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SpaceX Falcon 9 “Block 5” next-gen reusable rocket spied in Texas test site

SpaceX Block 5 Falcon9 at McGregor, Texas [Credit: Chris G - NSF via Twitter]

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8 years ago

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SpaceX’s next and final generation of Falcon rockets is nearly ready to complete its biggest milestone yet, second only to operational launch. Known as Falcon 9 Block 5, the upgraded booster arrived at SpaceX’s McGregor, TX test facilities and went vertical on the static fire test stand.

Now vertical, that first integrated static fire is likely to occur within a handful of days at most. Once complete, assuming the data it produces do not betray any bugs or serious problems, the booster will be brought horizontal and transported to one of SpaceX’s three launch facilities for its first operational mission.

Why Block 5?

With nary a hint of hyperbole, it’s safe to say that Falcon 9 Block 5 will be the most significant piece of hardware ever developed and fielded by SpaceX. The reason lies in many of the changes and upgrades present in this newest iteration of the rocket. While Falcon 9 B5 and its similarly upgraded Merlin 1D engines include design changes intended to satisfy NASA requirements before SpaceX can be certified to launch humans, the brunt of the upgrades are laser-focused on ease and speed of reusability.

Photo courtesy of Chris G at nasaspaceflight.com via Twitter. Reprinted with permission.

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The goal with those upgrades, as publicly stated by numerous SpaceX executives, is to enable as many as 10 flights with a bare minimum of refurbishment and 100 or more launches with intermittent maintenance. To achieve those titanic aspirations, SpaceX has gathered a flood of data and experience earned through the recovery of nearly 20 Falcon 9 and Heavy boosters, as well as the successful reflight and second recovery of several of those same boosters. With that data in hand, the company’s launch vehicle engineers optimized and upgraded the rocket’s design to combat the worst of the extreme forces each booster is subjected to while returning to land (or sea).

As evidenced by photos taken by Gary Blair, one of NASASpaceflight.com‘s most renowned L2 forum contributors, many of the visible differences between Block 5 and previous versions of Falcon 9 are a result of drastically improved and expanded heat shielding of its most sensitive and crucial components. While Falcon 9 B5’s black sections by all appearances look like naked carbon fiber composite, they are likely to be coated with an incredibly heat-resistant material known a Pyron. Portions of the booster that suffer from incidental scorching and extreme heating (aside from the octaweb) appear to have been treated with this material, including a pathway down the side of the rocket known as a raceway. The raceway is a protective enclosure for a variety of cabling and piping, essentially the rocket’s nervous system as well as the home of several the cold gas thrusters it uses to orient itself outside of Earth’s atmosphere.

In the past, SpaceX has used high-quality cork as a quasi-ablative thermal protection system for those same components, including the payload fairing. A major downside of cork, however, is that it is very ablative and tends to come off rather haphazardly in large chunks, all of which must either be spot-fixed or replaced entirely before a booster reflight. By replacing that cork with Pyron or a similar internally-developed material, those sensitive Falcon components may be almost totally insulated from and resistant to temperatures as high as 2300 °F (1200 °C)

Titanium grid fins are another central feature of Block 5, acting as a near-indefinitely reusable replacement for the aluminum grid fins SpaceX has traditionally used. Put through a huge amount of heating during reentry; aluminum grid fins have famously appeared to partially melt during some of the hottest booster recovery attempts. Titanium, a metal with a much higher melting point, will have no such problems, does not need ablative white paint, and certainly appear all but untouched by reentry in the cases of both their June 2017 debut and second flight on Falcon Heavy’s side boosters.

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Finally and perhaps most importantly, is the octaweb – the assembly at the base of Falcon 9 responsible for safely transmitting nearly two million pounds of thrust from its nine Merlin 1Ds to the rest of the rocket’s structure, while also taking the brunt of the heat of reentry. Before Block 5, the octaweb was protected from that heating with an ablative thermal protection system, likely around 80% cork and 20% PICA-X, the same material used on Cargo Dragon’s heat shield. Based on comments made privately by individuals familiar with SpaceX, that ablative shielding is to be replaced by a highly heat-resistant metal alloy known as inconel. By ridding Block 5 of ablative heat shielding, SpaceX will no longer have to carefully examine and replace those materials after each launch, removing one of the biggest refurbishment time-sinks.

Titanium grid fins complete the highly reusable changes to Block 5 of Falcon 9. (NASA)

Combined, these various upgrades are intended to enable Falcon 9’s first stage to be reused almost effortlessly compared to previous iterations. With this vehicle, including the reusable fairing debuted on the launch of PAZ, SpaceX may well be able to achieve Elon Musk’s famous goal of lowering the cost of launch by nearly an order of magnitude. While SpaceX will likely use that cost reduction to first recoup its considerable investments in reusability and Falcon Heavy, major price drops may reach customers soon after. This Falcon 9, in particular, is unlikely to launch for another month or so, but when it does, it is perhaps the biggest step SpaceX has yet taken on the path to routine, rapid, and affordable access to orbit.

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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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Tesla improves Dashcam playback with awesome addition

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5 hours ago

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June 2, 2026

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Image Credit: The Kilowatts/Twitter

Tesla has improved Dashcam playback with an awesome new addition, as the company has launched a web-based version that is potentially easier to navigate and operate.

The tool is available at dashcam.tesla.com and will be enabled as your vehicle receives the 2026.20 Software Version. Clips that are captured by your Tesla will be available on the Online Dashcam Clip Viewer once the files on your car’s storage drive are encrypted.

Not a Tesla App first noticed the new feature, and states that once your Tesla updates to 2026.20, the car will automatically protect the clips with an encryption key that is uniquely tied to your owner account.

The web-based viewer should be easier to operate for most. All you will do is head over to dashcam.tesla.com and log in using your account credentials.

Ensure your vehicle is updated to 2026.20 in order for the web-based viewer tool to fetch your vehicle’s saved dashcam clips.

Currently, only a small percentage of owners are updated to this, so it may be a couple of weeks until a majority of owners in the fleet are able to access this feature.

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Watching Dashcam clips on the Tesla smartphone app is quick and convenient, as they can also be easily downloaded and stored right on your smartphone.

However, the clips are sometimes tougher to navigate, and in order to get details like self-driving activation, speed, and turn signals, owners have to screen record the Tesla app and crop out the rest of the screen.

It could also be a massive storage saver as you’ll be able to download the Dashcam clips from the online viewer and save them to your laptop, desktop, a flash drive, or even an external hard drive. This will keep all your clips in one place.

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Tesla Full Self-Driving attempts 150-mile stress test: the good and the bad

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8 hours ago

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June 2, 2026

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Credit: TESLARATI

I recently took my Tesla Model Y running Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14.3.3 over 150 miles on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in an effort to truly put the system under a stress test. There were a lot of good moments, and some bad, but overall, Full Self-Driving impressed me.

Last Thursday, I decided it was time to visit the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, PA. I go a few times a year, and it was a beautiful day. Others have taken some pretty lengthy drives using FSD, but I haven’t had the opportunity to really do something lengthy in quite a few months on an older version. I decided it was the perfect opportunity to try some things out.

I recorded the entire ride there on a GoPro, edited to highlight the crucial moments, and shared them on our social media accounts. If you want to watch them, I’ll share them throughout the piece, but I did not get to do a real breakdown of what I felt about its performance.

Overall Thoughts

I realize it is probably better to do a summation of its performance toward the end of the piece, but I feel like it is also reasonable to lead with this because I was overly impressed with how well it handled everything. The only moments where I felt a little bit of reason to touch the wheel, at least while traveling on the Turnpike and Rt. 30, were due to other drivers and their behaviors.

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I have taken many drives to the Memorial over the past several years, and although it’s not incredibly long, it is a tiring drive. It’s about five hours both ways, close to 300 miles, and I think most of the exhaustion comes from the toll of sitting in the car and then visiting something that is pretty heavy to take in.

This was the first time I’ve ever taken the ride and not felt like I needed to avoid my vehicle after I got home. In the past, I could not even think about driving after I finally arrived at my house, but this was simply different.

It was nice to have something else take the drive for me, while I still had the freedom to take over if I chose to. It made the entire trip more enjoyable.

Full Self-Driving Recognizes Lane-Ending Arrows on Road

After traveling in the fast lane for a little while, FSD noticed the arrows on the road indicating the lane was coming to an end ahead. The car was also in the process of making a pass on a slower vehicle in the middle lane, but aborted this maneuver and backed off to get behind the vehicle.

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I was really impressed by this because I thought that the car would absolutely try to make the pass, only to get in front of the other car, and then slow back down to 75 MPH:

Full Self-Driving Notices Veering Tractor Trailer, Adjusts Lane Positioning

My two rules of the road are never cruise in the fast lane and never drive next to a tractor-trailer. This clip is a perfect example as to why.

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FSD v14.3.3 recognized this tractor-trailer attempting to change lanes while we were still next to it. The car shifted its lane positioning to the shoulder slightly to make room for the merging semi, executed the pass safely, and on we went.

I will admit this one made me a little nervous, but more so because of the 18-wheeler, and not because of the Tesla:

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Full Self-Driving Follows the Rules of Tunnel Travel

Many people who are not familiar with Full Self-Driving and its capabilities are pretty limited in what they know about the really simple things it does well. Part of supervising FSD is being aware of things it might make mistakes with, and anticipating maneuvers it might want to make at the wrong time.

Entering the Blue Mountain Tunnel on the Turnpike, I was ready for FSD to attempt to get back into the right lane after making a pass on a tractor-trailer, but I was pleasantly surprised. Several signs outside the tunnel advise drivers to stay in the lane they’ve chosen while driving through the tunnel; this eliminates the possibility of an accident caused by lane changes, which would impede traffic on a crucial logistics route.

I was happy to see that Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.3.3 did not make this mistake:

Full Self-Driving Navigates Toll Plazas with Ease

I was interested to see how FSD would handle toll plazas, including the speed at which it would travel through them, and whether it would stop on the Turnpike at these booths, which have since been transitioned to a “Toll by Plate” system, which mails you a bill.

It was flawless:

Full Self-Driving Still Struggles with Parking from Time to Time

Since I took delivery in late August, I’ve never had a single instance of my Tesla struggling to park at a Supercharger. Other spots at the mall, market, or gym are another story.

This was the first time it did such a terrible job of backing into a spot. This required me to take over and manually park at another charger:

Full Self-Driving Gets Confused After Arriving at Its Destination

This was the first time I have ever experienced FSD getting confused and just circling the lot. The navigation continued to reroute to try to resolve the issue, but after four laps, I decided it was time to overtake the car’s controls and park manually:

This was a baffling behavior that I truly couldn’t explain. Other owners communicated that they have also experienced this issue.

Final Thoughts

I am so incredibly impressed by FSD that it has really made traveling stress-free. The two issues related to parking were not ideal, but to be fair, I usually take over when arriving at parking lots. However, this shortcoming is something Tesla has to make some serious progress with, because parking has truly stumped FSD at times.

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Solving that will be a major breakthrough for autonomy, but Tesla has struggled with it for some time.

All in all, FSD v14.3.3 is unbelievably accurate and handles many of the more stressful maneuvers with ease, one of them being avoiding merging traffic on highways, which was shown above.

Some things that would be great to see improvements on are parking, Speed Profiles, which are relatively tough to adjust (I stayed in Standard for the duration of this drive), and, of course, navigation.

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SpaceX’s amended S-1 is sparking a major Tesla merger conversation

A single line in SpaceX’s amended S-1 just sent Tesla stock down 5% in one day.

Published

21 hours ago

on

June 1, 2026

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A single line buried in SpaceX’s amended S-1 filing is doing more to move Tesla’s stock price than anything Tesla itself has announced in months. The clause, disclosed as SpaceX prepares for what could be the largest IPO in Wall Street history, states that the company “may issue a significant amount of equity in connection with future transactions.” While this may be seen as boilerplate language in S-1 filings, the historical ties between SpaceX and Tesla, and with Elon Musk reportedly discussing a possible merger with close colleagues, investors are interpreting it as something closer to a signal.

The concern among institutional investors like Gary Black, managing director of The Future Fund, pointed directly to the amended filing on X, saying it “strongly suggests more SPCX equity will be issued,” which could potentially be used to acquire Tesla. He estimated such a deal could be 28% dilutive to Tesla shareholders since SpaceX would likely command a significantly higher valuation multiple. Black added that institutional investors he knows hate the idea of a combination because they prefer pure plays over conglomerates, which he said “nearly always gravitate to the lowest common multiple.”

The Tesla and SpaceX merger everyone is talking about is quietly building

The bull case runs the math differently. Tesla influencer and retail shareholder advocate AleXandra Merz pushed back on what she called a widespread misunderstanding of how merger-of-equals deals actually work. Rather than simply splitting the difference between two market caps, a merger exchange ratio is negotiated based on relative fair market values, meaning the lower valued company typically sees its stock reprice upward toward the deal value.

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Under her model, SpaceX enters at a $2.5 trillion valuation and Tesla at $1.6 trillion, producing a combined entity worth $4.1 trillion split evenly between both shareholder groups. That implies Tesla’s side of the deal would be valued at $2.05 trillion, a gain of roughly $450 billion from its current market cap. She cited Dow-DuPont and CBS-Viacom as historical examples of how markets reprice both companies toward the announced exchange ratio after a deal is unveiled.


The SpaceX S-1 amendments also revealed just how much financial infrastructure already binds the two companies together. As Teslarati has reported, SpaceX purchased $697 million in Tesla Megapacks, $131 million in Cybertrucks, and the two companies have shared supply chain resources, and semiconductor fabrication plans since well before any merger conversation became public. A retail poll by Tesla influencer Sawyer Merritt is finding that 36% of respondents do not plan to buy SpaceX shares at IPO and 15.3% saying their decision depends on the valuation.


Whether the merger happens or not, the amended filing is seemingly moving markets and sharpened a debate that is no longer theoretical. SpaceX is weeks away from trading publicly, and Tesla shareholders are now watching every word of every filing for clues about what Musk plans to do next.

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