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SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket aces eighth launch and “envelope expansion” landing

Falcon 9 B1051 lifts off with 60 new Starlink satellites, becoming the first Falcon booster to launch eight times. (Richard Angle)

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SpaceX has successfully completed the first of dozens of Starlink launches planned in 2021, simultaneously crushing multiple rocket reusability records and completing an “envelope expansion” booster landing at sea.

Ending several days of delays, Falcon 9 booster B1051, an expendable upper stage, a flight-proven payload fairing, and 60 new Starlink satellites lifted off at 8:02 am EST, kicking off SpaceX’s 16th operational Starlink mission and 17th Starlink launch overall. Roughly an hour later, after spinning up end over end, Falcon 9’s orbital second stage successfully released all 60 satellites to complete an exceptionally milestone-rich mission.

Starlink-16 is such a significant mission for several different reasons.

Falcon 9 B1051 lifts off with 60 new Starlink satellites, becoming the first Falcon booster to launch eight times. (Richard Angle)

First and foremost, as previously discussed on Teslarati, Falcon 9 B1051 simultaneously crushed the world-record for rocket turnaround and became the first booster to successfully launch and land eight times, making it SpaceX’s “life-leader” in multiple ways.

Last flown for the seventh time on December 13th, Falcon 9 B1051 is now scheduled to attempt its eighth orbital-class launch and landing just 36 days later, beating the 51-day world record by almost a third (~30%) and simultaneously becoming the first Falcon booster to launch eight times. If successful, SpaceX’s Falcon rockets will be mere days away from demonstrating monthly reusability.”

Teslarati.com – January 17th, 2021

Delayed from January 17th to the 20th, that schedule didn’t hold exactly but B1051 did still become the first reusable rocket to drop below the 40-day turnaround mark, completing two launches and landings in 38 days, crushing the previous world record of 51 days (also held by Falcon 9) by almost two weeks.

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Bearing the soot seven orbital-class launches and landings, Falcon 9 B1051 stands vertical at Pad 39A on the morning of January 20th. (Richard Angle)

Those milestones alone are major achievements for SpaceX’s workhorse rocket, leaving the Falcon Block 5 design upgrade just two flights away from achieving its 10-flight design goal and seven or eight days away from monthly reusability. The fact alone that SpaceX’s turnaround timing appears to be accelerating for fleet-leader (most flown) boosters serves as a clear sign that the design has almost certainly achieved that 10-flight goal and is likely capable of far more flights still. If that trend continues, Falcon 9 B1051 could complete its ninth and tenth flights as early as March and April.

Additionally, while a 38-day turnaround is significantly more than a magnitude away from CEO Elon Musk’s long-held goal of 24-hour reusability, it does represent an order-of-magnitude improvement from SpaceX’s first booster reuses, which averaged 200-500+ days between flights.

According to SpaceX, Starlink-16 and booster B1051’s last milestone was successfully expanding Falcon 9’s operational envelope by landing in exceptionally high ground winds. Completed with no apparent issues, that success means that SpaceX will be able to expand the range of conditions Falcon 9 can launch and land in, improving the odds of favorable weather in the future.

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 Giga Berlin hits a sustainability milestone that’s so impressive, it sounds fake

As per the facility’s plant manager, Giga Berlin has completed one whole year without any of its process wastewater being discharged into the municipal sewer system.

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Credit: Tesla Manufacturing/X

Tesla Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg has achieved a sustainability milestone that is so impressive, it almost sounds fake. As per the facility’s plant manager, Giga Berlin has completed one whole year without any of its process wastewater being discharged into the municipal sewer system. 

The announcement comes just over a month after Tesla Germany revealed that Gigafactory Berlin had returned 377,000 cubic meters of annual water rights to local authorities due to the facility’s sustainability systems. 

Insane one year feat

Andre Thierig, Giga Berlin Senior Director of Manufacturing, stated that the factory’s one-year milestone was made possible by the facility’s industry-leading waste treatment systems. With no process wastewater discharged into the municipal sewer for a year now, Giga Berlin has effectively become one, if not the region’s, most environmentally friendly vehicle production facilities. 

“Today, we completed 1 YEAR without any process waste water being discharged into the municipal sewer, achieved by an incredible team (aka Ninja Turtles) with our futuristic waste water treatment facility. Making a sustainable product matters a lot but doing it sustainably is just as important! This underlines our strong environmental commitment to region of Berlin-Brandenburg,” the plant manager wrote in a LinkedIn post.

Credit: Andre Thierig/LinkedIn

Officials and Giga Berlin’s water consumption

Jochem Freyer, Chairman of the Management Board of the Employment Agency Frankfurt (Oder), shared his congratulations to Tesla Germany. “The decision in favor of the facility was a strong move – for the environment, for the brand, for East Brandenburg! I hope for further innovations from Giga Berlin-Brandenburg, the official noted.

In late September, reports emerged stating that Tesla Germany had returned 377,000 cubic meters of annual water rights to the Strausberg-Erkner Water Association (WSE). This was because the facility ended up using significantly less water than originally planned. WSE chairman Thomas Krieger stated that the water Giga Berlin was saving would be distributed to municipalities and other users in the region. 

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Tesla’s latest Robotaxi job posting takes the whole program a step forward

On Tuesday, Tesla posted a new job for a Senior Insurance Claims Specialist, Robotaxi, the first of its kind.

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(Credit: Tesla North America/X)

Tesla’s latest Robotaxi job posting goes beyond what has been posted in the past and truly takes the entire program a step forward.

Tesla has been hiring some employees for Robotaxi, but a vast majority of the job postings have been related to Vehicle Operator positions, meaning the people who are Safety Monitors or Validation Vehicle Drivers.

Some job postings have hinted at Robotaxi expanding to new cities.

However, on Tuesday, Tesla posted a new job for a Senior Insurance Claims Specialist, Robotaxi, the first of its kind.

The job description says the employee will “oversee the company’s corporate insurance, risk management and surety programs across all business components.” Additionally, it says the position plays “a critical role in managing incident reporting a claim processes for Tesla Robotaxi and ride-hailing operations.”

Essentially, Tesla could be looking to prepare for when it eventually will have to take liability for accidents completely. This would be when the company launches fully autonomous vehicles, meaning Cybercab and the Robotaxi program, specifically. It would also include passenger vehicles with Full Self-Driving.

Tesla is currently operating a Robotaxi program in Austin, Texas, as well as a ride-hailing platform in the California Bay Area.

These programs are the company’s first foray into ride-hailing, with or without someone in the driver’s seat of the vehicle. In Austin, Tesla operates most of its rides without a Safety Monitor in the driver’s seat. Only freeway routes require the Monitor to be directly behind the wheel.

In California, someone sits in the driver’s seat at all times.

The job posting seems to indicate that things could be relatively close in terms of solving self-driving, especially if Tesla is looking to fill a role that would handle autonomous insurance claims.

Of course, it will take Tesla to solve autonomy, and with the company aiming to start Cybercab production (without a steering wheel) in Q2 2025, it surely feels like it is on the brink of something great.

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Tesla snags Lamborghini alum to help in newly entered market

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tesla showroom
Credit: Tesla

Tesla has snagged a Lamborghini alum to help with its entrance into a new market, which has proven to be an intricate situation for the automaker.

A report from Bloomberg states that Tesla has hired Sharad Agarwal, who was formerly employed by the Italian luxury carmaker, to run its operations in India. With Lamborghini, he was employed to handle operations in India.

Tesla launches in India with Model Y, showing pricing will be biggest challenge

Tesla has gone through quite a few different team members with its launch in India, starting with a few hirings a few years ago, well before the company actually committed to selling cars in the country.

The move helps Tesla streamline its executive decision-making process, as it previously had employees in India reach out to managers based in China, among other areas. Agarwal will be stationed in India and will handle the company’s operations.

Tesla’s mentality behind the strategy is to have local leadership, something that seems to cater to the market specifically.

Tesla had previously put Isabel Fan, the manager of Southeast Asia for the company, in the position. However, Tesla seemed to want someone who was more permanent and would be dedicated to India exclusively.

India has the largest population on Earth and has a massive automotive market for that reason. Tesla stands to gain a lot from a strong performance in India, and its clean energy vehicles could help with pollution of all kinds in the region.

Tesla’s path to entrance in the Indian market was a long one, as the company tried for nearly ten years to get into the elusive region. Back in 2016, CEO Elon Musk said Tesla “would love to be in India,” teasing the Model 3.

By 2017, Tesla had met with officials from the country, but tried to get import duties down to nothing from 100 percent.

Indian authorities denied Tesla’s request.

For years, Musk met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to try and iron out a deal of some sort. Nothing truly came to fruition, at least until last year, when real movement started.

By 2024, India had introduced a strategy to reduce import duties for some companies, which was enough for Tesla to make a move. It is now 2025, and the company still has not committed to building a factory in the region. However, it is not completely out of the question.

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