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SpaceX Falcon 9 booster and first thrice-flown fairing return to port [photos]

SpaceX successfully returned two Falcon fairings halves and booster B1058 to Port Canaveral in just ~12 hours. (Richard Angle)

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In a period of just 12 hours last Friday, SpaceX successfully returned Falcon 9 booster B1058 and two payload fairing halves to Port Canaveral and a photographer-laden helicopter was airborne to capture it.

With its safe return to dry land, fairing recovery ship GO Ms. Tree’s bullseye catch of an already twice-flown fairing all but guarantees that the record-breaking payload fairing will have a chance to launch a fourth time in the near future. Meanwhile, Falcon 9 booster B1058 – the first US-built rocket to launch US astronauts since June 2011 – will soon be well on its way to its own fourth flight, likely for one of several dozen Starlink missions SpaceX aims to launch in the next ~15 months.

Aside from placing what CEO Elon Musk says is the last batch of satellites needed to kick off the Starlink internet network’s first public beta tests, the Starlink-12 mission was SpaceX’s 17th this year, leaving the company on track to beat its annual launch record by at least a small margin.

Falcon 9 booster B1058, drone ship OCISLY, and fairing catcher Ms. Tree return to Port Canaveral as Blue Origin and ULA launch pads stand watch in the background. (Richard Angle)

If SpaceX continues to follow its 2020 average of one Falcon 9 launch ever ~16.4 days, the company will likely end the year with 22 missions under its belt, narrowly beating the 21 launches it completed in 2018. If it follows its launch average – ~12.8 days per launch – from just the last four or so months, however, SpaceX could crush its record with some 24 or 25 launches this year. Given recent disruptions from reliably bad weather and a rare last-second launch abort, which trajectory SpaceX will follow over the next ~12 weeks is entirely up in the air.

Starlink-12 marks the thirteenth such launch for SpaceX, adding to the 12 flights pictured here. (SpaceX/Richard Angle)

Regardless of the outcome, though, reusability will have played a foundational role to a degree thus far unprecedented. Barring a major surprise, SpaceX will end 2020 having launched just five new Falcon 9 boosters – three of which will likely launch within the last two months of the year.

For fairing recovery and reuse, 2020 has been an even more groundbreaking, seeing SpaceX (seemingly) begin to find steadier footing with increasingly consistent fairing catches. Impressively, in the measly 11 months since SpaceX first reused a Falcon fairing, nearly a third of all launches and almost half of all Starlink missions have flown with one or two flight-proven halves. Recently, Musk even revealed that SpaceX intends for fairings and boosters to be capable of at least 10 launches each, confirming that Starlink-12’s now thrice-flown fairing half is no fluke.

Ms. Tree seemingly took a victory lap to welcome Falcon 9 B1058 home and celebrate a successful fairing catch. (Richard Angle)
SpaceX had to call off Ms. Chief’s catch attempt but still fished the half (right) out of the water. The left half has now made it through three orbital launches, two splashdowns, and one catch. (Richard Angle)

Drone ship Of Course I Still Love You’s (OCISLY) successful Starlink-12 booster recovery ended an agonizing three weeks of back and forth as SpaceX was tugged in a circle by ULA’s launch priority, technical difficulties, and stormy summer weather. Originally meant to recover Falcon 9 booster B1058 as early as mid-September, the launch slowly slipped its way to October 6th. Beginning in late-September, drone ship Just Read The Instructions (JRTI) joined the fray for its role in SpaceX’s GPS III SV04 launch for the US military, a launch that would also find itself delayed several times.

Two seconds before liftoff, new Falcon 9 booster B1062 automatically aborted its October 2nd launch attempt due to bad pressure readings in at least one of its nine Merlin 1D engines. SpaceX has since taken the rocket horizontal and is likely swapping multiple engines, possibly necessitating a second static fire test before the next attempt sometime later this month. That abort has also delayed SpaceX’s second NASA astronaut launch (Crew-1) from Halloween to mid-November to ensure no commonality.

SpaceX has an absolutely jam-packed fourth quarter ahead of it, ranging from GPS III SV04 and Crew-1 to a Sirius XM radio satellite, a Turkish communications satellite, and the joint NASA/ESA/CNES Sentinel 6A oceanography spacecraft. Stay tuned for updates and spectacular new photos from the Teslarati team.

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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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Elon Musk

Tesla Roadster owners to get “Flying Stunt Mode” and looping track access

Musk says Roadster owners can command the unveiling stunts autonomously, with a Texas looping track.

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Elon Musk says owners of the new Tesla Roadster will be able to ask the car to perform the stunts Tesla showed at its unveiling, with the car doing the driving itself. Musk made the comment Saturday in a reply on X to tech blogger Robert Scoble, and he added a promise of a looping track at Tesla’s Texas headquarters.

Scoble had argued that the person in the Roadster is not really driving it. In his description, the driver operates a computer that tells another computer what to do, with steering, braking and acceleration all handled by wire. Musk answered, “True. You will be able to ask the Roadster to perform any of the tricks shown autonomously, as it will be sentient. Also, we will have a wild looping track (crazier even than Hot Wheels) at our Texas HQ where you can test out your Roadster.”

At the October 15 event outside Waco, the car drove up a curved ramp until it was upside down, flew off on cold gas thrusters, flipped and landed. It also hovered over a Cybercab, Cybertruck, Semi, Model Y and Model 3 while moving. As we noted in our breakdown of the three Roadster configurations, Musk said at the event that the car “literally is just going to puff itself up” to perform the maneuvers whenever an owner wants. Saturday’s reply adds that the car would run them on its own.

Tesla has described some of the hardware that would make that possible. The Roadster uses steer by wire with a yoke, and its cold gas thrusters rely on electric actuators for small adjustments in flight. A fan system under the car creates suction, which Tesla says is strong enough to hold it upside down, a setup we covered in our look at the Roadster’s fan system and thrusters.

Musk did not say when an autonomous stunt feature might arrive, how it would work, or what he means by sentient. He also gave no size, location or opening date for the Texas track. Production is planned for Giga Texas in 2027 or 2028, and Tesla says the car is not approved for public road use. The Rocket version, the one built to fly, is invite only.

The comment follows a week of Musk teasing the event, including his claim that the demo would be a banger, which we covered before the stream. Tesla reports third quarter earnings on October 21, and shareholders can submit and vote on questions through the Say portal until 4 p.m. EDT on October 20, according to our earnings Q&A preview. A question about autonomous Roadster stunts and the Texas track would be a quick way to get specifics from management.

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Elon Musk

How to use Grok Bot to block spam calls and texts

Musk told users to ask Grok Bot to scrub their phone numbers from spam lists.

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Elon Musk has a new use case for Grok Bot, and it is the spam call. On Thursday he replied to an X user named Arash with a short instruction: “Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!” Arash had said he got tired of the calls, had an AI bot find his number on listing sites and file removal requests, and packaged the process as a free skill for others.

The skill is called Spam-Call Scrubber, which is described to find a phone number on people search sites and data brokers, submits the opt outs, completes the confirmation emails those sites send back, and rechecks on a schedule the user picks. Using it requires the Grok Bot app. The pitch is time saved, since most broker opt outs sit behind separate forms on separate sites.



Musk said Grok Bot now gives each bot its own email address, and that it can detect scam emails. On Thursday he also said SpaceX would make users whole if the bot botches a purchase or leaks a card, then told users to shop away from Amazon after the retailer blocked the agent, as Teslarati reported. The terms of service we reviewed at the time put responsibility for what an agent does on the user.

For Tesla owners, Grok Bot is not just a phone app. Tesla brought Grok Bot into its vehicles on September 22, and we argued earlier this week that the Cybercab’s real advantage may be the errands it runs during a ride. Every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y Robotaxi fleet has it enabled. The more routine tasks like this one become, the more a rider has reason to hand over something personal in the back seat.

The new Spam-Call Scrubber skill can be downloaded for free and works on sites that honor removal requests, while noting that listings can reappear, and illegal robocallers do not check any registry. Whether Spam-Call Scrubber cuts anyone’s call volume is something the first wave of users will find out, and Musk’s endorsement guarantees that wave is coming.

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Investor's Corner

Tesla’s flying Roadster just revealed something bigger than the car

Analysts say the Roadster demo puts a Tesla and SpaceX merger back on the table.

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Tesla’s new Roadster, upside down and trailing cold gas thruster smoke, flips over a lineup of Tesla vehicles at the Roadster unveiling near Waco, Texas on October 15, 2026. (Image: Tesla)
Tesla’s new Roadster, upside down and trailing cold gas thruster smoke, flips over a lineup of Tesla vehicles at the Roadster unveiling near Waco, Texas on October 15, 2026. (Image: Tesla)

The Roadster unveiling near Waco ended Thursday night, and by Friday morning much of the investor reaction had less to do with the car than with who owns the rocket technology inside it.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said the event “puts the Tesla/SpaceX relationship on the table in a tangible way,” pointing to the propulsion, pressure vessel and control hardware sitting on a Tesla product. Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management called the demo “a ridiculous display of engineering” with “no commercial value” beyond embarrassing traditional automakers, though he said it showed Musk wants the two companies together.

The more specific forecast came a day earlier from Barclays. Analyst Dan Levy told clients a deal could be announced before Tesla’s annual meeting, which must happen by December 6, and that an announcement in late October or early November could make shareholder approval harder. Barclays expects SpaceX to be the buyer in an all stock deal, with Tesla holders receiving SpaceX shares at a premium, based on market values of roughly $2.1 trillion for SpaceX and $1.5 trillion for Tesla. If nothing lands around the meeting, the bank still sees an announcement within 6 to 12 months.

The Roadster demo just added more weight to merger speculations. Tesla’s demo used cold gas thrusters and pressure tanks of the kind SpaceX uses on Falcon 9, and Musk described the car as a collaboration between Tesla and SpaceX engineers, as we mentioned in our breakdown of the three Roadster configurations.


Musk has not publicly addressed a deal since the event, as far as we have seen. His most direct answer remains the one he gave at the All In Summit, when he said that with so much collaboration, “who can imagine what action one might take” without ruling anything out. Ives has held to a 2027 timeline since his March note, and Musk pushed back on the China piece of the speculation when ARK floated a year end announcement in August.

The next test is Tesla’s third quarter earnings call on October 21. However, we recall in July that Musk told analysts, “we can’t talk about combining companies and that kind of thing on an earnings call,” so a clear answer wouldn’t be expected.

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