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SpaceX on track for US Air Force Falcon 9 mission later this year
Reading between the lines, the US Air Force has effectively confirmed that GPS III Space Vehicle 03 (SV03) – the third GPS III satellite built by Lockheed Martin – is ready for launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, scheduled no earlier than December 2019.
In December 2018, SpaceX successfully launched the first GPS III spacecraft aboard an expendable Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket, kicking off a launch campaign – shared between SpaceX and ULA – that will likely last until 2023 or 2024. Thus far, ULA has won a single GPS III launch contract, scheduled for July 2019, while SpaceX has won three (with options for two more). Thanks to competition forcefully reintroduced by a 2014 SpaceX lawsuit, the USAF – and thus US taxpayers – are likely saving a minimum of $50M per GPS III launch.
In late 2018, SpaceX’s closer followers were surprised to discover that brand new Falcon 9 Block 5 booster B1054 – the first to be officially certified for a critical operational military launch – was to be expended, making no attempt to land. This was confusing for several reasons.
“If Falcon 9 [was to be] expended solely because of mission performance requirements, despite the oddly low payload mass (~3800 kg) and comparatively low-energy orbit (~20,000 km), the only possible explanation for no attempted recovery would be the need for Falcon 9’s upper stage to circularize the orbit after a long coast. However, the mission parameters the USAF shopped around for would have placed the GPS III satellite into an elliptical orbit of 1000 km by 20,181 km, an orbit that would almost without a doubt leave Falcon 9 with enough propellant for a drone ship recovery.”
— Teslarati.com, December 2018
As it turns out, there was, in fact, nothing unique about the elliptical, medium-energy orbit GPS III SV01 was placed in. According to external analysis of the Falcon 9 upper stage’s final deorbit activities, SpaceX had “plenty of extra performance available”, objectively indicating that that excess performance was intentionally removed from booster B1054 at the cost of its ability to land. The (unconfirmed) reason for this is quite simple: the US Air Force chose extreme – perhaps even excessive – caution to account for the minute chance that myriad failures might happen mid-launch.
To sacrifice, or not to sacrifice
According to a USAF statement made in mid-May, GPS III Space Vehicle 03 (SV03) has been officially classed as “available for launch”, jargon that means the satellite is fully assembled and has successfully completed extensive pre-launch testing. For SpaceX’s inaugural GPS III launch (SV01), a pathfinder that carried unique wait and likely took additional processing time, SpaceX and the USAF took roughly five months to go from shipping the satellite to Florida to going vertical atop Falcon 9. More likely than not, GPS III SV03 has already begun to be prepared for transport from California to Florida, meaning that SV03 is roughly 1-2 months ahead of the schedule SV01 followed ahead of its Falcon 9 launch debut.
So: the GPS III satellite is ready for launch. The next critical milestones will be the satellite’s transport to Florida and SpaceX’s completion of the mission’s USAF-grade Falcon 9. B1054’s technically unnecessary sacrifice thus raises a question for SpaceX’s next GPS III launch, currently scheduled no earlier than December 2018: will another fresh Falcon 9 Block 5 booster be sacrificed to the gods of Obsessively Cautious Margins?
The optimist in me wants to say, “Of course!” With GPS III SV01, SpaceX perfectly demonstrated Falcon 9’s performance and permitted the USAF the luxury of expending a brand new Falcon 9 booster to satisfy the customer’s desire for extremely cautious margins. The Falcon 9 upper stage’s luxuriously expensive (in terms of delta V) deorbit burns – performed after a several-hour cost in orbit – served as another definitive demonstration of the rocket’s intentionally underutilized performance. Having demonstrated a flawless launch with margins on margins, it seems reasonable that the US Air Force would permit SpaceX the freedom to recover Falcon 9 B105x after launching GPS III SV03.
On the other hand, the USAF and Department of Defense are not exactly known for their rational, evidence-based strategies of decision-making and procurement. As such, it’s safe to say that – without official info from SpaceX or the USAF – the answer to the question of whether SpaceX will need to continue expending valuable boosters for GPS launches is entirely up in the air – call it a 50-50 split.
In the meantime, GPS III SV03’s Falcon 9 booster is likely several months away from shipping off to SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas facilities for static fire testing. Up next for SpaceX is a critical Falcon Heavy launch that could secure the rocket’s certification for US military launches, become the first USAF mission to utilize flight-proven SpaceX boosters, and pave the way for the USAF to develop a dedicated certification process for launching on commercially-developed reusable rockets.
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For years, there have been images and videos across social media platforms that have reminded me of when I was a 15-year-old kid teased by “Xbox 720” videos on YouTube. These videos are of the supposed “Tesla Phone” that Elon Musk was secretly developing in between leading Tesla with its electric cars and SpaceX with its reusable rockets.
Would you buy a Tesla phone ? pic.twitter.com/aaTwvvIJit
— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) October 6, 2023
Although Musk has put those rumors to bed several times, it was never completely out of the realm that he could get involved in cell phones in some capacity. Think outside the box and more macro-level, though. Instead of reinventing the computer, Musk reinvented connectivity by developing Starlink with SpaceX.
It could be something similar, TD Cowen analyst Gregory Williams said in a note last week, where he hinted SpaceX could be gathering some steam to acquire T-Mobile.
Williams said it would be the “clear choice” for SpaceX if it decided to go through with a network acquisition. He also suggested AT&T.
The move would be possible through selling more of its own stock, which would help SpaceX raise the money to purchase T-Mobile, which would cost roughly $300 billion. It could be one of the moves SpaceX makes post-IPO in terms of an acquisition: it already acquired Cursor AI for $60 billion.
Other analysts, like Dan Ives of Wedbush, believe SpaceX and Tesla will eventually merge into one anyway, and that conglomeration could come as soon as this year, some have said.
The implications of SpaceX purchasing T-Mobile are massive. A combined entity would create a truly ubiquitous network: T-Mobile’s terrestrial 5G towers and Starlink’s growing constellation of Direct-to-Cell satellites. This would essentially eliminate dead zones across the U.S. and potentially globally.
SpaceX would instantly become a full-scale facilities-based carrier with satellite differentiation; a huge advantage. This would pressure AT&T and Verizon heavily.
There are also concerns like a potential reduction in long-term competition, and of course, a deal of that size would face intense scrutiny from government agencies.
The strategic fit is compelling due to the existing Starlink–T-Mobile partnership and complementary technologies (space + terrestrial). It could create a dominant integrated communications player. However, the regulatory, financial, and execution hurdles are enormous — this remains highly speculative with no indication SpaceX is actively pursuing it right now.
Tesla revealed a major new Cybercab detail in a guide it released for First Responders, showing new territory in its beliefs and intentions for the ride-hailing-focused vehicle that entered production in April.
The First Responders Guide is released to give fire departments, paramedics, and other emergency personnel the proper guidance on what to do in the event of an accident, entrapment, or other situation that would require immediate attention.
On one of the pages of the First Responders Guide, Tesla revealed a stark detail about the Cybercab, which could help personnel enter the vehicle more easily in case of an emergency.
Tesla Cybercab has one important piece that AI4 cars might need for FSD
It shows Tesla has no intention of releasing any Cybercab units that were initially proposed for ride-hailing services for the general public with any manual controls, meaning a steering wheel or pedals:
“A Cybercab equipped with steering wheel, brake pedal, and an acceleration pedal is typically an engineering or test vehicle, and operates at SAE Level 2 autonomy. Cybercab is not typically equipped with a steering wheel or acceleration and brake pedals.”
New official Cybercab documentation from Tesla:
“A Cybercab equipped with steering wheel, brake pedal, and an acceleration pedal is typically an engineering or test vehicle, and operates at SAE Level 2 autonomy. Cybercab is not typically equipped with a steering wheel or… https://t.co/P6ut1mZyzr pic.twitter.com/yq6skl9s2J
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) June 27, 2026
This is a major development for those who continue to believe Tesla planned to release the Cybercab with any sort of manual controls so that passengers could take over if needed. However, when Tesla started manufacturing production versions of the Cybercab in Giga Texas earlier this year, they were spotted without a steering wheel or pedals.
It essentially confirms the company has no intentions of bringing manual controls to the car’s production versions. Some have argued that the likelihood of Tesla having something
There still are some Cybercab units out there with a steering wheel and pedals, and as Tesla said, these cars are engineering or test vehicles, which have Safety Monitors on board to help the car out of a precarious situation or emergency.
Tesla released the Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ suite to owners of Hardware 3 or AI3 vehicles today, adding several new features to the vehicles that were once believed to be capable of unsupervised self-driving.
Now, Tesla has released this modified suite to older Tesla vehicles, adding plenty of new features and capabilities.
Here are the full release notes for the suite:
- Distilled the intelligence from HW4 V14 into HW3. This allows HW3 to directly learn how to handle scenarios using HW4 V14 as a guide. This process unlocks the improvements that have been made to HW4 including Reinforcement Learning (RL) and offline models for HW3.
- Improved both proactive and reactive responsiveness across a wide variety of categories including navigation handling, merges and forks, pedestrian interactions, traffic lights, and vehicle cut-in scenarios.
- Improved general comfort in nominal scenarios through fewer false slowdowns, smoother steering and more consistent lane centering.
- Introduced parking, unparking, and reversing capabilities.
- Added Arrival Options for you to select where FSD should park: in a Parking Lot, on the Street, in a Driveway, or at the Curbside.
- Speed Profiles are now available at all times, to further customize driving style preference.
These improvements, according to Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, help distill the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute configurations of AI3.
Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ for older cars finally gets released
He added:
“It includes destination options and speed profiles on city roads, but more importantly significantly improved safety. We hope you’ll enjoy it, once the build ships wide.”
FSD v14 Lite is now rolling out to AI3 early-access customers. Based on the feedback, will rollout to more customers over the next few weeks.
This build distills the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute config of AI3. It includes destination…
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) June 29, 2026
Tesla will continue to roll out the v14 Lite suite more widely in the coming weeks, the company said.
Tesla Phone? Not quite, but close: analyst
Tesla reveals huge Cybercab detail in new guide for First Responders
