see how quickly the company can scale these completely monitor-less rides. It has proven to be extremely difficult to get one, but that is understandable considering only a handful of the cars in the entire Austin fleet are operating with no supervision within the vehicle.
Tesla has given its biggest hint that Full Self-Driving in Europe is imminent, as a new feature seems to show that the company is preparing for frequent border crossings.
Tesla owner and influencer BLKMDL3, also known as Zack, recently took his Tesla to the border of California and Mexico at Tijuana, and at the international crossing, Full Self-Driving showed an interesting message: “Upcoming country border — FSD (Supervised) will become unavailable.”
FSD now shows a new message when approaching an international border crossing.
Stayed engaged the whole way as we crossed the border and worked great in Mexico! pic.twitter.com/bDzyLnyq0g
— Zack (@BLKMDL3) January 26, 2026
Due to regulatory approvals, once a Tesla operating on Full Self-Driving enters a new country, it is required to comply with the laws and regulations that are applicable to that territory. Even if legal, it seems Tesla will shut off FSD temporarily, confirming it is in a location where operation is approved.
This is something that will be extremely important in Europe, as crossing borders there is like crossing states in the U.S.; it’s pretty frequent compared to life in America, Canada, and Mexico.
Tesla has been working to get FSD approved in Europe for several years, and it has been getting close to being able to offer it to owners on the continent. However, it is still working through a lot of the red tape that is necessary for European regulators to approve use of the system on their continent.
This feature seems to be one that would be extremely useful in Europe, considering the fact that crossing borders into other countries is much more frequent than here in the U.S., and would cater to an area where approvals would differ.
Tesla has been testing FSD in Spain, France, England, and other European countries, and plans to continue expanding this effort. European owners have been fighting for a very long time to utilize the functionality, but the red tape has been the biggest bottleneck in the process.
Tesla Europe builds momentum with expanding FSD demos and regional launches
Tesla operates Full Self-Driving in the United States, China, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship V3 gets launch date update from Elon Musk
The first flight of Starship Version 3 and its new Raptor V3 engines could happen as early as March.
Elon Musk has announced that SpaceX’s next Starship launch, Flight 12, is expected in about six weeks. This suggests that the first flight of Starship Version 3 and its new Raptor V3 engines could happen as early as March.
In a post on X, Elon Musk stated that the next Starship launch is in six weeks. He accompanied his announcement with a photo that seemed to have been taken when Starship’s upper stage was just about to separate from the Super Heavy Booster. Musk did not state whether SpaceX will attempt to catch the Super Heavy Booster during the upcoming flight.
The upcoming flight will mark the debut of Starship V3. The upgraded design includes the new Raptor V3 engine, which is expected to have nearly twice the thrust of the original Raptor 1, at a fraction of the cost and with significantly reduced weight. The Starship V3 platform is also expected to be optimized for manufacturability.
The Starship V3 Flight 12 launch timeline comes as SpaceX pursues an aggressive development cadence for the fully reusable launch system. Previous iterations of Starship have racked up a mixed but notable string of test flights, including multiple integrated flight tests in 2025.
Interestingly enough, SpaceX has teased an aggressive timeframe for Starship V3’s first flight. Way back in late November, SpaceX noted on X that it will be aiming to launch Starship V3’s maiden flight in the first quarter of 2026. This was despite setbacks like a structural anomaly on the first V3 booster during ground testing.
“Starship’s twelfth flight test remains targeted for the first quarter of 2026,” the company wrote in its post on X.
Tesla Robotaxi ride-hailing without a Safety Monitor proves to be difficult
Tesla gives its biggest hint that Full Self-Driving in Europe is imminent
