News
SpaceX set for third Starlink launch in a row [webcast]
Update: SpaceX says that a Falcon 9 rocket is on track Starlink 4-11 from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB) no earlier than (NET) 9:12 am PST (17:12 UTC) on Friday, February 25th. The mission will be the third of five back-to-back Starlink launches planned in February and March 2022.
In lieu of commercial missions that are ready to fly, SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets are currently scheduled to launch at least five batches of Starlink satellites in a row.
The streak won’t break the company’s record of seven back-to-back Starlink launches but it does highlight one beneficial side-effect of SpaceX’s relentless pursuit of vertical integration – the ability to create its own launch demand. Just shy of two full months into 2022, SpaceX has launched seven times – three for paying customers and four for Starlink. Before February is over, the company is scheduled to launch at least one more batch of Starlink satellites for a total of eight launches in the first two months of the year.
Up next, SpaceX is scheduled to launch Starlink 4-11 out of its California-based Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB) SLC-4E facilities no earlier than (NET) 9:08 am PST (17:08 UTC), Friday, February 25th. Drone ship Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY) departed the Port of Long Beach for the mission on February 22nd and is headed around 640 kilometers (~400 mi) southeast to a booster landing area just off the coast of Baja California. Falcon 9 booster B1063 is scheduled to support the mission – its fourth launch overall and first since it helped launch NASA’s DART asteroid redirection spacecraft into interplanetary space in November 2021.
Up next, another Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to launch Starlink 4-9 as early as “mid-morning” EST on Thursday, March 3rd from its Kennedy Space Center LC-39A pad. Booster B1060 is reportedly scheduled to support the mission and will become the third SpaceX first stage to singlehandedly support eleven orbital-class launches if it does. Starlink 4-9 could be the pad’s last mission for a few weeks to give SpaceX enough time to convert its rocket transporter/erector for the March 30th launch of Axiom-1, which will send four private astronauts to the International Space Station.
Finally, SpaceX plans to launch Starlink 4-10 NET Tuesday, March 8th from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) Launch Complex 40 (LC-40). It’s likely that SpaceX will launch at least one more Starlink mission next month but a firm date has yet to be settled on. All told, including Starlink 4-7 (February 3rd) and Starlink 4-8 (February 21st), SpaceX is on track to launch at least five Starlink missions in a row, hopefully placing around 240 satellites (~200 after losing most of Starlink 4-7 to a “geomagnetic storm”) in orbit in less than five weeks.


More a sign of a lack of commercial missions ready for flight than anything else, SpaceX’s record for uninterrupted Starlink missions – set from February to April 2021 – is seven launches. Technically, SpaceX actually managed 12 Starlink launches between February and March, with just one commercial mission – Crew-2 – separating the lot. Barring surprises, SpaceX is thankfully unlikely to be hit by a similar streak in 2022.
There’s a chance that SpaceX will launch a batch of three O3B mPower satellites for SES next month. At a minimum, SpaceX is scheduled to launch a trio of Dragon missions over the next two or so months, beginning with Ax-1 NET March 30th. Another Crew Dragon is scheduled to launch Crew-4 for NASA on April 15th, followed by Cargo Dragon 2’s CRS-25 space station resupply mission as early as May 1st. Excluding Starlink missions and on top of the three commercial launches SpaceX has already completed this year, there are as many as 38 more commercial Falcon launches tentatively scheduled before the end of 2022.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s biggest test yet arrives this week and it’s not a rocket launch
SpaceX will report second quarter results after the market closes on Tuesday, August 4, marking the first time the company has opened its books to the public since its record IPO in June. Management will host a live audio only webcast at 4:30 p.m. ET, streamed on X, with no dial in option.
The debut carries more weight than a typical first quarter as a public company. Two trading days after the release, on August 6, the first tranche of SpaceX’s lockup expires, freeing roughly 911.5 million insider and employee shares, worth well over $100 billion at current prices and the largest such release in Wall Street history. A second, larger tranche tied to the stock trading 30 percent above its $135 IPO price never triggered, since shares have spent most of July trading below that price.
Wall Street’s models point to revenue near $6.9 billion for the quarter, up sharply from the $4.69 billion SpaceX reported in the first quarter, with a narrower per share loss than the $1.27 posted three months earlier, according to estimates compiled by Motley Fool. Those numbers will be the first look at how SpaceX’s three segments, Starlink, launch and AI, are performing independently.
SpaceX scores another massive Pentagon deal to support military satellites
Investors heading into the call have a specific list of questions. How many net new Starlink subscribers did SpaceX add after ending March with 10.3 million, and is average revenue per user holding up as the service expands into lower income markets. How much of the AI segment’s revenue reflects contract signings with Anthropic, Google and Reflection AI this year, deals that combined could annualize to nearly $28 billion if fully ramped. Whether capital expenditures, which nearly doubled in the AI segment alone between 2024 and 2025, are still accelerating or starting to plateau. And whether management offers any forward guidance at all, something SpaceX has never done publicly.
The report will also land days after Elon Musk publicly denied a Wall Street Journal report describing internal planning to separate Tesla’s China business ahead of a potential Tesla-SpaceX merger. Whether Musk or SpaceX executives address that speculation on the call, even indirectly, maybe something investors will be listening for on Tuesday.
As Teslarati reported after Musk’s own warning to short sellers last week, the CEO has made clear he expects skeptics to be proven wrong over time. Tuesday will be the first chance for the numbers themselves to make that case.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s Starship just got filmed by its own cargo
SpaceX released new footage of Starship in space captured by the Starlink satellites it deployed.
SpaceX released a new video Friday evening showing Starship from an angle showcased by its own Starlink satellites, watching the rocket drift away in orbit.
The 65 second clip, posted on X, stitches together footage from four cameras mounted on a single Starlink V3 satellite. It opens with a close view of Starship’s 171 foot upper stage, still catching sunlight, then pulls back as the two spacecraft separate.
The footage comes from Starship’s 13th flight test, which launched July 24 from Starbase after a scrubbed attempt and an abort caused by an engine issue the week before. When Flight 13 finally flew, it carried the first batch of functional Starlink V3 satellites Starship has ever deployed, twenty of them, with six equipped with cameras meant to scan the ship’s heat shield during reentry.
View of Starship in space from a Starlink V3 satellite on Flight 13.
This composite is made of imagery from four separate cameras on a single satellite. Six of the satellites were equipped with cameras to scan Starship’s heat shield and transmit imagery down to operators to… pic.twitter.com/sNTHHz5vLr
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 31, 2026
Flight 13 checked most of its boxes. Starship deployed all 20 satellites, relit a Raptor engine in space, and splashed down softly in the Indian Ocean off Western Australia. Musk’s longer term plan calls for a Starlink V3 constellation of 100,000 satellites, according to a recent FCC filing, with Starship as the only vehicle capable of launching them at the volume that requires. Each Starship flight is designed to carry up to 60 V3 satellites once the vehicle reaches routine service, well beyond what Falcon 9 can carry in a single mission.
Starship is next expected to fly with an attempt at catching the ship itself with the launch tower’s mechanical arms, a maneuver SpaceX has so far reserved for the Super Heavy booster.
News
Tesla Model Y L’s new features flexed at unveiling event at Diner
Tesla flexed the new features of the Model Y L with a dedicated media event at the company’s Diner on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles.
The Model Y L is the extended-wheelbase version of the all-electric crossover, which has been voted the best-selling car in the world on three occasions. The vehicle is already rolling off production lines at Gigafactory Texas, and first deliveries are slated to take place later this year.
Tesla brings Model Y L ‘Launch Series’ to the U.S. at $61,990
Teslarati was invited to the event, but due to some scheduling conflicts, we could not make it to Los Angeles. Instead, we will have our hands on a media unit sometime in August, so we’ll be able to spend some more extended time with the Model Y L.
However, plenty of those who made it to LA shared some cool features that set the Model Y L apart from the Model Y.
Multi-Row Climate Control
Tesla fitted the Model Y L with full climate control on all three rows on the front screen. It can be adjusted by selecting which row you’d like to modify on the right-hand side of the touch screen:
The Model Y L has a little row of icons on the right side of the climate screen so the front passenger can more quickly jump to whatever row they want to control. pic.twitter.com/uJS44mgCvk
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) July 30, 2026
Better Rear Window Visibility
One of the strangest things about the Model Y, especially the Juniper iteration, is the rear window has extremely limited visibility when looking into the rearview mirror.
Tesla has improved upon this with the Model Y L:
This is a drastic difference. https://t.co/wTdhitD5aA pic.twitter.com/z6hFs0Jkss
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 30, 2026
PowerShare will be included
Model Y L will come with PowerShare in North America, with an 11.5kW output to your home. Tesla said it would require Powerwall 3 for operation.
Wireless Charging Pad
There has been some speculation that Tesla would upgrade the wireless charging pads in the United States, but this is not the case.
Tesla owner fixes common feature complaint with crafty DIY retrofit
Tesla confirmed that it does not come with the cooled pads as the Y L in China does. This is because North America has not adopted Qi charging yet.
Thermal Management Improvements
These improvements in the Model Y L were seen with thermal management:
- Up to 15% faster cabin cooling
- +23% thermal efficiency gained in hot weather, 7 miles of real-world range gained
- 8x more solar energy reflection off of glass roof
- 30% reduction in solar energy entering the cabin
Some of the thermal management improvements in the new Model Y L Premium:
• Up to 15% faster cabin cooling
• Up to 15 min faster cabin cooling in sunny conditions
• +23% thermal efficiency gained in hot weather +7 miles of real-world range gained
• +10 miles recovered after… pic.twitter.com/jZirFWFdtO— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) July 31, 2026
Demand
Tesla said the Model Y L is almost sold out in the U.S. It comes with
- 1 year of FSD Supervised
- 1 year of Supercharging
- 1 year of Premium Connectivity
- Free exterior paint color, interior, and wheel option at no additional cost

