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SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 booster ends launch #2 with spectacular dawn return
SpaceX Falcon 9 booster B1049 has completed its second successful launch and landing with a spectacular dawn return to Port of Los Angeles, where engineers and technicians will work to remove the rocket’s grid fins and landing legs and prepare the vehicle for transport to the company’s Hawthorne, CA factory and refurbishment facilities.
Once post-recovery processing is complete and B1049 is safe and snug inside one of SpaceX’s refurbishment facilities, the booster can be expected to be ready to perform its next (third) orbital-class mission perhaps just 2-3 months from now, whether or not there is a mission that needs its support.
Just Read the Instructions has now docked, carrying twice-flown Iridium-8 booster. Beautiful sunrise arrival. #spacex pic.twitter.com/OAi77wm3XT
— Pauline Acalin (@w00ki33) January 13, 2019
Just ~48 hours after the Block 5 booster’s second successful launch and landing, this time aboard drone ship Just Read The Instructions (JRTI) after supporting the historic Iridium-8 mission, JRTI pulled into Port of Los Angeles with Falcon 9 in tow, backlit by a picturesque California sunrise. In September 2018, the same booster (B1049) successfully completed its launch debut from SpaceX’s LC-40 launch pad in Cape Canaveral, Florida before landing safely aboard drone ship Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY).
This marks the second time ever that a Falcon 9 booster has launched from both coasts (Cape Canaveral, FL and Vandenberg, CA) and landed on both SpaceX drone ships (JRTI and OCISLY), an event that will likely become increasingly common as the company’s growing fleet of Falcon 9 Block 5 boosters become increasingly flexible and interchangeable. It’s also equally possible that – over time – a sort of regional fleet of Falcon 9s will ultimately accumulate at each of SpaceX’s three launch pads, ensuring that there is always a rocket ready and waiting to launch a customer payload with short notice and minimal production or refurbishment-related delays.
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- Falcon 9 B1049 and a few SpaceX recovery technicians serve as an excellent since of scale for launch photos. (Pauline Acalin)
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- Falcon 9 B1049 returned to Port of Los Angeles after its second successful launch and landing in four months. (Pauline Acalin)
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- Falcon 9 B1049 seen vertical at SLC-4E prior to its second launch, the eighth and final Iridium NEXT mission. (SpaceX)
Among many of Falcon 9’s almost sculpture-like qualities, Teslarati photographer Pauline Acalin’s photos of the booster’s return exemplify just how reliably unperturbed Block 5 appears after performing multiple orbital-class launches, far from a rocket that traveled to ~90 km (~56 mi) while reaching speeds of 1.9 kilometers per second (6830 km/h, 4300 mph). SpaceX now reliably reuses Falcon 9’s titanium grid fins and landing legs with little to no refurbishment or touching up between launches and should eventually be able to retract the rocket’s legs after recovery, further cutting down on processing and refurbishment times.
Greater reusability, greater reliability?
As of today, it’s unclear how big of a role Falcon 9 Block 5 booster refurbishment has played into several hardware-readiness-related delays to several recent flight-proven Falcon 9 launches (SSO-A, SAOCOM 1A, and Iridium-8), but it is ultimately a fundamental reality of all manufacturing that rushing or ‘expediting’ work will typically hurt product quality and reliability and generally widen the cracks that mistakes can slip through. Interestingly, having a truly large fleet of flight-proven Falcon 9 Block 5 rockets on hand could dramatically improve the overall launch-readiness of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy and minimize chances of processing delays across the board.
SpaceX employees may already be to a point where they can plausible take stock of the company’s already-significant fleet of flight-proven Falcon 9s (B1046-B1049) to decide which booster is closest to launch-readiness before assigning it to a given mission. With four proven boosters on hand as of January 2019, options are fairly limited and regionality is likely to factor heavily into which booster launches which mission – there is no real cushion if problems arise with a given rocket or its preceding launch suffers its own delays. However, once that Falcon fleet grows to something like 10 or 15 booster, SpaceX could conceivably be able to guarantee booster availability regardless of prior launch delays or a given rocket’s condition after landing.
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- (Pauline Acalin)
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- A bittersweet sunrise as Falcon 9 B1049 arrives in port. (Pauline Acalin)
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- (Pauline Acalin)
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- (Pauline Acalin)
This may well be far less sexy than SpaceX’s ultimate goal of drop-of-the-pin, 24-hour reusability for Falcon and BFR boosters, but the fundamental fact of the matter is that the company may well be able to derive a vast majority of that practice’s value by simply having a large, well-kept fleet of Falcon 9 boosters that are at least moderately reusable. For a hefty chunk of the probable near-term future, a large fleet of rockets each capable of launching every 30-60 days would likely be able to support launch cadences that are currently unprecedented for a single company or rocket (i.e. dozens of launches per year).
Time is money, of course, so minimizing the turnaround time of Falcon boosters will ultimately remain a major priority, especially as the prospect of Starlink launches loom.
For prompt updates, on-the-ground perspectives, and unique glimpses of SpaceX’s rocket recovery fleet check out our brand new LaunchPad and LandingZone newsletters!
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Elon Musk put a number on where he thinks SpaceX’s Starship program is headed by 2030, replying on X a day after President Trump signed a memo pushing the country toward 1,000 space launches and reentries a year.
The exchange started when Aaron Burnett, co-founder of propulsion startup Mach 33, posted that “1,000 launches/reentries is the goal,” quoting White House science adviser Michael Kratsios on the newly signed National Space Transportation Policy. Burnett noted that the FAA’s own bull-case forecast reached only 385 annual launches by 2030, while his firm’s conservative model already put SpaceX alone near 940. Musk responded, “We’re aiming to reach 30+ Starship launches/day in 2030, which is ~10k annualized. Still tiny numbers compared to airplane flights!”
We’re aiming to reach 30+ Starship launches/day in 2030, which is ~10k annualized.
Still tiny numbers compared to airplane flights!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 21, 2026
That figure is specific to Starship, the rocket SpaceX is still developing for orbital and lunar missions, not the Falcon 9 fleet that carries most of the company’s current launch volume. Starship has flown twice this year, a slower pace than the four and five flights SpaceX managed in 2024 and 2025. Getting from two flights a year to 30 a day is the scale of jump the new federal policy is meant to clear regulatory room for.
Trump’s memo, signed Thursday, directs agencies to identify new launch and reentry sites on federal land, including a new reentry site within 90 days, and to speed up the permitting and environmental reviews that have long slowed cadence growth. It also sets a goal of returning American astronauts to the moon by 2028 and placing initial lunar base elements by 2030, tying the launch buildout directly to NASA’s Artemis program.
SpaceX has already been pushing the FAA toward higher numbers on its own. The agency approved up to 44 annual Starship launches from Kennedy Space Center in February, on top of a 2024 review that raised the cap at Starbase in Texas to 25 a year. Those approvals cover a fraction of the 10,000 annual flights Musk is now describing, which shows how far current permitting still sits from the administration’s stated target.
The near-term test of all this is more modest. SpaceX cleared a full-duration, six-engine static fire on its next Starship vehicle this week, the last major hardware checkpoint before Flight 14, which is targeting no earlier than August 28 and is expected to attempt the vehicle’s first full orbital mission. Musk said last week that a tower catch of the upper stage is still probably months away, a reminder that the immediate roadmap remains far more incremental than the daily launch numbers he just posted.
Tesla will resolve its massive recall of nearly three million vehicles in China with stickers and a software update.
On Friday, Chinese regulators filed recall plans against Tesla, Xiaomi, Leapmotor, Xpeng, Chery, Geely, Dongfeng, Arcfox, and FAW to resolve what is essentially a carbon-copy issue throughout each of the companies’ vehicle models: emergency door release latches are simply not visible enough.
Tesla door handle saga gets its latest chapter and a big change is coming
The companies will be required to add things that will make these latches, which will open the door in the event of an emergency, more visible. Of the 7 million vehicles impacted, Tesla accounts for 2,975,910 units. More than 1.9 million of those are Model Y vehicles, with the rest, just over 970,000, being Model 3s.
To resolve the issue, Tesla is going to add warning labels to the emergency latches free of charge, and then utilize an Over-the-Air update to add a post-crash window-lowering strategy, according to CNEVpost.
This massive effort to fix the all-electric Model Y and Model 3’s emergency latch system comes just months after several probes across various markets identified the trouble some had identifying this latch. Those who had gotten involved in car accidents that stripped the vehicle of its power were not aware that every Tesla has emergency door latches.
China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) said that severe crashes that disable a vehicle’s low-voltage system could not only hinder occupants from getting out, but also make it more difficult for emergency response workers to gain entry.
SAMR is starting to tighten the regulations it has on door handles on vehicles. A new mandatory national standard will take effect for all models starting January 1, 2027, and will require all doors to be equipped with mechanical release mechanisms. This will effectively end purely electronic door handles. Models already on sale with type approval have been granted a two-year transition period, which will enable things to change until January 2029.
Tesla has officially confirmed plans to bring its all-electric Semi truck to Europe, with full specifications and market-launch details set for unveiling at the IAA Transportation trade fair in Hannover, Germany.
The event runs September 15–20, with a possible press preview on September 14. The announcement, shared via Tesla’s Semi account, marks a significant expansion beyond North America nearly nine years after the truck’s original 2017 reveal.
🚨 Tesla Semi is coming to Europe!
Sustainable logistics is a huge market internationally, and now Tesla is involved in it outside of the U.S. market! https://t.co/q3hjX6ybMv pic.twitter.com/mxTaVY3UsE
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 20, 2026
In the United States, the Semi’s path has been gradual. Limited pilot production and customer deliveries began in late 2022, primarily to fleets such as PepsiCo. After years of refinement, high-volume manufacturing started on April 29, 2026, at a dedicated facility adjacent to Gigafactory Nevada.
The plant targets an annual capacity of 50,000 units, though the ramp is expected to be gradual, with “many thousands” of trucks projected by the end of 2026.
Demand is building, with recent orders including 500 units for Einride (deliveries starting September 2026, serving Amazon and others) and hundreds more from operators such as WattEV. Pricing stands at approximately $260,000 for the Standard Range and $290,000 for the Long Range before incentives.
Tesla Semi pricing revealed after company uncovers trim levels
Earlier in 2026, Tesla finalized production specifications that incorporated substantial updates. In February, the company detailed two variants designed for a full 82,000-pound gross combination weight.
The Standard Range offers about 325 miles of range with a 548 kWh battery and curb weight under 20,000 pounds. The Long Range delivers roughly 500 miles with an 822 kWh pack and a 23,000-pound curb weight. Both use three independent rear-axle motors producing up to 800 kW (about 1,073 horsepower), achieve energy consumption of around 1.7 kWh per mile, and support megawatt-class charging at up to 1.2 MW—recovering about 60 percent of range in 30 minutes through the MCS standard.
Additional refinements include a roughly 1,000-pound weight reduction versus earlier prototypes, improved aerodynamics, a 48-volt electrical architecture, electric power take-off up to 25 kW for refrigerated trailers, and fleet management software with over-the-air updates.
These advances position the Semi as a competitive option against diesel trucks on operating costs and performance. For Europe, adaptations such as lighting, cab configurations (including potential sleeper options), and regulatory compliance are anticipated.
With series production underway in Nevada and major fleet commitments secured, the upcoming IAA reveal will clarify timelines, European-specific specs, and pricing, potentially accelerating electrification of heavy-duty freight on both continents.
SpaceX and a new Trump order that could rewrite the next decade of launches
Tesla will resolve massive China recall with stickers and a software update
