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SpaceX completes Falcon 9 test fire, space station supply mission up next
After almost exactly 15 months of dormancy, SpaceX’s Launch Complex 40 (LC-40) came to life with the roar of nine Merlin 1D rocket engines as Falcon 9 1035 conducted its second pre-launch static fire in preparation for the company’s 13th Commercial Resupply Services mission, CRS-13. Previously tasked with the launch of the CRS-11 Cargo Dragon, the booster completed its mission and returned safely to Landing Zone-1 (LZ-1) on June 3 2017. The path towards LC-40’s reactivation has delayed the launch approximately one week, but December 6th’s successful static fire bodes well for the current launch date, 11:46 AM on December 12.
Static fire test of Falcon 9 complete—targeting launch of CRS-13 on December 12 from Pad 40, followed by launch of Zuma from Pad 40 in early January.
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 6, 2017
On September 6 2016, LC-40 was effectively destroyed over the course of the Amos-6 failure. In months that followed, SpaceX reactivated LC-39A in order to continue chipping away at the company’s launch manifest, but also began the slow process of damage assessment and reconstruction of LC-40. It is safe to assume that almost every single component of the ground support equipment (GSE) was completely replaced, and interviews with Cape Canaveral’s 45th Space Wing commander suggest that SpaceX went further still, transforming the painful situation into an opportunity.
In an exclusive and frank conversation between Brig. Gen. Wayne Monteith and Florida Today’s Emre Kelly, the commander suggested that extensive design changes and additional hardening measures implemented during reconstruction are expected to make LC-40 exceptionally resilient to the rigors of rocket launches. Most tellingly, if perhaps overly optimistic, Monteith estimated that a second vehicle failure on the order of Amos-6 might only take two months to recover from, compared to the 15 months that followed Amos-6. He attributed this claim to GSE that is now largely buried underground, theoretically protecting the vast apparatus of hand-welded piping necessary to fuel the Falcon 9 launch vehicle. The replacement Transporter/Erector/Launcher (TEL) tasked with supporting Falcon 9 during integration and launch also appears to have been modernized, and will likely end up looking quite similar to the monolithic white TEL that resides at LC-39A.
Rocket and spacecraft for CRS-13 are flight-proven. Falcon 9’s first stage previously launched SpaceX’s eleventh resupply mission for @NASA, and Dragon flew to the @Space_Station in support of our sixth cargo resupply mission. pic.twitter.com/RY4F2TrWO2
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 6, 2017
With CRS-13’s static fire now complete, the mission is set to become the fifth operational reuse of a flight-proven Falcon 9 booster in 2017, thanks to NASA’s unusually rapid acceptance of the new practice. Further still, if Iridium-4’s December 22 launch date holds, and it does look to be stable for the moment, SpaceX will rather incredibly have conducted five commercial reuses of a Falcon 9 in its first year of operations, meaning that one third of SpaceX’s 2017 missions will have launched aboard flight-proven boosters. Also impressive is SpaceX’s full-stop move towards the reuse of Cargo Dragon capsules, and the company stated over the summer that it was hoping to almost completely redirect Cargo Dragon’s manufacturing facilities towards Dragon 2, also known as Crew Dragon. This was most recently reiterated several months ago and is presumed to still be the company’s goal moving forward, and CRS-12 is believed to have been the last “new” Cargo Dragon that will fly. CRS-13’s Dragon previously flew the CRS-6 mission in April 2015.
Photos shared privately with the author show CRS-13’s Falcon 9 to be covered in a graceful layer of soot from its previous recovery, similar in appearance to Falcon 9 1021 seen above. (Instagram/bambi_mydear)
In a December 6 tweet, SpaceX further confirmed that the deeply secretive Zuma mission, previously delayed from an early-November launch as a result of concerns about fairing defects, has now been moved from LC-39A to LC-40 and is understood to be targeting January 4 2018. This will give SpaceX approximately three weeks after the launch of CRS-13 to verify that everything is functioning nominally in what is essentially a new pad.
Meanwhile, with Zuma now officially moved to 40, LC-39A is completely free from routine operations, meaning that SpaceX’s ground crew can now work at will to ready the pad for the inaugural launch of Falcon Heavy, now aiming for early 2018. Aside from Falcon Heavy, recent FCC filings point to two additional SpaceX launches aiming for January, although slips are probable in light of CRS-13’s minor delays. Regardless, December and January are likely to be thrilling months for followers of the intrepid space exploration outfit.
Tesla is delaying its event for the Roadster, moving it from this Thursday, October 1, to Thursday, October 15, due to unfavorable weather.
The company has said it has been tracking the weather for this Thursday closely with local meteorologists, and because the event can only be held outside, Tesla is making the call to delay it:
“We’ve been tracking the weather closely with local meteorologists, but given the severe conditions predicted & because this event can only be held outdoors, we’ve made the difficult decision to reschedule. New date is October 15. Additional details to follow.”
Roadster event update
We’ve been tracking the weather closely with local meteorologists, but given the severe conditions predicted & because this event can only be held outdoors, we’ve made the difficult decision to reschedule.
New date is October 15. Additional details to…
— Tesla (@Tesla) September 28, 2026
We are sure that this is bringing back PTSD for some Tesla fans, and we know it is not ideal, but this also reveals some things about the event. Tesla said that this can only be held outdoors, meaning it bodes well for the rumors that the vehicle could potentially hover.
Some believe that this was essentially confirmed by the FAA airspace restriction they were granted, but this could have been for a drone show or to keep drones from spying on the event.
Tesla Roadster is available for order once again following brief hold
The Roadster event has been long-awaited, and it is unfortunate that the weather is going to keep us all waiting a little bit longer.
The Tesla Roadster will be unveiled in Waco, Texas.
Elon Musk
SpaceX turned a heralding moment for Starship into its greatest
Starship reached orbit despite losing an engine, deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites on Flight 14.
SpaceX’s Starship reached orbit for the first time on Monday, and for a few nail-biting minutes it looked like it wouldn’t. During ascent on Flight 14, one of Ship 41’s six Raptor engines shut down early, and SpaceX’s livestream host Dan Huot told viewers the team had decided not to commit to orbit. Minutes later, after what Huot described as a lot of conversation in the control room, the final poll came back in favor, and a roughly 19 second burn of a single Raptor pushed the ship into orbit about 170 miles up.
The reversal matters because SpaceX had written the exit ramp into the mission plan. The company said it would only fire the orbital insertion burn if flight controllers confirmed enough backup hardware remained for the deorbit burn, a condition Teslarati laid out ahead of the flight. Losing an engine was exactly the scenario that rule was built for.
Pressing forward fits Elon Musk’s history. Falcon 1 failed three straight times before its fourth launch reached orbit in 2008, with SpaceX nearly out of money, and Starship was developed by flying prototypes until they broke. What changed this year SpaceX going public, and with $SPCX sliding below its IPO price in July when Flight 13 slipped, the short interest climbed significantly, as Teslarati reported at the time. A Starship potentially lost today with revenue generating next-gen Starlink satellites aboard would have landed directly on shareholders.
Splashdown confirmed. Congratulations to the entire SpaceX team on the first orbital flight of Starship! pic.twitter.com/urjmiwnvNl
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 28, 2026
That pressure showed up after orbit. SpaceX cut a flight planned to last nearly 10 hours to about three, moving splashdown from west of Chile to the North Pacific near Hawaii. SpaceX gave no reason, though Musk said this month the company was being extremely cautious about debris risk. The single Raptor for deorbit worked, and Ship 41 completed its flip and landing burn before breaking apart in the water, an outcome SpaceX expected. Musk has structured SpaceX’s governance to shield long term bets from market pressure.
The payload is the bigger business story. Musk posted that all 26 Starlink V3 satellites deployed and are “operating nominally.” Each V3 is rated for about 1 Tbps of downlink and 160 Gbps of uplink, so this single launch adds roughly 26 Tbps, about 10 times what a Falcon 9 load of V2 Mini satellites adds. The V3 is too large for Falcon 9, making Starship the only vehicle that can build out the planned 100,000 satellite constellation, at up to 60 per flight once it reaches routine service. Unlike the 20 V3 units on Flight 13, which reentered on a suborbital path, these will raise their orbits and could begin serving customers within weeks and bring in hundreds of millions of additional dollars in projected Starlink revenue.
SpaceX has already begun winding down Falcon 9 Starlink launches from Florida in favor of Starship. Reported targets put Flight 15 as early as October 19, leaving about three weeks to diagnose Monday’s engine shutdown before the next orbital attempt.
Starship’s 14th flight is set to launch on Monday, Sept 28. The 75-minute launch window opens at 7:15 a.m. CT. Live coverage of the mission starts ~35 minutes before launch → https://t.co/uQKQvgaTmJ
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 27, 2026
Tesla quietly doubled the size of its Cybercab fleet within the Robotaxi program in Austin, Texas, over the weekend to well over 100 units.
The move not only establishes more of the steering-wheel-less and pedal-less vehicles within the ride-sharing fleet Tesla has been operating for a year, but it also solidifies a more robust Robotaxi fleet as a whole.
Riders started receiving notifications from the Robotaxi app that stated: “Cybercab fleet has doubled: more rides available.”
I got this notification on the robotaxi app. They are saying the Cybercab fleet has doubled. Glad that they are advertising this pic.twitter.com/FFrnw4FRCF
— Abhimanyu Yadav (@WorldlyReviewer) September 26, 2026
Tesla first launched rides in the Cybercab in early September, although the Robotaxi fleet has been active for over a year, as rides began last Summer. Cybercab is truly Tesla’s most crucial vehicle release yet, as it is the first car any company has built that is geared toward full-fledged and end-to-end autonomy, never needing human intervention for anything.
Only available in Austin at the current time, Cybercab has two seats and has been spotted testing around various U.S. states and regions; Tesla plans to deploy the Cybercab in various U.S. cities in the coming months as a best-case scenario.
Tesla Cybercab gets initial tie-in to localized, in-house cathode plant
The availability of the Cybercab has doubled from just 58 units last Monday to 125 the following Friday. Marking a substantial increase in Cybercab availability, the additional ride-sharing units are more than welcome, as wait times for Cybercabs, especially, were quite high.
The dramatic increase is a sign that demand for Robotaxi is growing and Tesla is feeling more confident that its driverless ride-hailing suite, especially its Full Self-Driving software, is able to handle any traffic situation without explicit direction or supervision from a human being.
Tesla Roadster event gets delayed due to unfavorable weather
SpaceX turned a heralding moment for Starship into its greatest
