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SpaceX readies Falcon 9 Block 5s for bi-coastal launches and landings
After several months of preparation behind the scenes, SpaceX’s second and third serial Falcon 9 Block 5 rockets are ready for the first launches of the upgraded vehicle from Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA (VAFB) and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL (CCAFS).
On the calendar for 1:50 am EDT/5:50 UTC July 22 and 4:39 am PDT/11:39 UTC July 25, SpaceX launches of Telstar 19V and Iridium NEXT-7 are set to mark the beginning of a new era for the company, where all future missions will fly with Block 5 hardware upgraded for reusability and reliability and attempt recovery almost without fail.
Three Falcon 9 boosters captured in various states of transport and testing over the last six weeks, two of which are B1047 and B1048. (Teslarati/Tesla Motors Club/Reddit/Facebook)
Bursting out of the expendable rocket cocoon
While it may be the case that an odd launch or two require a booster be expended to prevent schedule delays or carry an exceptionally heavy satellite to an exceptionally high orbit, it’s safe to say that such a mission with Block 5 boosters will be an anomaly. Somewhat iffy comments posted on Reddit recently claimed that Falcon Block 5 boosters would be able to easily (and rapidly) hop between roles as side and center boosters for both Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. While wild, those claims, in retrospect, make a lot of sense, even if the reality of Block 5 booster interchangeability was a tad exaggerated.
If SpaceX truly wants to end the practice of expending rocket boosters, – and eventually fairings and upper stages, with any luck – the company will truly need to embrace a strategy that’s long been floated by executives like CEO Elon Musk and COO/President Gwynne Shotwell. That strategy dictates that SpaceX routinely use both Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy as an almost interchangeable and rocket team capable of launching nearly every orbital payload conceivable today, all while remaining in fully or mostly reusable modes of operation.
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- B1046 returned to Port Canaveral shortly after its May 4 debut, and is now being carefully analyzed as pathfinder hardware. (Tom Cross)
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- OCISLY as seen by Tom Cross on March 5, readying for a busy future of rocket recoveries. (Tom Cross)
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- At the request of a friend, artist David Romax put together a truly jaw-dropping collection of concept art featuring SpaceX’s BFR rocket and its Cargo and Crew spaceships. (Gravitation Innovation/David Romax)
At the moment, educated estimates of Falcon Heavy’s true performance margins with dual booster landings at SpaceX’s Florida landing zones and center core recovery aboard Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY) suggest that the Block 5 version of Falcon Heavy should be capable of launching every commercial satellite planned or penciled in for launch over the next five years, at a minimum. Finally, while the Falcon family’s fuel choice of high-grade kerosene (RP-1) and liquid oxygen make the rocket far more compact and energy-dense than alternatives, one downside of that choice is a loss of efficiency, although brute-force strength makes FH a competitive beast for all missions beyond Earth orbit (Mars, Venus, Saturn, asteroids, comets, etc).
However, a fully-expendable Block 5 Falcon Heavy seems to be at least 3X as unlikely as an expendable Block 5 Falcon 9. Nevertheless, CEO Elon Musk made it clear that a nominal Falcon Heavy launch where both side boosters were recovered at sea and the center booster expended could accomplish a full ~85-90% of an entirely expendable mission, and for roughly $95m. As such, a combination of reusable Falcon 9s, reusable Falcon Heavys, and ~30%-expendable Falcon Heavys could successfully complete every plausible commercial and non-commercial launch in the world and do so at the lowest cost for the better part of the next five years, at which point the company’s next-gen Big F____ Rocket (BFR) ought to be operational.
Side boosters landing on droneships & center expended is only ~10% performance penalty vs fully expended. Cost is only slightly higher than an expended F9, so around $95M.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 12, 2018
Telstar 19V and Iridium-7
With any luck, SpaceX’s next two launches will be the first huge step in the direction of that one-stop-shop for competitive transportation to orbit. Teslarati photographer Tom Cross will be setting up remote cameras for the Telstar 19V’s Florida liftoff later this evening, while our West Coast fellow and famed Mr Steven-stalker Pauline Acalin will be setting up her own set of remote cameras for VAFB’s Falcon 9 Block 5 debut on Tuesday.
Static fire test of Falcon 9 complete— targeting July 25 launch of Iridium-7 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 21, 2018
On the East Coast, drone ship OCISLY has already departed Port Canaveral with a duo of support vessels and a dedicated tugboat, while the West Coast’s Just Read The Instructions (JRTI) will likely take leave of the Port of Los Angeles within 24 hours. Those dual, successful (?) rocket landings will hopefully mark the first of many dozens of missions for F9 boosters B1047 and B1048.
The first Block 5 Falcon 9 lifts off on May 4, 2018. Several more are soon to come. (Tom Cross)
Follow us for live updates, peeks behind the scenes, and photos from Teslarati’s East and West Coast photographers.
Teslarati – Instagram – Twitter
Tom Cross – Twitter
Pauline Acalin – Twitter
Eric Ralph – Twitter
SpaceX’s Raptor engine family has steadily increased sea-level thrust while simultaneously reducing mass, turning iterative engineering gains into substantially higher performance for the Super Heavy booster. CEO Elon Musk shed more light on how powerful Raptor 4 will be, and it’s pretty crazy.
Raptor 1 delivered 185 metric tons of thrust at roughly 2,080 kilograms, while Raptor 2 raised that to 230 tons while cutting mass to about 1,630 kilograms. SpaceX data for Raptor 3 lists a target of 280 tons at 1,525 kilograms (with further reductions in associated vehicle hardware), while operational flight ratings have been cited near 250 tons.
This morning, Elon Musk stated that Raptor 4 is expected to reach 300 tons of sea-level thrust at roughly the same mass as Raptor 3. Across these versions, thrust has risen by more than 60 percent from the first engines while engine mass has fallen, producing a sharp improvement in thrust-to-weight ratio. This is a true testament to how great SpaceX engineering has been:
🚀 Elon says Raptor 4 will make 300 tons of thrust at sea level at roughly the same mass as Raptor 3.
How far Raptor has come:
Raptor 1: 185 tf, 2,080 kg
Raptor 2: 230 tf, 1,630 kg
Raptor 3: 250 tf, 1,525 kg
Raptor 4: 300 tf33 on Super Heavy = ~9,900 tf, nearly 3x Saturn V https://t.co/HQDswZhyvL
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 26, 2026
With 33 engines on SuperHeavy, the jump from earlier versions to a 300-ton Raptor 4 would produce roughly 9,900 metric tons of total liftoff thrust, nearly three times the Saturn V’s approximately 3,400 metric tons from its five F-1 engines.
This is not just a larger number on a data sheet, either, as sea-level thrust is the force available the moment the vehicle leaves the pad. This is when it is heaviest and still deep in Earth’s gravity well and dense atmosphere.
Higher levels of sea-level thrust directly improves the initial thrust-to-weight ratio of the full stack. A higher ratio produces faster acceleration off the pad, which shortens the time the rocket has to spend fighting gravity, and gravity losses during the first minute or two of the flight are a major drain on total available delta-v. Every second shaved off of that early climb preserves more propellant energy for reaching orbital velocity or for carrying extra payload.
Because Super Heavy’s engine count is constrained by vehicle diameter and packing density, increasing thrust per engine is the most straightforward way to raise total liftoff performance without redesigning the booster structure or design.
The same-mass target for Raptor 4 is equally important. Holding engine mass roughly constant while raising thrust improves the engine’s own thrust-to-weight ratio and reduces the structural and propellant mass fraction that must be carried solely to support the engines.
Earlier Raptor iterations also simplified or eliminated extensive vehicle-side hardware such as heat shields. These gains compound: more force for less installed mass leaves additional capacity for propellant, payload, or operational margins such as engine-out capability.
For Starship’s architecture, the practical effects are large. Greater liftoff thrust supports heavier vehicles, larger propellant loads, and higher payloads to low Earth orbit, figures SpaceX has targeted in the 100-plus-ton reusable range. That capacity underpins orbital refueling, lunar missions, and eventual Mars cargo and crew flights.
Continued growth in sea-level thrust therefore tightens the gap between theoretical rocket performance and the high flight rates and reusability needed to make large-scale space transport practical.
Tesla has expanded its Tesla Assisted Driving (TAD) suite to its tenth European country, as Latvia joined a growing list of European Union member states authorizing the company’s advanced driver assistance technology.
Tesla Europe announced this morning that the system is now approved in Latvia, with a software rollout to begin soon.
The approval and rollout follow recognition of a provisional European type approval originally granted by the Netherlands’ RDW authority on April 10.
🚨 Latvia has just received approval for Tesla Full Self-Driving (Supervised)
This is the 10th country in the EU to gain approval:
1. Netherlands — 10 April 2026 (original RDW approval)
2. Lithuania — 20 May 2026
3. Estonia — 29 May 2026
4. Denmark — 9 June 2026
5. Belgium — 10 June 2026
6. Slovenia — 7 September 2026
7. Czechia — 21 September 2026
8. Croatia — 29 September 2026
9. Slovakia — 16 October 2026— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 26, 2026
Latvia’s Road Traffic Safety Directorate (CSDD) evaluated the Dutch documentation, coordinated with the other national authorities, and reviewed updates from Tesla. These included tightened limits on speed offsets, automatic resets of any manual speed adjustments after each trip, and stronger driver monitoring.
In Europe, the feature is marketed as Tesla Assisted Driving after a recent rule change that labeled the name “Full Self-Driving” as misleading.
The system remains an SAE Level 2 driver assistance tool, not unsupervised autonomy. It can control speed, steering, braking, lane changes, and intersections while following a navigation route. Drivers need not keep their hands on the wheel at all times, yet they must continuously monitor the road and be prepared to intervene immediately.
The sequence of EU recognitions began with the Netherlands in April and continued through Lithuania, Estonia, Denmark, Belgium, Slovenia, Czechia, Croatia, and Slovakia. Most have relied on mutual recognition of the single Dutch provisional approval rather than independent national testing.
These national clearances do not yet constitute bloc-wide authorization. An EU-wide decision requires a qualified majority in the Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles: at least 15 of 27 member states representing 65 percent of the EU population. Larger markets, like Germany, France, and Italy, remain under review, and a vote is expected this December.
However, for Latvian Tesla owners with compatible vehicles and software, the imminent rollout expands access to the supervised system while underscoring that attentive human oversight remains essential.
Tesla expanded its Robotaxi geofence in Houston, Texas, today, enlarging the service area and drawing a new rocket-shaped boundary across the city’s northwestern and central parts.
Although CEO Elon Musk said it was just a coincidence, the expansion seems to be an ode to SpaceX and its potential merger with Tesla.
🚨 Tesla has just expanded its Robotaxi geofence in Houston
It looks a lot like a rocket — we all remember the shape in Austin 🤣 https://t.co/cFOPEuiJ4u
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 26, 2026
The official Tesla Robotaxi account announced the change with the lines “Houston, we have liftoff” and “Bigger service area now live,” pairing them with a map overlay.
The prior white geofence, roughly 25 square miles covering Jersey Village, Harvest Bend, and the Willowbrook corridor along U.S. 290 and State Highway 249, now sits inside a larger blue zone that stretches southeast toward Bellair and closer to central Houston.
Houston’s Robotaxi service launched on April 18, 2026, the same day as Dallas, as Tesla’s first unsupervised public expansion beyond Austin. From the start, the vehicles were Model Ys running without anyone in the front seats, booked through the dedicated Tesla Robotaxi app and open to the public inside the geofence.
Trackers measured the initial zone at about 25 square miles; by late September it had not grown substantially. Community and registry data indicated a modest local fleet of unsupervised Model Ys, while dozens to nearly 200 Cybercabs, the purpose-built, steering-wheel-free two-seaters, have been spotted staging and testing in Houston lots, though public Cybercab rides remain limited to Austin for now.
Across the broader Robotaxi program, Tesla began public Robotaxi rides in Austin in June 2025, as a small geofence and vehicles with safety monitors became available for a ride-hailing service. Later on, Tesla removed the monitors and steadily expanded the service area until it covered most of the Austin metro area.
Unsupervised Robotaxi services now run in six cities: Austin, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando, and Tampa. Cumulative driverless miles reported by the company have reached several million. The Cybercab entered public service in Austin in early September 2026 and has scaled rapidly there. The company has also said that Dallas is next for Cybercab rides in November, with further cities and 24/7 hours targeted by year-end, plus fleet-operator sales of the vehicle.
Waymo also operates a fully driverless service in Houston, which has been open to the public since August of this year.
The Houston expansion continues Tesla’s pattern of starting with tightly controlled validation zones before widening coverage as real-world data accumulates, while the rocket motif on the map underscores the company’s habit of injecting visual flair into its autonomy rollout.
Riders inside the new boundary can request unsupervised Model Y trips in the Robotaxi app; exact operating hours and further Cybercab availability remain subject to app updates and company statements.
How SpaceX Is raising Raptor’s sea-level thrust while holding engine mass steady
Tesla Assisted Driving expands to tenth EU country
