News
SpaceX delivers largest commercial satellite in kick off of Falcon 9 marathon
SpaceX has successfully completed its 13th launch of 2018, kicking off a marathon of three new Falcon 9 Block 5 booster debuts with the launch of the Telstar 19V communications satellite, potentially breaking the record for the largest commercial satellite ever launched at 7000 kg (15,500 lb).
Despite the heft of its payload and partially thanks to a slightly lower parking orbit for the satellite, Falcon 9 booster B1047 – the second Block 5 booster to roll off the assembly line – managed to successfully land aboard the autonomous spaceport drone ship (ASDS) Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY), stationed approximately 650 km (400 mi) off the Florida coast at launch time.
While the booster was unable to maintain a live video feed through its high-speed reentry and Atlantic landing, SpaceX’s cameras on OCISLY managed to reconnect a few seconds after touchdown to show the 50-meter (160-foot) tall rocket safely resting on the drone ship. As the webcast host noted, Falcon 9 Block 5 features a number of prominent upgrades designed to enable levels of reusability and reliability essentially unprecedented in the world of orbital rocketry.
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- B1047 created an extraordinary ring vortex rainbow as it smashed through Max Q, the point of highest aerodynamic stress on the rocket. (Tom Cross)
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- B1047 before the launch of Telstar 19V. (Tom Cross)
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- B1047 before the launch of Telstar 19V. (Tom Cross)
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- B1047 before the launch of Telstar 19V. (Tom Cross)
Rocket trials
Now more than two months after the first Block 5 booster’s – B1046 – debut in May 2018, the software engineer hosting SpaceX’s Telstar 19V webcast was likely speaking more from a place of experience than of hope. Per CEO Elon Musk’s press call just prior to Block 5’s debut, he noted that SpaceX intended to conduct an extensive analysis of that pathfinder booster, including significant disassembly and perhaps some limited destructive testing of certain critical or high-risk components. Musk didn’t expect B1046 to fly for at least another “couple of months”.
This is critical because SpaceX’s manifest over the next several weeks is fairly aggressive – Iridium-7 is scheduled to lift off from Vandenberg, CA three days from today (July 25th), the next Florida launch is aiming for a static fire next weekend and a launch NET 1:19 am EDT August 2, and the second imminent Florida mission is penciled in for launch NET 11:35 pm EDT August 17. Those rapid-fire Florida launches will push both SpaceX’s pad and drone ship turnaround capabilities to their limits, requiring almost non-stop work to ensure both are available for the next mission in two weeks or less.
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- SpaceX’s West Coast landing zone is preparing for its debut, currently NET October 6th 2018. (Pauline Acalin/Teslarati)
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- Falcon 9 B1047 prepped for launch at Pad 40, July 21. (SpaceX)
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- Prior to liftoff, Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy are held down by massive “hold-down clamps” at the rocket’s base. Even after engine ignition, those clamps only release once the flight computer decides that the rocket is healthy. (Pauline Acalin)
Not to be (at least relatively) one-upped, SpaceX’s Vandenberg launch pad – known as SLC-4E – is scheduled to push its own turnaround limits by flying two missions in roughly 40 days, just shy of the current SpaceX record of 36 days between launches. Perhaps more excitingly, that September 4 SAOCOM 1A mission looks like a prime candidate for the debut of SpaceX’s yet-unused Californian landing zone, barely spitting distance from the SLC-4E launch pad.
Still, the question remains: what boosters are going to launch these four missions?
- B1051 is not believed to have left the Hawthorne, CA factory yet, and has been stated by NASA to be reserved for the first uncrewed Crew Dragon mission (DM-1), unlikely to occur before Q4 2018.
- B1050 is currently on-stand in McGregor, TX and is likely to be shipped to a launch pad within a week or two.
- B1049 was almost certainly shipped to Florida to support either of the two upcoming August launches.
- B1048 will launch Iridium-7 on July 25, land on Just Read The Instructions, and likely remain in California for future VAFB missions.
- B1047 just successfully launched Telstar 19V (July 22) and will be brought back to Port Canaveral over the next several days before heading to one of SpaceX’s Florida refurbishment facilities, presumably to prepare for an imminent future launch.
- B1046 is likely disassembled in Hawthorne, CA, unable to support a launch for another few weeks – perhaps it’s nearly ready, however
Three Falcon 9 boosters captured in various states of transport and testing over the last six weeks, two of which are B1047 and B1048. (Teslarati/Tesla Motors Club/Reddit/Facebook)
Put simply, it seems almost impossible for SpaceX to accomplish its ambitious manifest over the next 4-6 weeks without reusing a freshly-recovered Falcon 9 Block 5 booster. B1046 is a possibility, as is B1047 or B1048, although the latter two options would smash SpaceX’s previous record for Falcon booster turnaround (~70 days) by more than half, requiring in a return to shore, refurbishment or nondestructive analysis, and preparation for a static fire in as few as ~14-21 days.
Regardless, B1047’s successful Telstar 19V launch and landing have kicked off what is bound to be an extremely exciting period for SpaceX and its aspirations of highly-reusable rocketry.
Follow us for live updates, peeks behind the scenes, and photos from Teslarati’s East and West Coast photographers
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Pauline Acalin – Twitter
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Elon Musk
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang commends Tesla’s Elon Musk for early belief
“And when I announced DGX-1, nobody in the world wanted it. I had no purchase orders, not one. Nobody wanted to buy it. Nobody wanted to be part of it, except for Elon.”
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast on Wednesday and commended Tesla CEO Elon Musk for his early belief in what is now the most valuable company in the world.
Huang and Musk are widely regarded as two of the greatest tech entrepreneurs of the modern era, with the two working in conjunction as NVIDIA’s chips are present in Tesla vehicles, particularly utilized for self-driving technology and data collection.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang regrets not investing more in Elon Musk’s xAI
Both CEOs defied all odds and created companies from virtually nothing. Musk joined Tesla in the early 2000s before the company had even established any plans to build a vehicle. Jensen created NVIDIA in the booth of a Denny’s restaurant, which has been memorialized with a plaque.
On the JRE episode, Rogan asked about Jensen’s relationship with Elon, to which the NVIDIA CEO said that Musk was there when nobody else was:
“I was lucky because I had known Elon Musk, and I helped him build the first computer for Model 3, the Model S, and when he wanted to start working on an autonomous vehicle. I helped him build the computer that went into the Model S AV system, his full self-driving system. We were basically the FSD computer version 1, and so we were already working together.
And when I announced DGX-1, nobody in the world wanted it. I had no purchase orders, not one. Nobody wanted to buy it. Nobody wanted to be part of it, except for Elon.
He goes ‘You know what, I have a company that could really use this.’ I said, Wow, my first customer. And he goes, it’s an AI company, and it’s a nonprofit and and we could really use one of these supercomputers. I boxed one up, I drove it up to San Francisco, and I delivered it to the Elon in 2016.”
The first DGX-1 AI supercomputer was delivered personally to Musk when he was with OpenAI, which provided crucial early compute power for AI research, accelerating breakthroughs in machine learning that underpin modern tools like ChatGPT.
Tesla’s Nvidia purchases could reach $4 billion this year: Musk
The long-term alliance between NVIDIA and Tesla has driven over $2 trillion in the company’s market value since 2016.
Elon Musk
GM CEO Mary Barra says she told Biden to give Tesla and Musk EV credit
“He was crediting me, and I said, ‘Actually, I think a lot of that credit goes to Elon and Tesla…You know me, Andrew. I don’t want to take credit for things.”
General Motors CEO Mary Barra said in a new interview on Wednesday that she told President Joe Biden to credit Tesla and its CEO, Elon Musk, for the widespread electric vehicle transition.
She said she told Biden this after the former President credited her and GM for leading EV efforts in the United States.
During an interview at the New York Times Dealbook Summit with Andrew Ross Sorkin, Barra said she told Biden that crediting her was essentially a mistake, and that Musk and Tesla should have been explicitly mentioned (via Business Insider):
“He was crediting me, and I said, ‘Actually, I think a lot of that credit goes to Elon and Tesla…You know me, Andrew. I don’t want to take credit for things.”
GM CEO Mary Barra said to Andrew Sorkin at the New York Times Dealbook Summit that she pulled President Biden aside and said Tesla CEO @elonmusk deserved the credit for EVs:
“He was crediting me, and I said, ‘Actually, I think a lot of that credit goes to Elon and Tesla,’” Barra… pic.twitter.com/OHBTG1QfbJ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) December 3, 2025
Back in 2021, President Biden visited GM’s “Factory Zero” plant in Detroit, which was the centerpiece of the company’s massive transition to EVs. The former President went on to discuss the EV industry, and claimed that GM and Barra were the true leaders who caused the change:
“In the auto industry, Detroit is leading the world in electric vehicles. You know how critical it is? Mary, I remember talking to you way back in January about the need for America to lead in electric vehicles. I can remember your dramatic announcement that by 2035, GM would be 100% electric. You changed the whole story, Mary. You did, Mary. You electrified the entire automotive industry. I’m serious. You led, and it matters.”
People were baffled by the President’s decision to highlight GM and Barra, and not Tesla and Musk, who truly started the transition to EVs. GM, Ford, and many other companies only followed in the footsteps of Tesla after it started to take market share from them.
Elon Musk and Tesla try to save legacy automakers from Déjà vu
Musk would eventually go on to talk about Biden’s words later on:
“They have so much power over the White House that they can exclude Tesla from an EV Summit. And, in case the first thing, in case that wasn’t enough, then you have President Biden with Mary Barra at a subsequent event, congratulating Mary for having led the EV revolution.”
In Q4 2021, which was shortly after Biden’s comments, Tesla delivered 300,000 EVs. GM delivered just 26.
News
Tesla Full Self-Driving shows confident navigation in heavy snow
So far, from what we’ve seen, snow has not been a huge issue for the most recent Full Self-Driving release. It seems to be acting confidently and handling even snow-covered roads with relative ease.
Tesla Full Self-Driving is getting its first taste of Winter weather for late 2025, as snow is starting to fall all across the United States.
The suite has been vastly improved after Tesla released v14 to many owners with capable hardware, and driving performance, along with overall behavior, has really been something to admire. This is by far the best version of FSD Tesla has ever released, and although there are a handful of regressions with each subsequent release, they are usually cleared up within a week or two.
Tesla is releasing a modified version of FSD v14 for Hardware 3 owners: here’s when
However, adverse weather conditions are something that Tesla will have to confront, as heavy rain, snow, and other interesting situations are bound to occur. In order for the vehicles to be fully autonomous, they will have to go through these scenarios safely and accurately.
One big issue I’ve had, especially in heavy rain, is that the camera vision might be obstructed, which will display messages that certain features’ performance might be degraded.
So far, from what we’ve seen, snow has not been a huge issue for the most recent Full Self-Driving release. It seems to be acting confidently and handling even snow-covered roads with relative ease:
FSD 14.1.4 snow storm Ontario Canada pic.twitter.com/jwK1dLYT0w
— Everything AI (@mrteslaspace) November 17, 2025
I found the steepest, unplowed hill in my area and tested the following:
• FSD 14.2.1 on summer tires
• FSD 14.2.1 on winter tires
• Manual drivingBut I think the most impressive part was how FSD went DOWN the hill. FSD in the snow is sublime $TSLA pic.twitter.com/YMcN7Br3PU
— Dillon Loomis (@DillonLoomis) December 2, 2025
Well.. I couldn’t let the boys have all the fun!
Threw the GoPro up and decided to FSD v14.2.1 in the snow. Roads were not compacted like the other day, a little slippery, but overall doable at lower speeds. Enjoy the video and holiday music 🎶
Liked:
Took turns super slow… pic.twitter.com/rIAIeh3Zu3— 🦋Diana🦋 (@99_Colorado) December 3, 2025
Moving into the winter months, it will be very interesting to see how FSD handles even more concerning conditions, especially with black ice, freezing rain and snow mix, and other things that happen during colder conditions.
We are excited to test it ourselves, but I am waiting for heavy snowfall to make it to Pennsylvania so I can truly push it to the limit.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang commends Tesla’s Elon Musk for early belief
GM CEO Mary Barra says she told Biden to give Tesla and Musk EV credit
