News
SpaceX shifts Falcon 9 booster from landing pad to drone ship after anomaly
SpaceX officially confirmed that it will move the location of a Falcon 9 booster’s post-launch recovery in order to better preserve the site of Crew Dragon’s catastrophic April 20th failure.
Instead of returning the booster to one of SpaceX’s two Cape Canaveral Landing Zones (LZs), SpaceX has applied for an FCC permit to land the rocket less than 20 miles (~30 km) off the coast of Florida on the drone ship Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY). The culprit for the last-second change of plans is a catastrophic failure of Crew Dragon that spread debris throughout SpaceX’s Landing Zone facilities, debris that will now be critical for the process of anomaly resolution. Landing a Falcon 9 booster at LZ-1 or 2 would invariably spread Crew Dragon’s debris and complicate the failure investigation even further.
Much like a tornado passing through a crime scene would likely hamper the value of that crime scene and any related investigations, a Falcon 9 booster landing at the scene of a fresh accident investigation would be an extremely unwelcome complication. Even with just one Merlin 1D engine firing during a Falcon 9’s landing burn, the engine exhaust departs the nozzle traveling approximately 2.7 km/s (1.7 mi/s) and could easily send Crew Dragon remnants hundreds or even thousands of feet away and incinerate smaller debris. Given that Crew Dragon’s explosion appears to have been highly energetic, many, many pieces will already be spread many hundreds – and perhaps thousands – of feet around the incident.
Crew Dragon is an extremely complex spacecraft. Even the tiniest of fragments could potentially be critical to the successful completion of the explosion investigation, especially if the fault began somewhere in capsule C201’s many hundreds of feet of plumbing. The pipes, valves, and pumps that make up Crew Dragon’s propellant management system have many hundreds (if not thousands) of small parts that must work without issue to safely pressurize and handle the spacecraft’s hypergolic propellant.


Cargo Dragon set for launch
Despite Crew Dragon’s serious failure and the need to change Falcon 9’s booster recovery plans at the last moment, SpaceX still appears to be working to maintain the planned launch date. The instantaneous window is set for 4:22 am ET (08:22 UTC), April 30th, delayed five days from the original April 25th target. Based on an update provided by NASA last week, those delays are the result of International Space Station (ISS) scheduling and additional time needed for payload preparations. Orbital-ATK’s (now “Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems” or NGIS) uncrewed Cygnus spacecraft successfully berthed with the ISS on April 19th, followed by the station’s astronauts unloading the three metric tons of cargo it contained over the next several days.
Once Cygnus operations have been completed, the ISS astronauts will be able to start preparing for Cargo Dragon’s CRS-17 resupply mission, likely carrying another three or four metric tons of pressurized cargo. Although the logistics of unloading, unpacking, and stowing the contents of hundreds of packages of consumables, hardware, tools, science experiments, and more is not exactly thrilling, the reality is that the task takes a surprising amount of time and care. Of the maximum six astronauts aboard the ISS at any given moment, only a few of them are able to focus exclusively on the cargo logistics at the same time as time-sensitive science experiments must be immediately set up to avoid ruining the data produced. Furthermore, although the ISS is truly massive, there are only a handful of berthing and docking ports and the actual habitable volume can be cramped, as are the ports between the station and visiting spacecraft.
An unknown Falcon 9 booster – perhaps B1056 – will perform a routine static fire test at SpaceX Launch Complex 40 (LC-40) five or so days before launch, likely within the next 48 hours. Soon after, Falcon 9 will be mated with CRS-17’s flight-proven Cargo Dragon capsule and expendable trunk before rolling back out to LC-40. If the FCC works fast and grants SpaceX’s updated booster recovery license in the next few days, CRS-17 should remain on track for an April 30th launch.
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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.
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.”
@Scobleizer 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.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 17, 2026
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.
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.
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.
Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 15, 2026
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.
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.
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.