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SpaceX’s Falcon 9 certified to launch NASA’s flagship scientific spacecraft

(SpaceX)

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8 years ago

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NASA has certified SpaceX’s Falcon 9 (likely F9 v1.2) to launch the space agency’s most valuable and critical scientific spacecraft, opening up the floor for SpaceX to routinely compete for missions comparable to Hubble Space Telescope, the Curiosity Mars rover (Mars Science Laboratory), Cassini (a Saturn orbiter), and James Webb Space Telescope, among many others.

As SpaceX nears the Falcon family’s 35th consecutive launch success, this certification serves as a pragmatic endorsement of the years of work the company has put into optimizing Falcon 9 for performance and reliability.

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Although Falcon 9 is capable of extremely impressive performance beyond Earth orbit, that performance only becomes truly competitive with ULA’s Atlas V rocket when Falcon 9 is launched as a fully expendable vehicle. Regardless, both Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy are all but guaranteed to cost far less than a comparably capable Atlas V, even assuming no recovery attempt is made. Given the rarity of such valuable NASA launches, typically no more than two annually at best, SpaceX would undoubtedly be more than happy to expend as much hardware as necessary to give NASA a competitive offer for the performance it needs.

“LSP Category 3 certification is a major achievement for the Falcon 9 team and represents another key milestone in our close partnership with NASA. We are honored to have the opportunity to provide cost-effective and reliable launch services to the country’s most critical scientific payloads.” – Gwynne Shotwell, COO and President of SpaceX

Still, the fact remains that most – if not all – of NASA’s high-value “Class A or B” missions end up being extremely heavy spacecraft, either as a result of large and expensive scientific instruments, a need for lots of extra onboard propellant, or some combination of the two. Saturnian orbiter Cassini, launched in 1997, weighed a full ~5700 kg (~12,600 lbs) and had to make its way from Earth to Saturn, a journey of many hundreds of millions of miles. Hubble, placed in a medium Earth orbit, weighed 11,100 kg (24,500 lbs) at liftoff. The Curiosity rover – including cruise stage, reentry hardware, and rocket crane – weighed ~3900 kg (~8600 lbs) at launch.

Paving the way for Falcon Heavy

Falcon 9 routinely launches payloads as heavy as that but only to comparatively low-energy orbits around Earth – to launch the same massive payloads beyond Earth orbit requires far more energy and thus rocket performance. Perhaps the most encouraging part of this NASA certification is the demonstration that NASA’s trust in SpaceX rockets has grown to the point that Falcon Heavy certification is likely just a matter of time. In order to qualify for “LSP Category 3” certification, any given rocket must launch anywhere from 3-6 times depending on what the certification board feels is necessary.

SpaceX has at least two Falcon Heavy launches scheduled for 2019. Combined with the rocket’s nearly flawless February 2018 launch debut, those two launches – commsat Arabsat 6A and the Air Force’s STP-2 mission – could satisfy NASA LSP and allow the agency to certify Falcon Heavy for flagship science missions. If/when that occurs, SpaceX will be able to offer NASA all the performance they will conceivably need for the foreseeable future, ensuring that NASA will be able to compete most future launch contracts. At worst, a ULA victory would force the company to significantly lower their prices.

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Falcon Heavy’s two side boosters land side-by-side after a successful launch debut. (SpaceX)

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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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Tesla responds to Robotaxi skeptics with a massive move in Austin

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2 hours ago

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June 3, 2026

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Credit: @AdanGuajardo/X

Tesla has responded to the skeptics of its Robotaxi program by launching a massive expansion of the unsupervised program in its initial rollout city of Austin.

The company’s geofence, the enabled area of operation for rides, now covers the entire Austin Metropolitan area, an incredible move just days after media headlines attempted to discredit the ride-hailing service.

Those who have access to the Tesla Robotaxi app on their smartphones can now request a ride in any portion of the Austin Metro area. The company confirmed this on the social media platform X:

This is Tesla’s fifth expansion of the geofence, with the others occurring in July, early August, late August, and late October 2025. It has remained at that size since October 26, but Tesla has now more than doubled that size.

It is now covering the entire area, including suburbs like Pflugerville and Manor, as well as I-35 highways, Gigafactory Texas, and the Austin-Bergstrom Airport.

The move comes just days after various media outlets highlighted the small fleet size of Tesla’s Robotaxi fleet in Austin, something that is a reasonable criticism but an understandable move on the company’s part to prioritize safety.

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Tesla expands Robotaxi geofence, but not the garage

Tesla has expanded its Robotaxi geofence many times, but its fleet has remained at a relatively conservative size as the company continues to push safety as its most crucial metric.

The latest expansion is a key indicator of Tesla’s comfort level to expand the ride-hailing service. The move shows Tesla is scaling unsupervised autonomy, as it demonstrates that the company’s Full Self-Driving system has reached sufficient reliability for a broader real-world deployment, which is something the company has worked on extensively.

It also shows Tesla is game for a competition with its rivals in the autonomous ride-hailing sector. Tesla has often matched or exceeded competitors like Waymo in coverage area, despite its smaller fleet. This step highlights Tesla’s iterative, data-driven progress toward a high-margin, app-based Robotaxi network.

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It’s not the absolute largest area expansion ever, but achieving full unsupervised operations across a major metro is a key moment in the Robotaxi story. It shifts the program from limited pilot/testing toward a more mature commercial service, while gathering the miles needed for faster growth.

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Tesla improves Dashcam playback with awesome addition

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21 hours ago

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June 2, 2026

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Image Credit: The Kilowatts/Twitter

Tesla has improved Dashcam playback with an awesome new addition, as the company has launched a web-based version that is potentially easier to navigate and operate.

The tool is available at dashcam.tesla.com and will be enabled as your vehicle receives the 2026.20 Software Version. Clips that are captured by your Tesla will be available on the Online Dashcam Clip Viewer once the files on your car’s storage drive are encrypted.

Not a Tesla App first noticed the new feature, and states that once your Tesla updates to 2026.20, the car will automatically protect the clips with an encryption key that is uniquely tied to your owner account.

The web-based viewer should be easier to operate for most. All you will do is head over to dashcam.tesla.com and log in using your account credentials.

Ensure your vehicle is updated to 2026.20 in order for the web-based viewer tool to fetch your vehicle’s saved dashcam clips.

Currently, only a small percentage of owners are updated to this, so it may be a couple of weeks until a majority of owners in the fleet are able to access this feature.

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Watching Dashcam clips on the Tesla smartphone app is quick and convenient, as they can also be easily downloaded and stored right on your smartphone.

However, the clips are sometimes tougher to navigate, and in order to get details like self-driving activation, speed, and turn signals, owners have to screen record the Tesla app and crop out the rest of the screen.

It could also be a massive storage saver as you’ll be able to download the Dashcam clips from the online viewer and save them to your laptop, desktop, a flash drive, or even an external hard drive. This will keep all your clips in one place.

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Tesla Full Self-Driving attempts 150-mile stress test: the good and the bad

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1 day ago

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June 2, 2026

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Credit: TESLARATI

I recently took my Tesla Model Y running Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14.3.3 over 150 miles on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in an effort to truly put the system under a stress test. There were a lot of good moments, and some bad, but overall, Full Self-Driving impressed me.

Last Thursday, I decided it was time to visit the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, PA. I go a few times a year, and it was a beautiful day. Others have taken some pretty lengthy drives using FSD, but I haven’t had the opportunity to really do something lengthy in quite a few months on an older version. I decided it was the perfect opportunity to try some things out.

I recorded the entire ride there on a GoPro, edited to highlight the crucial moments, and shared them on our social media accounts. If you want to watch them, I’ll share them throughout the piece, but I did not get to do a real breakdown of what I felt about its performance.

Overall Thoughts

I realize it is probably better to do a summation of its performance toward the end of the piece, but I feel like it is also reasonable to lead with this because I was overly impressed with how well it handled everything. The only moments where I felt a little bit of reason to touch the wheel, at least while traveling on the Turnpike and Rt. 30, were due to other drivers and their behaviors.

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I have taken many drives to the Memorial over the past several years, and although it’s not incredibly long, it is a tiring drive. It’s about five hours both ways, close to 300 miles, and I think most of the exhaustion comes from the toll of sitting in the car and then visiting something that is pretty heavy to take in.

This was the first time I’ve ever taken the ride and not felt like I needed to avoid my vehicle after I got home. In the past, I could not even think about driving after I finally arrived at my house, but this was simply different.

It was nice to have something else take the drive for me, while I still had the freedom to take over if I chose to. It made the entire trip more enjoyable.

Full Self-Driving Recognizes Lane-Ending Arrows on Road

After traveling in the fast lane for a little while, FSD noticed the arrows on the road indicating the lane was coming to an end ahead. The car was also in the process of making a pass on a slower vehicle in the middle lane, but aborted this maneuver and backed off to get behind the vehicle.

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I was really impressed by this because I thought that the car would absolutely try to make the pass, only to get in front of the other car, and then slow back down to 75 MPH:

Full Self-Driving Notices Veering Tractor Trailer, Adjusts Lane Positioning

My two rules of the road are never cruise in the fast lane and never drive next to a tractor-trailer. This clip is a perfect example as to why.

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FSD v14.3.3 recognized this tractor-trailer attempting to change lanes while we were still next to it. The car shifted its lane positioning to the shoulder slightly to make room for the merging semi, executed the pass safely, and on we went.

I will admit this one made me a little nervous, but more so because of the 18-wheeler, and not because of the Tesla:

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Full Self-Driving Follows the Rules of Tunnel Travel

Many people who are not familiar with Full Self-Driving and its capabilities are pretty limited in what they know about the really simple things it does well. Part of supervising FSD is being aware of things it might make mistakes with, and anticipating maneuvers it might want to make at the wrong time.

Entering the Blue Mountain Tunnel on the Turnpike, I was ready for FSD to attempt to get back into the right lane after making a pass on a tractor-trailer, but I was pleasantly surprised. Several signs outside the tunnel advise drivers to stay in the lane they’ve chosen while driving through the tunnel; this eliminates the possibility of an accident caused by lane changes, which would impede traffic on a crucial logistics route.

I was happy to see that Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.3.3 did not make this mistake:

Full Self-Driving Navigates Toll Plazas with Ease

I was interested to see how FSD would handle toll plazas, including the speed at which it would travel through them, and whether it would stop on the Turnpike at these booths, which have since been transitioned to a “Toll by Plate” system, which mails you a bill.

It was flawless:

Full Self-Driving Still Struggles with Parking from Time to Time

Since I took delivery in late August, I’ve never had a single instance of my Tesla struggling to park at a Supercharger. Other spots at the mall, market, or gym are another story.

This was the first time it did such a terrible job of backing into a spot. This required me to take over and manually park at another charger:

Full Self-Driving Gets Confused After Arriving at Its Destination

This was the first time I have ever experienced FSD getting confused and just circling the lot. The navigation continued to reroute to try to resolve the issue, but after four laps, I decided it was time to overtake the car’s controls and park manually:

This was a baffling behavior that I truly couldn’t explain. Other owners communicated that they have also experienced this issue.

Final Thoughts

I am so incredibly impressed by FSD that it has really made traveling stress-free. The two issues related to parking were not ideal, but to be fair, I usually take over when arriving at parking lots. However, this shortcoming is something Tesla has to make some serious progress with, because parking has truly stumped FSD at times.

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Solving that will be a major breakthrough for autonomy, but Tesla has struggled with it for some time.

All in all, FSD v14.3.3 is unbelievably accurate and handles many of the more stressful maneuvers with ease, one of them being avoiding merging traffic on highways, which was shown above.

Some things that would be great to see improvements on are parking, Speed Profiles, which are relatively tough to adjust (I stayed in Standard for the duration of this drive), and, of course, navigation.

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