SpaceX
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 recovery robot prepares for imminent rocket landing [photos]
SpaceX’s shadow-bound Falcon 9 recovery robot was spotted out and about aboard drone ship Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY) in the week leading up to the company’s next rocket launch, targeting liftoff at 8:45 pm EST (01:45 UTC), February 21st.
Dedicated to safely securing Falcon 9 and Heavy boosters after landing aboard drone ship OCISLY, the robot – unofficially nicknamed Octagrabber – uses four hydraulic arms and the sheer mass of its solid steel frame to grab onto the ~25-ton boosters’ built-in launch clamps and hold them steady in sea states that would create a hazard for recovery technicians. Effectively a rocket-grabbing robotic tank, Octagrabber will likely play a role in Falcon 9 B1048’s imminent third launch and landing.
Octagrabber with human for scale. 2/14 #spacex pic.twitter.com/JmUYDJubRm
— Pauline Acalin (@w00ki33) February 15, 2019
While Octagrabber’s work tends to take a backseat to the building-sized rocket landings it precedes, the robot has played an important role in SpaceX’s Falcon 9 recovery efforts since it went into service in mid-2017. Its development was expedited in part because of an iffy 2016 rocket recovery in which the Falcon 9 booster in question – destined to eventually become one of Falcon Heavy’s two side cores – landed hard and wound up precariously sliding around the deck of OCISLY, only saved from falling overboard by the lip of the drone ship’s deck.
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- B1023 slid around OCISLY’s deck shortly after launch, nearly falling into the Atlantic. (SpaceX)
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- SpaceX’s rocket-securing robot, known as Octagrabber, seen on OCISLY after another successful rocket recovery, August 12th. (Tom Cross)
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- Octagrabber hangs on to B1046 as OCISLY arrives in port. (Tom Cross)
With a 25-ton, ~150-foot tall pressurized rocket sliding uncontrollably around their work area, SpaceX’s recovery technicians understandably extricated themselves from the situation and were forced to wait for calmer seas before securing the booster to the deck. Aside from a period of a few months in late 2017 where Octagrabber was effectively incinerated while attempting to secure a Falcon 9 booster with a fuel leak, the robot has been a part of nearly every East Coast Falcon 9 drone ship recovery since. The overall value it adds is unclear but the fact that a similar sibling has yet to be built for West Coast drone ship Just Read The Instructions (JRTI) suggests that Octagrabber is viewed as more of a good option to have with an otherwise non-critical level of utility.
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Nevertheless, the lone robot continues to soldier on and is routinely spotted out and about on OCISLY’s deck while the drone ship is docked in Port Canaveral, presumably performing a variety of maintenance checkouts and testing hardware and software between rocket recoveries. While SpaceX’s 2019 launch manifest has had a slow start in January and February, things are expected to get quite a bit more active over the next few months, while a SpaceX executive recently indicated that the company was hoping to conduct 21 or more launches this year.
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- (Pauline Acalin)
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- (Pauline Acalin)
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- Mr. Steven is seen here in Port Canaveral on February 15th, one week before the… accident… (Tom Cross)
Up next on SpaceX’s manifest is a launch just over 12 hours from now, featuring communications satellite PSN-6, an Air Force smallsat, and the first commercial Moon lander. If all goes as planned, the ~5400 kg (11,900 lb) trio will be placed into a high-energy geostationary transfer orbit with an apoapsis around 60,000 km (~38,000 mi) above Earth’s surface. Eight and a half minutes after launch, Falcon 9 B1048 will attempt its third landing in seven months, hopefully setting itself up for a fourth flight (and beyond) later this year. Mr. Steven – having completed a 5000 mile (8000 km) journey just a week and a half prior – will also attempt the first East Coast Falcon fairing catch.
Check out Teslarati’s newsletters for prompt updates, on-the-ground perspectives, and unique glimpses of SpaceX’s rocket launch and recovery processes!
Elon Musk has updated his timeline for when humans will walk on Mars and for when ships will simply get there.
The objective of getting to Mars has been one of Musk’s biggest goals since becoming a serial entrepreneur and realizing that time on Earth is limited. Musk has said several times he hopes to die on Mars, and not by impact.
Musk now believes that people will be on Mars in “roughly 5 to 7 years.” He said that a Mars lander will get there “a few years sooner.”
People on Mars in roughly 5 to 7 years.
Mars lander a few years sooner.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 29, 2026
The response from Musk comes after NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said that SpaceX’s biggest priority is the Moon and not Mars. Because of this, Isaacman conceded that he believes nuclear power and propulsion investments will provide “potentially the pathway with the fewest miracles required to put four people on Mars in the next 10 to 15 years.”
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Of course, this is what NASA can do through taxpayer funding and nuclear investments, he added.
Musk’s grand ambitions are much more optimistic than most, and it is certainly a double-edged sword. This is not the first time timelines for Mars have been somewhat lofty, especially to those normal thinkers like you and me, not super geniuses like Musk.
In fact, the SpaceX and Tesla frontman has said on at least a dozen occasions that we could be on Mars in the coming years. Musk said 2020 would be the big year as early as 2009. In 2020, he was “highly confident” of a landing in 2026, and had even said 2024 in a best-case scenario.
The point is, the range has varied, and it’s anyone’s guess when we’ll get there. This latest adjustment to the timeline is typical of Musk, and while the Moon has seemingly taken priority over Mars, it is still worth mentioning that the ultimate goal is to make life multiplanetary, and it starts potentially with the Red Planet.
SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) got an absolutely crazy price target rating from Raymond James after the company experienced a tough first few weeks following its Initial Public Offering (IPO).
Despite the tumultuous start, SpaceX has plenty of believers, and the company’s massively successful Starship launch last Friday, its 13th test flight of the massive rocket, went so smoothly that Raymond James analysts pushed its price target on the company to roughly 7 times its current trading level.
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
The firm officially put a “Strong Buy” rating and an $800 price target on the stock. It currently trades at around $113. Its all-time high is $225.64, reaching this trading level shortly after shares first went public.
Raymond James’ price target is tied to the firm’s confidence after Starship’s 13th test flight. Analysts at the firm said it was an incremental step that reduces engineering risks, citing the widely successful heat shield test that CEO Elon Musk recently detailed, the smooth deployment of Starlink V3 satellites, and a successful in-space engine relight.
SpaceX also managed to see Starship splash down safely in the Indian Ocean, while the Super Heavy Booster fell down to the Gulf of America with no incidents.
It is interesting to see these launches have such a tremendous impact on the stock and what investors think of it. After SpaceX initially delayed the Starship launch last week, shares fell tremendously. Most probably did not realize that the stand-down is a standard practice, especially if everything is not perfect.
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The mission was initially aborted due to an issue with Raptor engines. This was resolved, and Starship launched last Friday after another delay on Thursday, which was caused by weather.
Now that analysts have seen what SpaceX launches are capable of and how impressive the feat is, firms are adjusting their price targets accordingly, making it known that they have high expectations for the space exploration company.
Elon Musk’s massive Terafab project, which will be the first true conglomeration between each of his major entities, is set to get its final location soon, the CEO said on Tesla’s recent earnings call.
“The Terafab, we expect to announce a location soon, and provide more details about our plans in that regard. We’ll leave that to the product, the launch announcement rather than try to squeeze it into an earnings call,” Musk said last Wednesday.
Tesla Terafab set for launch: Inside the $20B AI chip factory that will reshape the auto industry
Terafab was announced by Musk back in March and was essentially a massive, vertically integrated semiconductor manufacturing project that would provide all the chips the three companies needed for their AI initiatives without needing third-party companies.
The plant will produce over 1 terawatt of AI compute each year, and will help back up projects like Optimus, Full Self-Driving, and other AI-based projects that Musk’s companies are working on.
In April, less than a month after the project was launched, Intel announced it would join the project, contributing manufacturing expertise and consulting to Terafab as a whole. Intel is one of three chip manufacturers that produce sub-5 nanometer chips at scale. TSMC and Samsung are the other two.
However, there was no true indication of where Terafab would end up, but most believe it will likely be somewhere in Texas. Business Insider has reported that SpaceX plans to build out Terafab in Grimes County, Texas, but this is unconfirmed.
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Musk confirmed recently that it would not be on Giga Texas property, as it is simply too large.
The sheer scale of TERAFAB is going to be insane.
Elon said it wouldn’t be suitable for anywhere on Giga Texas property because it’s too big:
“We couldn’t possibly fit the Terafab on the GigaTexas campus. It will be far bigger than everything else combined there.
Several… pic.twitter.com/79GbhNNuf4
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) March 23, 2026
Terafab holds much of Musk’s grand ambitions for the future within its construct. It holds so much responsibility for the future and the biggest projects that Musk’s companies can imagine.
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“I think this is a very big announcement and it deserves to have its own day in the spotlight and not be squeezed into an earnings call,” he said. “I do think Terafab is going to be an amazing initiative and a necessary one, and one without which we will be constrained in our ability to scale Optimus production, because we simply won’t have enough AI chips.”
He continued by stating that Terafab is necessary for scaling Optimus, which Musk said could be the biggest product of any kind of all time. “It’s crucial to solve that, and we’ll have to solve memory, logic, and packaging in order to scale Optimus.”
Elon Musk updates the SpaceX timeline for Mars
SpaceX gets an absolutely crazy price target after rough IPO
