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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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Tesla Cybertruck Lead Engineer Wes Morrill revealed the company has made several changes to the all-electric pickup, which he calls a “living thing, constantly evolving and improving.”
Cybertruck is manufactured at Tesla’s Gigafactory Texas just outside of Austin, and over the past few years, Tesla has continued to make small changes to the pickup to improve everything from cost, reliability, serviceablility, and manufacturability.
“The finish line isn’t getting to production. A product is a living thing, constantly evolving and improving,” Morrill added.
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Some of those changes are yet to be revealed, but perhaps the most notable one was the change Tesla made to the aero shield that sits underneath the truck. In the past, it was aluminum, but now the Cybertruck is using a self-reinforcing polypropylene.
Morrill said that the polypropylene is “stretched into fibers and then laminated into the form,” and is much more durable, much lighter, and significantly cheaper than aluminum when it is manufactured this way.
It also enabled some improvements in the geometry of the Cybertruck, improving the manufacturing around the bolts and edges, in addition to minor form changes. These all benefitted the Cybertruck in more ways than one: specifically with durability and improved drag.
I was surprised by how interested people were to find out we made a relatively benign change to the Cybertruck aero shield, a part of the car most people never even see. So I’ll share some more details.
Here are two photos, the left is one of the latest trucks off the… pic.twitter.com/F5cZo2CZKf
— Wes (@wmorrill3) September 7, 2026
Typically, Teslas are not necessarily identified by model year because these changes are fluid and occur when the company sees fit to implement them. It is not like other automotive companies, which usually make sweeping manufacturing changes when building a new model year.
Instead, Teslas are recognized by their “generation” or “era.” For example, those with a newer Model Y might refer to their car as a “Juniper.” This is the same with Model 3, as many refer to the new body style as the “Highland.”
Tesla’s manufacturing changes are proof of the company’s constant need to improve its products and move things forward with its vehicles. There is no need to drag one’s feet and wait until next year if the product can be made better right now, and that’s precisely what Tesla did with the Cybertruck.
Elon Musk
Tesla Cybercabs narrowly miss deadly Amazon cargo plane crash
An Amazon cargo plane crash near Miami’s airport stopped feet from dozens of Tesla Cybercabs.
An Amazon Prime Air Boeing 767 cargo jet overran the runway at Miami International Airport on Sunday afternoon, killing five people and injuring five more. The jet, operated by North Carolina based carrier 21 Air as Flight 7598, touched down around 2 p.m. after arriving from San Juan, Puerto Rico, then crossed the airport perimeter, plowed across NW 67th Avenue and struck multiple vehicles before catching fire, according to the Associated Press.
Photos and video from the scene show the aircraft’s nose stopped within meters of a fenced staging lot holding dozens of gold painted Tesla Cybercabs, the steering wheel free robotaxi Tesla began putting on public roads in Austin last week. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue has confirmed the plane struck “multiple vehicles” but has not said whether any Cybercabs were among them, and neither Tesla nor airport officials have addressed the fleet directly.
The Cybercabs had not yet entered commercial service in Miami. Tesla’s existing Robotaxi operation there runs on modified Model Y vehicles and has been unsupervised since Ashok Elluswamy confirmed the detail on X in July.
Footage of the plane crash from earlier today | #ONLYinDADE pic.twitter.com/iGoOtnd6cD
— ONLY in DADE (@ONLYinDADE) September 6, 2026
Elon Musk offered the briefest of reactions. Replying to a Zero Hedge post about the Cybercabs sitting so close to the wreckage, he wrote a single word: “Weird.” He has not commented further, and Tesla has not issued a statement.
The timing puts Tesla’s newest vehicle near an unrelated but highly visible tragedy just days after its Austin debut, a launch that had already drawn scrutiny from federal regulators. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an audit how Tesla certified the Cybercab as compliant with federal vehicle safety standards, a process Teslarati covered after the vehicle’s September 3 launch event. That inquiry concerns the car’s lack of a steering wheel and pedals, not the Miami crash.
Investigators from the FAA and NTSB are focused on the plane, not the parking lot beside it. Flight data reviewed by outlets including Simple Flying show the 767 touched down around 170 knots, well above the 135 to 140 knot range typical for the aircraft, though investigators have not determined a cause. Amazon said it is working with authorities and that its priority is the safety of everyone affected.
Whether any Cybercabs were damaged, and what Tesla plans for the fleet parked near one of the country’s busiest airports, remain open questions.
Tesla has reached a notable benchmark in its autonomous driving program after its Robotaxi fleet surpassed one million miles of unsupervised operation. The company made the announcement during its Cybercab event in Austin on September 3.
Tesla Vice President of AI Ashok Elluswamy told attendees he was happy to report the fleet had achieved one million miles of unsupervised Robotaxi operation as a testament to safety.
The new total marked a sharp increase from the 380,000 unsupervised miles Tesla disclosed during its second-quarter 2026 earnings update in late July.
In roughly six weeks, the company added about 620,000 miles. That acceleration followed Tesla’s decision to remove in-vehicle safety monitors from most of its operations outside the San Francisco Bay Area.
Credit: Tesla
Tesla first launched Robotaxi service in Austin in June 2025 with safety drivers present. It later began fully unsupervised rides and expanded into Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando, and Tampa. The San Francisco Bay Area remains the exception, where a safety monitor still rides in the vehicle under California permitting rules.
The company has not released a city-by-city breakdown of the one million unsupervised miles.
The milestone arrived as Tesla began offering public Cybercab rides in Austin. The purpose-built vehicle has no steering wheel or pedals and is designed only for autonomous ride-hailing. Production versions joined the existing fleet of modified Tesla vehicles already operating in the service.
Tesla’s unsupervised mileage is growing at a double-digit weekly rate according to earlier company comments, yet its fleet size remains modest compared with established competitors. Waymo has accumulated more than 200 million fully autonomous rider-only miles. Tesla has described its own unsupervised operations as having recorded zero notable incidents in the period leading up to the July update.
The one-million-mile figure reflects Tesla’s shift from supervised testing to broader driverless service in multiple states. It also highlights the company’s strategy of using both existing Model Y vehicles and the new Cybercab to scale its network.
Credit: Tesla
Whether the rapid recent growth continues will depend on further city expansions, regulatory approvals, and the performance of the purpose-built Cybercab in everyday paid rides. Tesla has not specified how many of the latest miles involved the new vehicle versus the rest of the fleet.
The announcement underscores Tesla’s progress toward a larger robotaxi network while illustrating the remaining gap in total autonomous experience relative to longer-operating rivals.
Tesla Cybertruck engineer reveals new changes in ‘constantly evolving’ pickup
Tesla Cybercabs narrowly miss deadly Amazon cargo plane crash
