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SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 booster ends launch #2 with spectacular dawn return

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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7 years ago

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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 ~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).

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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.

 

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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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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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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Investor's Corner

Tesla receives major institutional boost with Nomura’s rising stake

The move makes Tesla Nomura’s 10th-largest holding at about 1% of its entire portfolio.

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2 hours ago

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November 17, 2025

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Credit: Tesla China

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) has gained fresh institutional support, with Nomura Asset Management expanding its position in the automaker. 

Nomura boosted its Tesla holdings by 4.2%, adding 47,674 shares and bringing its total position to more than 1.17 million shares valued at roughly $373.6 million. The move makes Tesla Nomura’s 10th-largest holding at about 1% of its entire portfolio.

Institutional investors and TSLA

Nomura’s filing was released alongside several other fund updates. Brighton Jones LLC boosted its holdings by 11.8%, as noted in a MarketBeat report, and Revolve Wealth Partners lifted its TSLA position by 21.2%. Bison Wealth increased its Tesla stake by 52.2%, AMG National Trust Bank increased its position in shares of Tesla by 11.8%, and FAS Wealth Partners increased its TSLA holdings by 22.1%. About 66% of all outstanding Tesla shares are now owned by institutional investors.

The buying comes shortly after Tesla reported better-than-expected quarterly earnings, posting $0.50 per share compared with the $0.48 consensus. Revenue reached $28.10 billion, topping Wall Street’s $24.98 billion estimate. Despite the earnings beat, Tesla continues to trade at a steep premium relative to peers, with a market cap hovering around $1.34 trillion and a price-to-earnings ratio near 270.

Recent insider sales

Some Tesla insiders have sold stock as of late. CFO Vaibhav Taneja sold 2,606 shares in early September for just over $918,000, reducing his personal stake by about 21%. Director James R. Murdoch executed a far larger sale, offloading 120,000 shares for roughly $42 million and trimming his holdings by nearly 15%. Over the past three months, Tesla insiders have collectively sold 202,606 shares valued at approximately $75.6 million, as per SEC disclosures.

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Tesla is currently entering its next phase of growth, and if it is successful, it could very well become the world’s most valuable company as a result. The company has several high-profile projects expected to be rolled out in the coming years, including Optimus, the humanoid robot, and the Cybercab, an autonomous two-seater with the potential to change the face of roads across the globe.

@teslarati Tesla Full Self-Driving yields for pedestrians while human drivers do not…the future is here! #tesla #teslafsd #fullselfdriving ♬ 2 Little 2 Late – Levi & Mario
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Tesla rolls out fresh Supercharger pricing strategy to more locations

Live Pricing aimed to resolve some of the shortcomings of the off-peak and on-peak system, aiming to keep prices low and base them on current utilization instead of a set time when prices change.

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2 hours ago

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November 17, 2025

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tesla supercharger
Credit: Tesla

Tesla has rolled out a fresh Supercharger pricing strategy to more locations, as it confirmed it has added 550 additional sites in the United States to its “Live Pricing” strategy.

Live Pricing for Superchargers launched back in May, and was the company’s latest strategy to keep charging your EV cheap, affordable, and easy to understand.

Tesla has adjusted its pricing strategy at Superchargers several times over the past few years, with the most notable being the 2020 introduction of off-peak and on-peak Supercharging rates.

Live Pricing aimed to resolve some of the shortcomings of the off-peak and on-peak system, aiming to keep prices low and base them on current utilization instead of a set time when prices change.

Tesla explained the program when it launched:

“We are piloting on-peak and off-peak pricing based on live Supercharger utilization rather than estimations. The average price remains unchanged, but this live feedback loop improves accuracy. This corrects off-peak pricing during times of congestion, or on-peak pricing when Superchargers are plentiful. You’ll always see the price before your session begins, and prices do not change mid-session. A small-scale pilot is launching at 10 sites and will expand based on feedback and success.”

The initial rollout only included Superchargers in California, but it was not all of them, only a handful instead. Tesla was attempting to launch it in a very controlled manner by using a Pilot Program that would iron out all the early bugs and potential issues it might run into.

However, the company expanded the program by launching it at an additional 550 sites in California, New Jersey, New York, Florida, and Illinois:

The price you pay is locked in when you plug in, so if the Supercharger station you are charging at becomes more crowded and the program bumps up the rates because of high utilization rates, you will still receive the cheaper price that was enabled when you arrived.

@teslarati With a pedestrian in the crosswalk, Tesla Full Self-Driving shows off its courtesy. Human drivers? Not so much. #tesla #teslafsd #fullselfdriving ♬ AMERICAN HEART – Maxwell Luke

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Tesla Robotaxi was just spotted in a new state for the first time

The company is still attempting to expand and has explicitly stated that it plans to offer rides in Nevada, Arizona, and Florida in the near future. However, a pair of Robotaxi mules, fitted with LiDAR equipment for ground truth validation, was spotted in a new region for the first time.

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3 hours ago

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November 17, 2025

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla Robotaxi mules were spotted in a new state for the first time as the company plans to expand the ride-sharing service to new areas of the United States in the coming months.

Tesla is offering Robotaxi rides in Austin already, where nobody is present in the driver’s seat except for on freeway routes. In California, Tesla refers to its platform as a ride-hailing suite, and a “Safety Monitor” is present in the driver’s seat at all times, but the vehicle operates on Full Self-Driving.

The company is still attempting to expand and has explicitly stated that it plans to offer rides in Nevada, Arizona, and Florida in the near future. However, a pair of Robotaxi mules, fitted with LiDAR equipment for ground truth validation, was spotted in a new region for the first time.

Over the weekend, Tesla Robotaxi mules were spotted in Enola, Pennsylvania, just about ten minutes from downtown Harrisburg:

Enola is situated to the northwest of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s State Capitol. Interestingly, you’d expect Tesla to be testing these types of vehicles in other, more populated areas; Philadelphia is about two hours East, and Pittsburgh is about three hours west. State College is about an hour North of Enola.

Looking at the location of where the vehicles were spotted tells an interesting story, as Enola, located right outside of the State Capitol, could be a move to nudge legislators to consider looking at some of the laws that deal with driverless and autonomous vehicle operation.

Pennsylvania’s Act 130 of 2022 and subsequent guidelines permit the testing of driverless vehicles in the Commonwealth, but PennDOT requires a permit from Tesla or any other company that wants to operate a ride-hailing service in PA.

It’s also important to note that the cars could have simply been stopping through, as they were spotted at a Supercharger location along Interstate 81, which spans from Tennessee to New York.

It is not to say the vehicles are testing along the entire route, but likely a segment of it. The fact that they were spotted in Pennsylvania does bode well for Tesla’s expansion efforts moving forward.

@teslarati Tesla Full Self-Driving yields for pedestrians while human drivers do not…the future is here! #tesla #teslafsd #fullselfdriving ♬ 2 Little 2 Late – Levi & Mario

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