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SpaceX Falcon 9’s next major US Air Force launch slips into early 2020 ahead of busy Q4
According to an August 20th update from the US Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC), SpaceX’s next dedicated USAF launch – the third completed GPS III spacecraft – has slipped one month and is now scheduled no earlier than (NET) January 2020.
Known as GPS III Space Vehicle 03 (SV03), SpaceX’s next US military launch will follow just a few months after United Launch Alliance (ULA) is set to launch GPS III SV02, scheduled to lift off at 9am EDT, August 22nd. SpaceX kicked off the lengthy GPS III launch campaign in December 2018, successfully placing the ~3900 kg (8600 lb) communications and geolocation spacecraft into a transfer orbit. The mission also marked SpaceX’s first intentionally expendable Falcon 9 Block 5 launch, a trend that may or may not continue with the company’s next GPS launch.
Known as GPS Block IIIA, SV01-03 are the first three of a batch of 10 spacecraft total, produced by Lockheed Martin for an anticipated cost of roughly $600M apiece. The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) expects [PDF] little to no cost savings per unit for Block IIIA’s follow-up, Block IIIF, in which 22 additional GPS III spacecraft will be built to fully upgrade the military’s GPS constellation. GAO estimates that those 22 satellites – likely to also be built by Lockheed Martin – will cost an incredible $12B, or ~$550M apiece.
On the scale of the US military’s woefully inefficient space procurement apparatus, ~$600M per satellite is sadly a pretty good deal. Two equally modern USAF satellite acquisition programs – the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) and Space-Based Infrared System constellations – have both surpassed their initial cost estimates by more than a factor of two. Over the entire program, GAO estimates that six AEHF satellites no less than $3 billion each, while SBIRS is in even worse shape with six new satellites expected to cost $3.2 billion apiece.
Meanwhile, the Raytheon-built ‘OCX’ ground systems needed to take advantage of the ~$19B GPS III satellite upgrades has been just as much of an acquisition boondoggle, nearly doubling in cost over the last few years, bringing its final cost to no less than $6.2B after years of delays. All told, completing the upgraded GPS III constellation can be expected to cost a bare minimum of $25B. This cost doesn’t even include launches, but the cost of launching all the spacecraft is – in a rare instance – going to be a small fraction of the overall acquisition, perhaps $3-4B for all 32 satellites.
Regardless of the nightmarish costs and general inefficiency, Lockheed Martin and the USAF continue to slowly march towards initial GPS III operability. August 22nd’s ULA launch and January 2020’s SpaceX launch will take significant steps towards that capability, and will – with any luck – be followed by an additional two Falcon 9 GPS III launches in 2020. Six of ten IIIA satellites have already had launch contracts awarded, five of six of which were awarded to SpaceX.
End-of-year fireworks
GPS III SV03’s slip from December 2019 to January 2020 comes as plans for an ambitious final quarter have begun to take shape for SpaceX. Oddly, SpaceX is currently going through more than two months of downtime between its most recent launch (AMOS-17, August 6th) and its next mission (Starlink 1, NET late October). This will be the longest SpaceX has gone without launching since a catastrophic Falcon 9 failure grounded the company’s launch operations from September 2016 to January 2017.
By all appearances, customers’ payloads just aren’t ready, while SpaceX’s own Starlink constellation team is hard at work updating the satellite design and preparing for two back-to-back launches as early as October and November, potentially placing 120 high-performance satellites in orbit.
Aside from two Starlink launches scheduled in late-October and November, SpaceX has at least six other missions that could potentially launch in Q4 2019.
| Launch | Date (No Earlier Than) |
| Starlink 1 | October 17th |
| Starlink 2 | November 4th |
| Crew Dragon – In-Flight Abort | November 11th |
| ANASIS-II – South Korea | November – TBD |
| JCSat-18/Kacific-1 | November – TBD |
| Cargo Dragon CRS-19 | December 4th |
| Sirius XM-7 (SXM-7) | Q4 2019 – TBD |
| Crew Dragon – Demo-2 | December – TBD |
A lack of updates from Sirius XM and the fact that Crew Dragon’s Demo-2 launch will rely entirely upon the successful completion of its prior In-Flight Abort (IFA) mean that both will very likely slip into 2020. The remaining six launches, however, have a very decent chance of launching in 2019, assuming everything goes perfectly during satellite, Falcon 9, and launch pad pre-flight preparations.
SpaceX has successfully completed six launches in three months several times before, so six launches in Q4 2019 is entirely achievable, even if a pragmatist would do well to expect additional delays into 2020.
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Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s X will start using a Tesla-like software update strategy
The initiative seems designed to accelerate updates to the social media platform, while maintaining maximum transparency.
Elon Musk’s social media platform X will adopt a Tesla-esque approach to software updates for its algorithm.
The initiative seems designed to accelerate updates to the social media platform, while maintaining maximum transparency.
X’s updates to its updates
As per Musk in a post on X, the social media company will be making a new algorithm to determine what organic and advertising posts are recommended to users. These updates would then be repeated every four weeks.
“We will make the new 𝕏 algorithm, including all code used to determine what organic and advertising posts are recommended to users, open source in 7 days. This will be repeated every 4 weeks, with comprehensive developer notes, to help you understand what changed,” Musk wrote in his post.
The initiative somewhat mirrors Tesla’s over-the-air update model, where vehicle software is regularly refined and pushed to users with detailed release notes. This should allow users to better understand the details of X’s every update and foster a healthy feedback loop for the social media platform.
xAI and X
X, formerly Twitter, has been acquired by Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI last year. Since then, xAI has seen a rapid rise in valuation. Following the company’s the company’s upsized $20 billion Series E funding round, estimates now suggest that xAI is worth tens about $230 to $235 billion. That’s several times larger than Tesla when Elon Musk received his controversial 2018 CEO Performance Award.
As per xAI, the Series E funding round attracted a diverse group of investors, including Valor Equity Partners, Stepstone Group, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Qatar Investment Authority, MGX, and Baron Capital Group, among others. Strategic partners NVIDIA and Cisco Investments also continued support for building the world’s largest GPU clusters.
News
Tesla FSD Supervised wins MotorTrend’s Best Driver Assistance Award
The decision marks a notable reversal for the publication from prior years, with judges citing major real-world improvements that pushed Tesla’s latest FSD software ahead of every competing ADAS system.
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) system has been named the best driver-assistance technology on the market, earning top honors at the 2026 MotorTrend Best Tech Awards.
The decision marks a notable reversal for the publication from prior years, with judges citing major real-world improvements that pushed Tesla’s latest FSD software ahead of every competing ADAS system. And it wasn’t even close.
MotorTrend reverses course
MotorTrend awarded Tesla FSD (Supervised) its 2026 Best Tech Driver Assistance title after extensive testing of the latest v14 software. The publication acknowledged that it had previously criticized earlier versions of FSD for erratic behavior and near-miss incidents, ultimately favoring rivals such as GM’s Super Cruise in earlier evaluations.
According to MotorTrend, the newest iteration of FSD resolved many of those shortcomings. Testers said v14 showed far smoother behavior in complex urban scenarios, including unprotected left turns, traffic circles, emergency vehicles, and dense city streets. While the system still requires constant driver supervision, judges concluded that no other advanced driver-assistance system currently matches its breadth of capability.
Unlike rival systems that rely on combinations of cameras, radar, lidar, and mapped highways, Tesla’s FSD operates using a camera-only approach and is capable of driving on city streets, rural roads, and freeways. MotorTrend stated that pure utility, the ability to handle nearly all road types, ultimately separated FSD from competitors like Ford BlueCruise, GM Super Cruise, and BMW’s Highway Assistant.
High cost and high capability
MotorTrend also addressed FSD’s pricing, which remains significantly higher than rival systems. Tesla currently charges $8,000 for a one-time purchase or $99 per month for a subscription, compared with far lower upfront and subscription costs from other automakers. The publication noted that the premium is justified given FSD’s unmatched scope and continuous software evolution.
Safety remained a central focus of the evaluation. While testers reported collision-free operation over thousands of miles, they noted ongoing concerns around FSD’s configurable driving modes, including options that allow aggressive driving and speeds beyond posted limits. MotorTrend emphasized that, like all Level 2 systems, FSD still depends on a fully attentive human driver at all times.
Despite those caveats, the publication concluded that Tesla’s rapid software progress fundamentally reshaped the competitive landscape. For drivers seeking the most capable hands-on driver-assistance system available today, MotorTrend concluded Tesla FSD (Supervised) now stands alone at the top.
News
Elon Musk’s Grokipedia surges to 5.6M articles, almost 79% of English Wikipedia
The explosive growth marks a major milestone for the AI-powered online encyclopedia, which was launched by Elon Musk’s xAI just months ago.
Elon Musk’s Grokipedia has grown to an impressive 5,615,201 articles as of today, closing in on 79% of the English Wikipedia’s current total of 7,119,376 articles.
The explosive growth marks a major milestone for the AI-powered online encyclopedia, which was launched by Elon Musk’s xAI just months ago. Needless to say, it would only be a matter of time before Grokipedia exceeds English Wikipedia in sheer volume.
Grokipedia’s rapid growth
xAI’s vision for Grokipedia emphasizes neutrality, while Grok’s reasoning capabilities allow for fast drafting and fact-checking. When Elon Musk announced the initiative in late September 2025, he noted that Grokipedia would be an improvement to Wikipedia because it would be designed to avoid bias.
At the time, Musk noted that Grokipedia “is a necessary step towards the xAI goal of understanding the Universe.”
Grokipedia was launched in late October, and while xAI was careful to list it only as Version 0.1 at the time, the online encyclopedia immediately earned praise. Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger highlighted the project’s innovative approach, noting how it leverages AI to fill knowledge gaps and enable rapid updates. Netizens also observed how Grokipedia tends to present articles in a more objective manner compared to Wikipedia, which is edited by humans.
Elon Musk’s ambitious plans
With 5,615,201 total articles, Grokipedia has now grown to almost 79% of English Wikipedia’s article base. This is incredibly quick, though Grokipedia remains text-only for now. xAI, for its part, has now updated the online encyclopedia’s iteration to v0.2.
Elon Musk has shared bold ideas for Grokipedia, including sending a record of the entire knowledge base to space as part of xAI’s mission to preserve and expand human understanding. At some point, Musk stated that Grokipedia will be renamed to Encyclopedia Galactica, and it will be sent to the cosmos.
“When Grokipedia is good enough (long way to go), we will change the name to Encyclopedia Galactica. It will be an open source distillation of all knowledge, including audio, images and video. Join xAI to help build the sci-fi version of the Library of Alexandria!” Musk wrote, adding in a later post that “Copies will be etched in stone and sent to the Moon, Mars and beyond. This time, it will not be lost.”
Elon Musk’s X will start using a Tesla-like software update strategy
Tesla FSD Supervised wins MotorTrend’s Best Driver Assistance Award
