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SpaceX teases extreme Falcon 9 launch cadence goals in Starship planning doc
Published as part of an August 2019 environmental assessment (EA) draft for Starship’s prospective Pad 39A launch facilities, SpaceX revealed plans for a truly mindboggling number of annual Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches by 2024.
As environmental planning documents, the figures should be taken with a large grain of salt and be treated as near-absolute ceilings rather than practical goals. Nevertheless, SpaceX revealed plans for its two Florida launch sites (LC-40 and LC-39A) to ultimately support as many as 70 annual launches of Falcon 9 and Heavy by 2024, less than five years from now.
Simply put, even the most dogmatic fan would have to balk at least a little bit at the numbers SpaceX suggested in its Starship EA draft. More specifically, SpaceX apparently has plans to support as many as 20 annual Falcon 9/Heavy launches from Pad 39A and an incredible 50 annual Falcon 9 launches from LC-40 as early as 2024.
“SpaceX plans to increase the Falcon launch frequency to 20 launches per year from LC-39A and up to 50 launches per year from LC-40 by the year 2024. However, as Starship/Super Heavy launches gradually increase to 24 launches per year, the number of launches of the Falcon would decrease.“
–SpaceX, Starship Environmental Assessment Draft, August 2019
Two obvious options
Given just how significant of an increase a 70-launch annual cadence would be for SpaceX relative to their current record of 21 launches, it’s entirely possible that these numbers are really just a pipe dream included in a pending environmental assessment to hedge bets just in case a similar launch frequency is achieved over the next five years.
On the other hand, it’s possible that SpaceX – just now coming into the ability to reliably achieve a much higher cadence – has coincidentally become payload-constrained at almost the same time, meaning that the company’s customers’ payloads just aren’t ready for launch. This would explain, for example, why SpaceX has only launched 10 times this year when the company had already completed 15 launches by August 2018.
Additionally, it can be almost unequivocally assumed that all but 15-20 of those supposed 70 annual launches would come from SpaceX’s own internal demand for Starlink launch capacity. Assuming no improvements between now and 2024, 50 Falcon 9 launches could place as many as 3000 Starlink satellites in orbit in a single year, equivalent to more than 25% of the entire proposed ~11,800-satellite constellation.
Barring regulatory changes to US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and International Telecommunication Union (ITU) requirements, SpaceX must launch at least half of all Starlink satellites (~5900) by November 2024 and finish launching the remaining ~5900 by November 2027. If SpaceX fails to reach those deployment milestones, the company runs the risk of losing Starlink’s domestic and international licenses to operate.
This would help to explain why SpaceX says that it’s planning to reach a maximum cadence of 70 annual launches “by 2024”, given that 2024 will be a pivotal year in the eyes of regulations currently in effect for Starlink.
Starship confusion
As noted in the quote above, SpaceX plans to eventually phase out Falcon 9 and Heavy launches as the company’s next-generation Starship and Super Heavy launch vehicle gradually comes online, proves itself reliable, and begins operational launch activities. According to SpaceX, given just how much mass Starship can nominally launch relative to both Falcon 9 and Heavy, far fewer launches will be needed to accomplish the tasks that would otherwise require several times more launches of SpaceX’s smaller vehicles.
SpaceX’s initial Environmental Assessment for Starship launches from Pad 39A caps the rocket’s maximum cadence at 24 annual launches. Oddly, this directly contradicts the goals set for Starship (formerly BFR) by CEO Elon Musk and SpaceX more generally. By building a launch vehicle that is fully and rapidly reusable, the goal has long been to deliver cheap, aircraft-like access to orbit at a completely unprecedented scale.
This would technically mean that SpaceX could actually dramatically increase its launch cadence without increasing costs, allowing the company to perform currently nonsensical missions where Starship might launch payloads weighing just 5-10% of its total payload capacity. Airline operations routinely do things of a similar nature, sometimes flying just a fraction of their maximum passenger load to destinations for a variety of reasons.
Additionally, SpaceX has consistently indicated that Starship will rely heavily on orbital refueling to accomplish its ultimate deep space ambitions. Previous presentations from Elon Musk have shown that launches to the Mars or Moon with significant payload would require no fewer than five separate tanker launches and orbital refuelings, all of which would classify as one of the 24 annual launches SpaceX has described in its August 2019 EA draft. On their own, launching two Starships to Mars with 100 tons of payload each would require no fewer than 10-12 launches.
Ultimately, it’s unwise to draw any substantial conclusions from an Environmental Assessment like the one the above information has been taken from. This 39A-specific EA also ignores the possibility of a similar launch facility being developed in Boca Chica, Texas, which SpaceX explicitly acknowledges.
This particular draft is also the first Starship-related EA ever filed by SpaceX, and the company may thus be treating it more as a bare minimum with the intention of eventually pursuing far more ambitious launch rates once Starship has been established.
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Tesla is being sued by the family of the woman who was killed in a Texas crash involving a Model 3. The driver, who is also being sued, claimed the vehicle was operating on Autopilot mode, but Tesla executives have come out challenging that claim, stating that the driver of the vehicle overrode the system.
The lawsuit was filed by 76-year-old Martha Avila’s daughter and her husband, who allege a “design defect” involving a Tesla and a failure to warn. The suit alleges negligence against Tesla and the driver, Michael Butler.
Butler “stated he was operating with an automated driving assistance system engaged at the time of the crash,” the Harris County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. He showed no signs of intoxication and was cooperative, the Sheriff’s Office said, according to NBC News.
Just after reports of the crash and numerous headlines that immediately blamed Tesla’s Autopilot suite, both Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Head of AI Ashok Elluswamy challenged that. Musk said the crash made “no sense” given that Tesla Autopilot and Full Self-Driving do not travel at the speeds the door cameras captured the car traveling at, which Tesla says was 73 MPH.
Tesla finally clarifies fatal Texas crash, confirms driver manually overrode acceleration
Elluswamy also revealed that Tesla data showed Butler overrode the system by pressing the accelerator to 100%, and that the pedal was compressed fully even after the car had crashed. Tesla has not released this data to the public, likely because it is communicating with agencies like the NHTSA on an investigation.
The suit uses a Washington Post analysis of government data that “identified at least 17 fatal incidents linked to Tesla Autopilot.”
This is far from the first time an accident has been blamed on Autopilot. A fatal crash in Texas was blamed on Autopilot several years ago, but when Tesla released data to the NTSB, which was investigating the crash, Autopilot was not available where the crash occurred, and Autosteer was never enabled, meaning the car was manually controlled at the time of the accident.
“Application of the accelerator pedal was found to be as high as 98.8 percent,” the NTSB said in their findings. The highest recorded speed in the five seconds leading up to the impact was 67 miles per hour. The area where the crash occurred is residential, and Texas State laws… pic.twitter.com/XGD97NHVZ2
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) March 18, 2026
More information on the accident will be released as Tesla works with agencies to find the cause of the crash. From personal experience, it is hard to imagine Tesla Autopilot or FSD operating in this manner. It drives sometimes too cautiously in residential areas in parking lots, at least in my experience. Speeding happens, but at this rate in this type of area, it is hard to believe.
We look forward to more details being released with time.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has awarded the 2025-2026 Tesla Cybertruck crew cab pickup its highest honor: Top Safety Pick+. This marks the Cybertruck as the only full-size pickup to achieve this distinction in recent evaluations.
The award applies specifically to vehicles built after April 2025, following structural upgrades including front underbody reinforcements and footwell modifications.
These changes enabled strong performance in updated crash tests. The Cybertruck earned “Good” ratings in the small overlap front (driver and passenger sides), updated moderate overlap front, and updated side tests—core requirements for the Top Safety Pick+ designation.
It also secured acceptable or good headlights across trims and a “Good” rating for its standard front crash prevention system in pedestrian scenarios, along with acceptable or good performance in vehicle-to-vehicle testing.
The Cybertruck avoided every single pedestrian collision, including:
- Daytime child crossing
- Nightitime adult crossing
- Night parallel adult
In IIHS pedestrian front crash prevention tests, @Cybertruck avoided every single collision – daytime, nighttime & different angles
It was also the only pickup to earn Top Safety Pick+ (highest award) in 2026https://t.co/BNPqT9TbsW pic.twitter.com/M6nwDisBFK
— Tesla (@Tesla) June 24, 2026
In the large pickup category, competitors such as the Toyota Tundra received only a standard Top Safety Pick, while the Ford F-150 and Ram 1500 did not qualify for either award. This positions the Cybertruck as a standout in occupant protection and crash avoidance among its peers.
Credit: IIHS
Ironically, the same vehicle celebrated for superior U.S. safety performance remains banned from public roads in the United Kingdom and much of Europe. Regulators there cite the Cybertruck’s sharp external edges and highly rigid stainless-steel construction as failing pedestrian-protection standards. European and UK rules require rounded surfaces on protruding parts to minimize injury risk in collisions with vulnerable road users.
Critics also point to the truck’s substantial weight and unyielding body structure, which some argue could transfer more force to other vehicles or pedestrians rather than absorbing it.
Tesla’s engineering philosophy underpins the Cybertruck’s strong IIHS results. The vehicle features a distinctive stainless-steel exoskeleton made from ultra-hard 30X cold-rolled stainless steel. This provides exceptional structural rigidity and a robust safety cage that resists deformation in side impacts and rollovers.
Engineers designed integrated load paths to channel crash forces away from the occupant compartment while allowing controlled energy absorption in key zones. Post-April 2025 refinements to the front underbody further optimized performance in overlap crashes.
Complementing the passive structure is Tesla’s advanced active safety suite, including the standard Collision Avoidance Assist system with automatic emergency braking. This contributed directly to the vehicle’s strong front crash prevention scores. The skateboard platform and low center of gravity also enhance stability and handling, reducing the likelihood of certain crashes.
The IIHS recognition highlights how Tesla’s combination of high-strength materials, structural innovation, and software-driven safety systems can deliver top-tier protection in rigorous testing. While global regulatory differences on design and pedestrian interaction continue to limit the Cybertruck’s availability outside North America, its U.S. safety credentials set a new benchmark for full-size pickups.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s newest Starmind will make earth data centers obsolete
Elon Musk confirmed Starmind as SpaceX’s AI satellite constellation name, targeting one million orbital compute nodes.
Elon Musk confirmed that Starmind will be the official name of SpaceX’s planned AI satellite constellation, following a trademark filing by xAI that surfaced earlier this week. Starmind is what’s being described to the FCC as a constellation of up to one million AI satellites
It’s worth noting that SpaceX’s Starlink communication satellite and Starmind are built on the same orbital infrastructure concept but serve entirely different purposes. Starlink is a connectivity network, with satellites receiving and relaying data between points on Earth, and functioning as a high-speed internet backbone in space. The satellites themselves do not process or think, and move information from one place to another, the same function a fiber cable performs underground.
SpaceX just forced Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile to team up for the first time in history
Starmind, on the other hand, is something completely different, and tather than moving data, its satellites would compute data through artificial intelligence and directly in orbit using onboard processors powered by large solar arrays. Where a Starlink satellite is essentially a very fast pipe, a Starmind satellite is a server. The practical implication is that Starmind would allow AI models to run inference, process queries, and generate outputs from space, then beam results down to users anywhere on Earth within milliseconds, and without the data ever needing to travel to a terrestrial data center.
Starship will be able to carry 30 to 50 AI1 satellites per launch, delivering the equivalent of dozens of server racks per flight, with no land acquisition, no power grid approval, and no cooling infrastructure required on the ground.
SpaceX is pursuing this new technology as terrestrial data centers are running into hard limits such as lack of physical space, community opposition, and power and water consumption at a scale that is increasingly difficult to permit. Space has unlimited solar power, natural vacuum cooling, and no zoning boards. Musk said in a June 8 video presentation that he expects space to become the lowest-cost location to deploy AI compute within two to three years. Two AI1 prototypes are scheduled to launch in early 2027, with volume production targeted for the end of that year at a new facility called Gigasat.
The real world applications Starmind enables extend well beyond powering Grok. A constellation of orbiting AI processors could run inference workloads for any paying customer, anywhere on Earth, with latency measured in milliseconds rather than the seconds associated with ground-based cloud routing across continents. Starmind, if it scales as described, would make SpaceX the landlord of AI compute the same way Starlink made it the landlord of satellite internet.
Tesla and driver sued by family of woman killed in Texas crash: what we know
Tesla Cybertruck is officially the safest pickup, IIHS says
