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SpaceX to shift Falcon 9’s next West Coast launch to Florida, the first of its kind in decades

Falcon 9 B1048.2 successfully launched SAOCOM 1A in October 2018. SAOCOM 1B is scheduled to follow its sister satellite to orbit some 15 months after. (SpaceX)

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6 years ago

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According to NASASpaceflight spaceflight reporter Michael Baylor and an Argentinian government website, SpaceX appears to have decided to move its next West Coast launch from California to Florida, signifying the first East Coast polar launch in half a century could be just four months away.

Initially expected to launch out of SpaceX’s Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) SLC-4E pad on a Falcon 9 rocket, the Argentinian space agency’s (CONAE) SAOCOM-1B Earth observation satellite was scheduled to lift off no earlier than February 2020. That launch window remains the same but Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) has somehow arranged approval to reopen the United States’ Eastern polar launch corridor. The story behind the corridor’s closure is a bizarre one.

Having earned itself a bit of notoriety and fame over the years, the story of the closure of the Eastern polar launch corridor is simple on the outset. In November 1960, a Thor Able-Star rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral for what was hoped to be a routine military launch. This particular mission carried GRAB II, a covert signals intelligence spacecraft designed to spy on radio communications around the globe.

Long story short: that Thor rocket suffered a failure that caused the booster to prematurely shut down and divert from its planned trajectory, forcing the range safety officer to manually trigger the rocket’s self-destruct mechanisms. Broken apart by explosives, one unlucky cow – standing in a Cuban field some 400 miles (650 km) downrange – was struck by rocket debris, killing the farm animal. Indeed, this might initially seem like an absurd reason to entirely end the practice of polar orbital launches from Cape Canaveral, but Cold War tensions were extremely high and President Fidel Castro leaped on the opportunity to hound the US.

Perhaps the only image online of Thor Able-Star’s November 30th, 1960 launch of GRAB II. (USAF/US Navy/Maison de Vente)
A Thor Able-Star rocket launches in July 1960, about four months before an almost identical rocket failed and killed a lone Cuban cow.

An article published in a 2008 issue of the US Naval History Magazine covers this minor debacle in greater detail, shedding some much-needed light on why things played out how they did.

“In what somewhat inaccurately became known as “the herd shot around the world,” some of the falling rocket debris apparently splattered on a Cuban farm and killed a cow. “This is a Yankee provocation,” accused Revolucion, an official Cuban publication, insisting that the rocket was deliberately exploded over the country. Government radio stations cited the incident as further proof that the United States was trying to destroy the regime of Cuban President Fidel Castro. One cow was even paraded in front of the U.S. Embassy in Havana wearing a placard reading “Eisenhower, you murdered one of my sisters.”

Castro filed a complaint at the United Nations, and Washington sheepishly conceded the possibility that “fragments from the rocket booster” could have landed in Cuba. CIA Director George Tenet later quipped somewhat tastelessly that it was “the first, and last, time that a satellite had been used in the production of ground beef.” Further launches overflying Cuba were postponed, and improvements were made to the Cape Canaveral range-safety system. In any case, it was a dejected NRL group that returned to Washington.”

Naval History Magazine – April 2008

That overflight postponement was never withdrawn and VAFB – located on the coast of California – has supported all US polar launch** activity since late-1960. Public word of the possible reopening of the Eastern polar launch corridor came 57 years later when Wayne Monteith, commander of the 45th Space Wing, revealed that he had tasked analysts to determine whether the corridor could be reopened in light of wildfire troubles that closed VAFB’s Western Range in 2016. They concluded that there were no obvious technical showstoppers.

**There is a report that a Thor Delta C rocket performed two sun synchronous orbit (SSO; ‘nearly polar’) launches in the mid-1960s, overflying Cuba in the process, but it’s unclear if the trajectory used was the same as those used before Thor’s 1960 GRAB II failure.

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A reporter who was present at the press conference said that SpaceX’s SAOCOM 1B launch hadn’t officially been put on on the Eastern Range’s planning schedule, indicating that some work remains before it can truly be said that the Eastern polar launch corridor has been reopened. Nevertheless, Douglas Schiess, the current commander of the 45th Space Wing, was obviously confident that those final steps are more technicalities than potential showstoppers and that 21st-century Eastern polar launches are now a question of “when”, not “if”.

In Monteith’s 2017 statement, it was stated that there is one major condition on the reopening: all launch vehicles intending to fly it must feature autonomous flight termination systems (AFTS). This is due to the risk that the rocket’s plume might prevent the reliable reception of radio telemetry at Florida-based tracking stations. SpaceX is currently the only launch provider in the world to have implemented AFTS and is thus the only provider currently capable of launching polar missions from Florida.

SpaceX debuted AFTS on Falcon 9 during the February 2017 launch of CRS-10. Every SpaceX launch since has used the autonomous system. (SpaceX)

Time will tell just how extensive Florida’s polar launch capabilities are and how dramatically the new capability will impact Vandenberg’s commercial launch ecosystem. Speaking in 2017, Monteith was fairly blunt in his assessment that California was not only tepid on the subject of expanding VAFB’s commercial launch manifest, but was actively hostile at points. His point: if Vandenberg isn’t going to put effort into stimulating a commercial polar launch ecosystem, Cape Canaveral might as well try.

VAFB is currently in the throes of a four-month launch lull previously expected to last until SpaceX’s Feb. 2020 SAOCOM 1B launch. Depending on how things play out for startup Firefly Aerospace and how readily CCAFS can take to its new polar launch role, Vandenberg’s lull could easily stretch into the second half of 2020, perhaps more than a year between launches.

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Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

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SpaceX reaches incredible Starlink milestone

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October 26, 2025

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Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX has reached an incredible milestone with its Starlink program, officially surpassing 10,000 satellites launched into low Earth orbit since starting the program back in 2019.

Last Sunday, October 19, SpaceX launched its 131st and 132nd Falcon 9 missions of 2025, one from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and the other from Vandenberg, California.

The 10,000th Starlink satellite was aboard the launch from California, which was Starlink 11-19, and held 28 v2 mini optimized satellites.

The achievement was marked by a satellite tracker developed by Jonathan McDowell.

The first Starlink launch was all the way back on May 23, 2019, as SpaceX launched its first 60 satellites from Cape Canaveral using a Falcon 9 rocket.

Of the over 10,000 satellites in orbit, the tracker says 8,608 are operational, as some are intentionally de-orbited after becoming faulty and destroyed in the atmosphere.

SpaceX has truly done some really incredible things during its development of the Starlink program, including launch coverage in a global setting, bringing along millions of active subscribers that use the service for personal and business use, locking up commercial partnerships, and more.

Starlink currently operates in around 150 countries, territories, and markets and is available at least somewhere on all seven continents.

Additionally, Starlink has over 5 million subscribers worldwide, and 2.7 million have joined the program over the past year. It has revolutionized internet access on commercial aircraft as well, as several high-profile airlines like Qatar and United, among many others, have already installed Starlink on some of their planes to deliver more stable connectivity for passengers and crew.

SpaceX has the approval to launch 12,000 Starlink satellites from the FAA, but it plans to bring over 30,000 to its constellation, giving anyone the ability to have access to high-speed internet.

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Tesla Full Self-Driving’s biggest improvements from v13 to v14

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2 hours ago

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October 26, 2025

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14 has been out for several weeks now, and there are a tremendous number of improvements, as we have now reached the fourth iteration of the semi-autonomous software.

Tesla began the v14.1.4 launch last night, which included minor improvements and addressed brake-stabbing issues many owners have reported. In my personal experience, the stabbing has been awful on v14.1.3, and is a major concern.

However, many things have improved, and only a couple of minor issues have been recurring. Many of the issues v13 addressed are no longer an issue, so Tesla has made significant progress.

Here are some of the most notable improvements Tesla made with v14 from v13:

Better Lane Switching on Highways

One of my biggest complaints with v13 was that the “Hurry” Speed Profile would often stay in the left lane, even when there were no passing cars. The legality of cruising in the left lane fluctuates by jurisdiction, but my personal preference is to drive in the right lane and pass on the left.

That said, Tesla has improved FSD’s performance with more courteous lane behavior. It no longer camps in the left lane and routinely gets back in the right lane after passing slower cars.

More Awareness for Merging Traffic and Makes Courteous Moves

There have been times when FSD has been more aware of merging traffic, and even cross traffic, than most human beings.

Here are a few examples –

  • Full Self-Driving lets a car out of cross traffic during a busy time of day. This road tends to get very congested, especially during rush hour, so the car that was let in by FSD would have been sitting there for likely a minute longer if my Tesla had not let him in:

  • A busy, four-lane expressway with a quick exit on the far side of the highway for this merging vehicle. I’ve seen some drivers be extremely inattentive and travel at the same speed as merging cars, making their entry onto the expressway less seamless. FSD doesn’t do that; it makes way for merging cars:

More Confident Driving Around Mail Trucks…and Amish

I encounter a lot of Amish in my area of Pennsylvania, and they commonly use both shoulders and the road, so traffic can get congested at times.

In the past, I’ve taken over when encountering Amish buggies, mail trucks, or other vehicles that are moving slowly or making frequent stops. I have felt it is more logical to just take over in these situations.

I decided not to yesterday on a long drive through Lancaster, PA, and the FSD did a wonderful job of confidently overtaking these vehicles:

This was really impressive and fun to see. There was a slight stutter during one of the three instances, but overall, I didn’t have any concerns.

Object Avoidance

On v13, I almost let the car drive into a fallen branch in the middle of the road. A mile later, the car swerved out of the way for horse droppings. It was a beautiful, clear morning, and the fact that the car did not try to avoid the branch, but did steer away from poop, was concerning.

Tesla has obviously done a great job at refining FSD’s ability to navigate around these road hazards. Last night, it swerved around a dead animal carcass in the middle of the highway. I didn’t see it until we were already going around it:

It was awesome to see this and never feel alarmed by the sharp movement. The maneuver was smooth and really well done.

Better Speed Consistency

With v13, I felt I had to constantly adjust the Speed Profile, as well as the Max Speed setting, when using FSD. With V14, I don’t feel like I am making as many adjustments.

Tesla axed the Max Speed setting altogether with v14, which was a good move, in my opinion. Choosing the Speed Profile is now more intuitive by using the right scroll wheel. If the car is traveling too fast or too slow, just change the profile.

Three things Tesla needs to improve with Full Self-Driving v14 release

V13 had some issues with local roads, and I felt it would travel at strange speeds. In a 45 MPH zone, it would sometimes take a long time to reach 40 MPH, then hover between 43 MPH and 47 MPH. It would then fluctuate between those two speeds, frustrating drivers behind me, understandably.

V14 gets up to speed much better and travels at speeds I’m much more comfortable with on both local roads and highways.

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Tesla Model Y lands ‘best-selling’ title in tough EV market

As more EVs have entered the market and some at better prices, Tesla’s Model Y has been put up against some very attractive options.

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1 day ago

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October 25, 2025

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Credit: Tesla

The Tesla Model Y reclaimed an elusive sales title in one of the most competitive markets it is in, outpacing key rivals and formidable competitors to regain the crown it once was a shoe-in for.

As more EVs have entered the market and some at better prices, Tesla’s Model Y has been put up against some very attractive options.

This is especially prudent in Europe and China, where domestic car companies have been offering attractive and cheap EVs as Tesla alternatives.

However, in September, the Model Y was able to battle back and take over the top sales spot for EVs in Europe.

In September, it had 25,938 sales, and although it was an 8.6 percent decrease compared to the same month in 2024, it was enough to be labeled the best-selling car in the European market, Automotive News reported.

500-mile test proves why Tesla Model Y still humiliates rivals in Europe

There are four vehicles that have been atop the European EV sales rankings for any given month this year: the Renault Clio, which has three titles, the Dacia Sandero, which has won four monthly sales titles, and the Volkswagen T-Roc, which was the best-selling car in the market in August.

The Clio captured the number-two spot in September with 20,146 sales.

Despite a strong September showing for the Model Y, which was its first monthly sales crown of the year, the vehicle has not been a top-three EV in Europe this year. That is still led by the Sandero, Clio, and T-Roc.

Despite that, Tesla’s Model Y is still likely to be one of the best-selling vehicles in the world, if not the best, for the year.

In the United States, it has dominated EV sales charts and has been one of the most popular cars in the region. The same goes for China, where the Model Y has more competition than in Europe, but is so attractive because of its premium look and feel, as well as its tech offerings.

The Model Y has been the best-selling car globally for the past two years, outpacing widely popular gas and EV models from around the world.

Tesla also just finished up its best three-month sales period in its history, delivering just shy of half a million vehicles from July to September.

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