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SpaceX sends reused Falcon 9 booster west for first California Starlink launches

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SpaceX has shipped the first of one or two flight-proven Falcon 9 boosters from Florida to California in the latest sign that the company is preparing to begin dedicated polar Starlink launches in the near future.

On May 27th, a Reddit post revealed a Falcon 9 booster arriving at Vandenberg Air/Space Force Base (VAFB), the home of SpaceX’s West Coast SLC-4E launch pad. Only truly useful for polar or high-inclination launches with satellites that need to orbit the Earth’s poles instead of the equator, SpaceX has only used SLC-4E twice in the last two years – once in June 2019 and most recently in November 2020.

Now, amidst a major hiring spree and rare new activity at a nearby Los Angeles port, SpaceX is clearly gearing up to return its SLC-4E launch pad to active duty.

Falcon 9 B1049 completed its ninth launch on May 4th. Three weeks later, the booster has completed a cross-country journey to the West Coast. (Richard Angle)

Both recent West Coast Falcon 9 missions hosted booster landings at LZ-4, a landing zone situated a little over 1000 feet (300m) away from the launch pad. That freed up SpaceX to ship former West Coast drone ship Just Read The Instructions (JRT) across the Panama Canal in August 2019, where it ultimately joined the company’s Florida rocket recovery fleet in early 2020 to support a major launch cadence ramp.

As a partial result, SpaceX was able launch Falcon 9 26 times in 2020, beating the previous record – 21 flights – by almost a quarter. In 2021, SpaceX is well on its way to smashing that annual launch record again and has completed 16 orbital launches with seven full months left in the year. That cadence is pushing SpaceX’s launch pads, recovery ships, and booster fleet to their limits. Due to the voracious demands of SpaceX’s almost weekly launch cadence, the company would only be shipping a workhorse booster to Vandenberg if there was a pressing need for it.

Said to be Falcon 9 B1049 by Next Spaceflight and NASASpaceflight reporter Michael Baylor, the booster that arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base on Thursday has flown nine times – two of which it completed in February and May 2021. B1049 hasn’t been the most rapidly reusable of the fleet and is the oldest Falcon booster still operational after debuting in September 2018. However, SpaceX’s SLC-4E is relatively old itself and recruiting documents distributed as recently as 2021 indicated that the company’s West Coast resurgence was targeting a maximum cadence of one launch per month.

Virtually all of those missions will carry the company’s own Starlink satellites. On Wednesday, May 26th, SpaceX completed its 28th operational East Coast Starlink launch, effectively completing the first ‘tranche’ of the constellation once the satellites already in space reach their operational orbits. In April, SpaceX COO and President Gwynne Shotwell stated that polar Starlink launches would begin not long after that 28-launch milestones.

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The day before B1049 arrived, SpaceX filed the first regulatory documents for at least six Vandenberg Starlink launches between July 2021 and January 2022 – one mission per month. It’s hard to say when the first launch will come. With B1049 now on site, FCC permits in work, and a new berth lease active in Port of Long Beach, the only real piece of the equation missing is a drone ship to support polar Starlink launches. According to said FCC documents, SpaceX will continue to push Falcon 9 to its limits on the West Coast, recovering boosters 640 km (~400 mi) downrange after polar Starlink launches.

SpaceX’s two operational drone ships – OCISLY and JRTI – currently have their hands full on the East Coast. Transporting either to California will take several weeks, limiting SpaceX’s East Coast launch cadence during that period. SpaceX and its contractors are currently hard at work completing a third drone ship – A Shortfall of Gravitas (ASOG), but past experience suggests that the vessel is at least a few months away from completion.

Once a drone ship has arrived at SpaceX’s new West Coast docks, though, the company will have almost everything it needs to kick off polar Starlink launches.

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 called ‘biggest meme stock we’ve ever seen’ by Yale associate dean

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) is being called “the biggest meme stock we’ve ever seen” by Yale School of Management Senior Associate Dean Jeff Sonnenfeld, who made the comments in a recent interview with CNBC.

Sonnenfeld’s comments echo those of many of the company’s skeptics, who argue that its price-to-earnings ratio is far too high when compared to other companies also in the tech industry. Tesla is often compared to companies like Apple, Nvidia, and Microsoft when these types of discussions come up.

Fundamentally, yes, Tesla does trade at a P/E level that is significantly above that of any comparable company.

However, it is worth mentioning that Tesla is not traded like a typical company, either.

Here’s what Sonnenfeld said regarding Tesla:

“This is the biggest meme stock we’ve ever seen. Even at its peak, Amazon was nowhere near this level. The PE on this, well above 200, is just crazy. When you’ve got stocks like Nvidia, the price-earnings ratio is around 25 or 30, and Apple is maybe 35 or 36, Microsoft around the same. I mean, this is way out of line to be at a 220 PE. It’s crazy, and they’ve, I think, put a little too much emphasis on the magic wand of Musk.”

Many analysts have admitted in the past that they believe Tesla is an untraditional stock in the sense that many analysts trade it based on narrative and not fundamentals. Ryan Brinkman of J.P. Morgan once said:

“Tesla shares continue to strike us as having become completely divorced from the fundamentals.”

Dan Nathan, another notorious skeptic of Tesla shares, recently turned bullish on the stock because of “technicals and sentiment.” He said just last week:

“I think from a trading perspective, it looks very interesting.”

Nathan said Tesla shares show signs of strength moving forward, including holding its 200-day moving average and holding against current resistance levels.

Sonnenfeld’s synopsis of Tesla shares points out that there might be “a little too much emphasis on the magic wand of Musk.”

Elon Musk just bought $1 billion in Tesla stock, his biggest purchase ever

This could refer to different things: perhaps his recent $1 billion stock buy, which sent the stock skyrocketing, or the fact that many Tesla investors are fans and owners who do not buy and sell on numbers, but rather on news that Musk might report himself.

Tesla is trading around $423.76 at the time of publication, as of 3:25 p.m. on the East Coast.

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Tesla makes big change to Full Self-Driving doghouse that drivers will like

Now, it is changing the timeframe of which strikes will be removed, cutting it in half. The strikes will be removed every 3.5 days, as long as no strikes are received during the time period.

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Tesla's Cabin-facing camera is used to monitor driver attentiveness. (Credit: Andy Slye/YouTube)

Tesla is making a big change to its Full Self-Driving doghouse that drivers will like.

The doghouse is a hypothetical term used to describe the penalty period that Tesla applies to drivers who receive too many infractions related to distracted driving.

Previously, Tesla implemented a seven-day ban on the use of Full Self-Driving for those who received five strikes in a vehicle equipped with a cabin camera and three strikes for those without a cabin camera.

It also forgave one strike per week of Full Self-Driving use, provided the driver did not receive any additional strikes during the seven-day period.

Now, it is changing the timeframe of which strikes will be removed, cutting it in half. The strikes will be removed every 3.5 days, as long as no strikes are received during the time period.

The change was found by Not a Tesla App, which noticed the adjustment in the Owner’s Manual for the 2025.32 Software Update.

The system undoubtedly helps improve safety as it helps keep drivers honest. However, there are definitely workarounds, which people are using and promoting for monetary gain, and you can find them on basically any online marketplace, including TikTok shop and Amazon:

People are marketing the product as an FSD cheat device, which the cabin-facing camera will not be able to detect, allowing you to watch something on a phone or look through the windshield at the road.

The safeguards implemented by Tesla are designed to protect drivers from distractions and also protect the company itself from liability. People are still using Full Self-Driving as if it were a fully autonomous product, and it is not.

Tesla even says that the driver must pay attention and be ready to take over in any scenario:

“Yes. Autopilot is a driver assistance system that is intended to be used only with a fully attentive driver. It does not turn a Tesla into a fully autonomous vehicle.

Before enabling Autopilot, you must agree to “keep your hands on the steering wheel at all times” and to always “maintain control and responsibility for your vehicle.” Once engaged, Autopilot will also deliver an escalating series of visual and audio warnings, reminding you to place your hands on the wheel if insufficient torque is applied or your vehicle otherwise detects you may not be attentive enough to the road ahead. If you repeatedly ignore these warnings, you will be locked out from using Autopilot during that trip.

You can override any of Autopilot’s features at any time by steering or applying the accelerator at any time.”

It is good that Tesla is rewarding those who learn from their mistakes with this shorter timeframe to lose the strikes. It won’t be needed forever, though, as eventually, the company will solve autonomy. The question is: when?

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Elon Musk teases the capabilities of the Tesla Roadster once again

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Elon Musk has once again teased the capabilities of the Tesla Roadster, fueling the anticipation that many have for the vehicle, despite it still having no public production or delivery date.

The Roadster is among the most anticipated vehicles in the automotive sector currently, and as Tesla has teased its capabilities, from a lightning-fast 1.1-second 0-60 MPH acceleration to potential hovering with cold-gas thrusters, people are eager to see it.

Although the design seemed to be finalized, there was still more work to be done. Earlier this year, as Tesla was showcasing some of the Roadster’s capabilities to Musk, he stated that it was capable of even more.

This pushed back its production date even further, much to the chagrin of those who have been waiting years for it.

Musk continues to tease us all, and as we sit here waiting hopelessly for it to be revealed, he said today that it is “something special beyond a car.”

Musk’s words were in response to a video posted by Tesla China, showing the Roadster in a new promotional video created by a fan.

The Roadster was planned to be released in 2020, but here we are in 2025, and there is still no sign of the vehicle entering production. However, Tesla did say earlier this year that it would host a demo event for the Roadster, where the company would showcase its capabilities.

Lars Moravy said earlier this year:

“Roadster is definitely in development. We did talk about it last Sunday night. We are gearing up for a super cool demo. It’s going to be mind-blowing; We showed Elon some cool demos last week of the tech we’ve been working on, and he got a little excited.”

Tesla exec gives big update on Roadster, confirming recent rumor

The delays have been attributed to “radically increased design goals” for the vehicle, which have, without a doubt, improved its capabilities, but at the same time, we just want to know if it’s ever going to come.

Tesla can always make it “better,” but at what point do you say, “Okay, it’s time to show this thing off.” They could always build another, even more capable supercar in the next ten years.

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