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SpaceX sets Dragon reuse record, debuts drone ship on first launch in two months
Update #2: After a 24-hour weather delay, conditions were far more favorable on August 29th, allowing a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to lift off for the first time in almost two months and send a cargo-filled Dragon spacecraft on its way to the International Space Station (ISS).
Aside from marking the end of SpaceX’s longest launch hiatus in two years, CRS-23’s successful liftoff also means that the company has smashed the world record for fastest orbital space capsule reuse. As part of Cargo Dragon 2’s first reuse ever, SpaceX launched Dragon C208 just seven and a half months (227d) after its first orbital reentry and splashdown, handily beating the previous record of 328 days. Additionally, flying for the fourth time, Falcon 9 booster B1064 became the first rocket to land on brand new SpaceX drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas (ASOG) after sending Dragon C208 on its way to the ISS.
Getting a nice view of CRS-23's trunk as it separates, confirming no trunk cargo on this flight. pic.twitter.com/ZeJjviKqFE— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) August 29, 2021
Update: Although the weather forecast has worsened, SpaceX remains on track to attempt its first launch in eight weeks – a mission that will also smash one of the company’s orbital spacecraft reusability records.
While mostly mundane, a system preceding Tropical Storm Ida is producing conditions less than optimal for rocket launches, raising the risk of in-flight lightning strikes and the chances of Falcon 9 and Dragon flying through clouds containing precipitation (rain/ice/etc). Ultimately, that means that there’s just a 40% chance (down from 50% in the last few days) that weather conditions will be favorable for SpaceX to launch CRS-23. Regardless, barring a surprise announcement in the next few hours, it appears that there’s enough of a chance that SpaceX and NASA will still make an attempt.
If all goes according to plan, a flight-proven Falcon 9 rocket will send an upgraded Cargo Dragon on the way to orbit for the second time in seven months – almost twice as fast a turnaround as SpaceX’s ~340-day record for orbital spacecraft reuse. Tune in below around 3:20am EDT (07:20 UTC) to catch the hopeful launch live.
For the first time in more than nine weeks, SpaceX has completed a routine Falcon 9 preflight test known as a static fire and verified that the rocket is ready to launch later this week.
Save for at least one booster qualification test completed at SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas development facilities, Falcon 9’s August 25th static fire is the first since June 22nd. The upgraded Cargo Dragon space station resupply mission the rocket will support will also be SpaceX’s first launch since June 30th – the company’s longest hiatus between launches since a three-month pause that began two years ago.
Now, just a few days before that drought is expected to end, a SpaceX executive has partially explained why the company hasn’t launched a single Falcon rocket in ~60 days after completing a record 20 orbital launches in the first half of 2021.
Speaking at the 2021 Space Symposium on August 24th, SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell revealed that the company had chosen to pause Starlink missions (representing the vast majority of its 2021 launches) and focus on preparing a new generation of satellites for flight. Believed to be called Starlink V1.5, those new satellites represent a relatively small design change save for one crucial addition: multiple lasers.
All the way back in mid-2018, SpaceX launched its very first pair of Starlink prototype satellites – spacecraft that largely functioned as expected and provided a wealth of data but were almost nothing like the Starlink V0.9 and V1.0 spacecraft SpaceX would eventually start launching in 2019. Nevertheless, they did carry sets of small lasers generally known as optical intersatellite links or OISLs for short. Not radically dissimilar to the hundreds of thousands of miles of fiber optic cables that make up the backbone of the internet, lasers operating in the vacuum of space can effectively mirror the extraordinary bandwidth and performance offered by fiber connections – but wirelessly.
Instead of carefully insulated cables filled with tiny threads of glass, which really just serve as a controlled environment for light-based communications, OISLs enable a similar feat by replacing cables with extraordinarily precise mechanisms capable of aiming lasers with sub-millimeter precision from dozens or hundreds of miles away. As a result, laser interlinks are fairly complex and expensive devices – not something currently economical to install on thousands of satellites mainly focused on affordability.
SpaceX, of course, has wanted to install unprecedentedly affordable laser interlinks on thousands of Starlink satellites for as long as the constellation has been publicly discussed. If realized, it would create an extraordinary orbital mesh network that would allow Starlink to self-route a large portion of user communications without the need for a colossal network of tens of thousands of ground stations covering every inch of Earth – land, sea, ice, and all. A Starlink constellation with near-universal laser interlinks could also potentially allow the constellation to not only match – but beat by a large margin – the latency of best-case terrestrial fiber-optic connections.
After effectively completing Starlink’s first ‘shell’ of satellites earlier this year, SpaceX shifted its focus to preparing for polar Starlink launches from both its west and east coast facilities. While the first shell lacked interlinks entirely, SpaceX appears to have decided that all polar Starlink satellites will be launched with its own custom-built space lasers, even if that means delaying Starlink launches until those lasers are ready for action. Due to the fact that the vast majority of SpaceX’s launches as of late have been its own Starlink missions, the company’s Falcon rockets simply haven’t had anything to launch.
That should change on August 28th, when a thrice-flown Falcon 9 booster launches a refurbished spacecraft on its second orbital space station resupply – a first for SpaceX’s upgraded Cargo Dragon 2 vehicle. A Shortfall of Gravitas (ASOG), SpaceX’s newest drone ship, will also be supporting its first Falcon landing ever as part of CRS-23, hopefully recovering Falcon 9 booster B1064 for a fifth launch later this year.
Tune in around 3:20am (07:20 UTC) on Saturday, August 28th to watch SpaceX’s first launch in two months live.
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Tesla Robotaxi app update now tells riders if Cybercab is the better choice
Tesla’s Robotaxi app now shows ETAs, wait times and availability for Cybercab and Model Y.
Tesla has rolled out a new vehicle selection screen in its Robotaxi app, and it puts the numbers riders care about most in front of them before they book.
Version 26.11.0 of the app shows the estimated arrival time, the expected wait and current availability for each vehicle option on a single screen, according to a video shared by @gheeunit on X on November 7. Riders deciding between a Cybercab and a Model Y Robotaxi can now compare those figures side by side instead of picking a car first and learning how long it will take afterward.
Tesla first gave riders that choice on September 3, the day paid Cybercab rides began in Austin. The original version of the screen listed the Cybercab, which seats two, next to the Model Y, which seats four. A later build, 26.8.2, added a seating capacity indicator so groups knew which car would fit them. What it did not show was whether choosing the Cybercab meant standing on the curb a few extra minutes.
Newest version of @robotaxi app has a new vehicle selector UI for choosing between Cybercab and Model Y and shows you the fare for both simultaneously! https://t.co/7qoDQ0vACX — mantequilla 🧈 (@gheeunit) November 7, 2026
That question matters more now than it did two months ago. Tesla had 45 Cybercabs on the Texas DMV roster when rides started. By late October the state listed 573, alongside 631 Model Ys, and community trackers logged a record 1,576 Cybercab sightings across Austin on Halloween alone. With two large fleets sharing one service area, the closest car and the quickest pickup are not always the same vehicle.
Inline availability also changes what happens when demand spikes. If no Cybercab is free nearby, the rider sees that on the selection screen rather than after trying to book one.
For now the comparison is mostly an Austin feature. Riders in Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth and the Florida markets are still matched with Model Y vehicles, though Tesla said on its third quarter earnings call that Cybercab rides would launch in Dallas this month.
The update follows a steady run of smaller changes to the rider experience. Late last month Tesla brought a quiet mode that blacks out the cabin screen to Model Y Robotaxis after first testing it in the Cybercab, and it has stretched Austin service to run from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m.
The Cybercab side of that selection screen is about to get much busier. Elon Musk said this week that Tesla will wind down Cybertruck production at Gigafactory Texas around the middle of 2027 to make room for more Cybercab output, and Tesla has said it is aiming to get Cybercabs to customers by the end of this year.
Tesla has not published official release notes for version 26.11.0.
Tesla is ending Cybertruck production sometime in mid-2027, according to CEO Elon Musk.
Musk made the announcement on X last night, which came as a shock to many. He said that the Cybertruck will end production “to make room for increased Cybercab production” at Gigafactory Texas.
It is a huge blow to the fans of Tesla who have come to love the Cybertruck and identify with it as a symbol of their fandom. It has been the best-selling electric pickup, but it has had an underwhelming sales performance in terms of what was expected. This is mostly due to Tesla not meeting the prices it planned to offer the Cybertruck, as its unveiling and actual release were four years apart.
Tesla will be winding down production of the Cybertruck at Gigafactory Texas around the middle of next year to make room for increased Cybercab production
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 6, 2026
Overall, the responses were mixed. Some fans understood the move toward Cybercab production, especially as Tesla is truly pushing the autonomous future through its Robotaxi platform. However, others did not understand it.
“Damn, how many Cybercabs do you guys need?” one response read. Another said it was “Sad but understandable.”Even analyst Gary Black had responded to the news, stating he hoped Tesla planned to replace it with a traditional pickup design.
It doesn’t seem like that will be the case.
Tesla is so hell-bent on delivering autonomy and eventually providing a driverless service that owning a car seems like an arbitrary idea, according to their thesis. Instead, Cybercabs will be available to pick you up and drop you off on demand, safely, without any human help.
As a result, Tesla has thinned its lineup considerably, and one can only ask where the vehicle lineup goes from here. Eventually, it seems like Cybercab could be the only vehicle that Tesla will sell.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s next Starship flight set to make history on Friday the 13th
SpaceX is targeting Friday, November 13 for Starship Flight 15 and its first ship catch.
SpaceX is targeting Friday, November 13 for Starship Flight 15, the mission the company plans to use for its first attempt at catching the ship itself with the launch tower.
SpaceX Vice President of Launch Kiko Dontchev shared the date on stage at the UP.Summit on Thursday, according to Ars Technica’s Eric Berger, who was in attendance. It is the first launch target to come directly from a SpaceX executive. Until now, the public schedule had relied on FAA air traffic planning slides, which listed Flight 15 for no earlier than November 8 and later November 12. SpaceX has not posted an official mission page yet, and no launch time has been shared.
The date lands inside the window Elon Musk sketched out last month. Speaking at Giga Texas on October 10, Musk said the flight would “probably launch a little bit before Thanksgiving,” as Teslarati reported. On SpaceX’s third quarter earnings call ten days later, he confirmed that Flight 15 would try to catch both the Super Heavy booster and the ship, and put the odds of a successful ship catch at “more likely than not.” SpaceX also aired an animation of the maneuver during that webcast, showing the ship swinging vertical over Starbase before dropping into the tower’s chopsticks.
The hardware is ready. Booster 22 fired all 33 of its Raptor engines for a full duration static fire at Pad 2 on October 25. Ship 42 followed with a single engine burn simulating a deorbit maneuver on October 26 and a 60 second firing of all six engines the next day, according to NASASpaceflight. Ship 42 had already rehearsed the catch in September, when the Pad 2 arms lifted it into position and crews connected the quick disconnect arm while the vehicle hung from the tower.
The remaining hurdle is regulatory. The FAA’s Starship page does not yet list a Flight 15 license. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said in October that, after “significant constructive engagement with the FAA,” she expects the license to cover a return to the launch site and a tower catch for both stages. Bringing the ship home means a reentry path that heads toward land, rather than ending over open ocean as every Starship flight so far has.
SpaceX has caught Super Heavy three times, on Flights 5, 7 and 8, but the ship comes back from orbital velocity and has never been caught. Flight 14 on September 28 was the first Starship to reach orbit, deploying 26 Starlink V3 satellites before splashing down despite an early engine shutdown that Musk blamed on engine computer software.
Musk has called a successful ship catch “the first time that there’s been full recovery of an orbital class rocket,” and he has already named the step after it: a Flight 16 where both the booster and the ship fly again. NASASpaceflight reports that Ship 43, the next vehicle in line, is set for static fire testing in December.
Tesla Robotaxi app update now tells riders if Cybercab is the better choice
Tesla is ending Cybertruck production
