News
SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare launch to send a commercial lander to the Moon in 2019
According to a press release published on September 11 in conjunction with the 2018 World Satellite Business Week conference, satellite rideshare organizer Spaceflight Industries and SpaceX are on track for the first functionally dedicated rideshare mission to a relatively high-energy geostationary transfer orbit.
Expected to occur as soon as early 2019, Spaceflight has arranged the addition of “several undisclosed payloads” but was able to confirm that Israel-based company SpaceIL’s lunar lander spacecraft – deemed Sparrow – will be onboard Falcon 9 come launch, potentially paving the way for the first-ever commercial spacecraft landing on an extraterrestrial planet (or moon).
Did you hear? We're offering rideshare to GTO/GSO now. https://t.co/s5i9brlSqz
— Spaceflight (@SpaceflightInc) September 11, 2018
A bit more than “Uber for space”
Although any rocket or satellite launch on its own is already a sort of wildly complex symphony, rideshare missions – potentially carrying dozens of individual satellites – up the intensity by a significant degree, demanding magnitudes more separation events (i.e. satellite deployments), a labyrinth-like hell for the payload organizer tasked with herding dozens of distinct spacecraft into one payload fairing come launch time, and often multiple orbit drop-off points.
Still, at the cost of some amount of added risk (of both failures and launch delays) and less flexibility to pick and choose orbits, rideshare customers are granted launch prices that should – in theory – be fundamentally unbeatable with dedicated launches, using an entire rocket for no more than a handful of payloads. Intriguingly, at least in the case of Spaceflight Industry’s first organized rideshare to geostationary orbit, Falcon 9’s capabilities are truly unbeatable at SI’s cost per customer, thanks to the reality that such a high-energy orbit is functionally unreachable to the array of dedicated smallsat rockets with purportedly imminent commercial launch debuts (Rocket Lab, Virgin Orbit, Vector, and others).
Watch us assemble our payload stack for #SSO-A in just over a minute: pic.twitter.com/UFXAKWkNy1
— Spaceflight (@SpaceflightInc) October 4, 2017
Even more intriguingly, it appears that this rideshare will go so far as to offer a ride to a true, circular geostationary orbit for a few copassengers, versus the highly-elliptical parking orbit Falcon 9 will place the whole payload stack in. It has yet to be specifically confirmed what the primary (heaviest) payload will be for this inaugural geostationary rideshare, but nearly all available signs are pointing towards a fairly large (5000 kilogram) communications satellite built by Space Systems Loral (SSL). Further, the satellite itself will serve as the mode of transportation to carry a number of copassenger spacecraft from SpaceX’s geostationary transfer orbit to the final circular orbit roughly 22,500 mi (~36,000 km) above Earth’s surface.
Satellite rideshares, brought to you by the US military?
The story deepens further still. All available signs also suggest a high probability that this launch will become one of SSL’s first operational uses of a currently-experimental rideshare plan known as PODS, in which fairly small satellites would quite literally piggyback on large, commercial satellites into exotic and high-energy orbits, far beyond the low Earth orbits primarily available to rideshare payloads. This could open a whole new world of affordable, cubesat-style exploration, ranging from student-led missions with unprecedented reach to fleets of NASA-funded scientific smallsats, and perhaps even self-propelled interplanetary cubesats once miniature propulsion is available.
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- An SSL graphic explains the company’s PODS technology. (SSL)
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- This condensed User’s Guide lists the basics of PODS ridesharing. (SSL)
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- Falcon 9 B1049 lifts off from SpaceX’s LC-40 pad on September 10, producing more than 1.7 million pounds of thrust.(Tom Cross)
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- Falcon 9 Block 5 will be absolutely critical to the success (and even the basic completion) of Starlink. (Tom Cross)
Funded and sponsored to some extent by US military research agency DARPA, it just so happens that an SSL-built satellite launched by SpaceX six months ago – Hispasat 30W-6, March 2018 – successfully debuted that PODS rideshare technology in an experimental test, deploying a secret secondary satellite funded by DARPA. That success has apparently paved the way for future PODS rideshares, and it looks like SSL may be opting to contract out the specialized task of manifesting launches and wrangling multiple copassenger satellites to Spaceflight Industries.
The primary SSL-built spacecraft, likely Indonesia’s PSN-6 geostationary communications satellite, is expected to weigh approximately 5000 kg (~11,000 lb), while SpaceIL’s commercial Sparrow lunar lander and spacecraft is currently pegged around 600 kg (1300 lb). Aside from that duo, SSL PODS can support anywhere from one to several satellite deployer add-ons, and each copassenger spacecraft has a mass limit of 90-150 kg (~200-330 lb).
As a consequence, the final mass of those 3+ integrated satellites and their associated payload adapters could easily wind up around 6500-7000 kg, a payload SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket has proven itself capable of handling (Telstar 18V and 19V), but only to a fairly low-energy geostationary transfer orbit (18,000 km vs. a full GTO’s 36,000 km apogee). It’s unclear how SpaceIL’s Sparrow lunar lander would handle a relatively low-energy insertion orbit, although the PSN-6 communications satellite would certainly be able to make up for the shortfall with its own propellant supply and rocket engines.
Prior to this geostationary rideshare, SpaceX and Spaceflight Industry’s first mission together – a rideshare of ~70 satellites to low Earth orbit – is expected to occur no earlier than October or November 2018 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.
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Investor's Corner
Tesla has a Cybercab problem nobody saw coming
Tesla’s Cybercab line now builds robotaxis faster than Tesla can deploy them, Lars Moravy says.
Tesla’s Cybercab line in Texas can now build the two seat robotaxi faster than the company can put it into service, according to Lars Moravy, Tesla’s Vice President of Vehicle Engineering. “We don’t run every day because the line can run so fast. It’s currently outpacing our deployments,” Moravy said in a new Cybercab deep dive from Munro Live. “So, it’s a bit of a race right now. Who’s going to go faster? Right now the manufacturing line’s ahead.”
Tesla’s official Robotaxi account shared a Cybercab analysis video on X on Monday, calling it a “Cybercab engineering deep dive.” Moravy’s comments go further than what he told analysts on the Q3 earnings call last week, when he said the Cybercab line’s listed capacity of more than 125,000 units a year undersells what it can actually run.
The tour shows where that speed comes from. Tesla’s unboxed process splits the Cybercab into front, rear, side and center modules that are built and tested on their own before they meet on a short final line. That final line has just 25 fully automated stations, which Tesla’s team estimated is a fifth to a tenth of what a Model Y needs. The full line is about 78% automated, the framing line is already at 100%, and the layout uses roughly 50% less floor space per vehicle. The stated goal is “100% automation in 10 second cycle time,” or one finished Cybercab every 10 seconds.
Tesla also deleted the paint shop. Only the side modules are coated, and the exterior panels get their color inside the molding machine. Engineers said the car is designed to run at least 500,000 miles, which matters for a vehicle that will spend most of its day carrying riders.
The battery got the same treatment. The Cybercab uses an 88S6P pack of 4680 cells in a steel enclosure, a first for Tesla, with each module potted separately so a single failed module can be swapped instead of the whole pack. Wireless battery management boards replace a wiring harness, and new contactors are fast enough to drop the pyro fuse entirely. Tesla’s battery director graded the pack an A minus, compared with a D for the Model Y structural pack and a B minus for Cybertruck. Up front, the drive unit runs an 11:1 gear ratio versus roughly 9:1 on most Teslas, since the Cybercab does not need a high top speed.
Cybercab engineering deep dive — Robotaxi (@robotaxi) October 26, 2026
The deployment side is now the bottleneck Moravy described. Tesla had more than 50 Cybercabs working the Formula 1 weekend in Austin, and Texas records show 463 Cybercabs registered. Tesla said on its earnings call that Cybercab service will launch in Dallas next month, and Moravy said the company is aiming to get Cybercabs to customers by the end of 2026. Every unit built so far has gone into Tesla’s own fleet since the line moved into volume production in April.
Munro Live also asked when it could get a Cybercab to tear down. Tesla’s answer: “Not yet.”
SpaceX’s Raptor engine family has steadily increased sea-level thrust while simultaneously reducing mass, turning iterative engineering gains into substantially higher performance for the Super Heavy booster. CEO Elon Musk shed more light on how powerful Raptor 4 will be, and it’s pretty crazy.
Raptor 1 delivered 185 metric tons of thrust at roughly 2,080 kilograms, while Raptor 2 raised that to 230 tons while cutting mass to about 1,630 kilograms. SpaceX data for Raptor 3 lists a target of 280 tons at 1,525 kilograms (with further reductions in associated vehicle hardware), while operational flight ratings have been cited near 250 tons.
This morning, Elon Musk stated that Raptor 4 is expected to reach 300 tons of sea-level thrust at roughly the same mass as Raptor 3. Across these versions, thrust has risen by more than 60 percent from the first engines while engine mass has fallen, producing a sharp improvement in thrust-to-weight ratio. This is a true testament to how great SpaceX engineering has been:
🚀 Elon says Raptor 4 will make 300 tons of thrust at sea level at roughly the same mass as Raptor 3.
How far Raptor has come:
Raptor 1: 185 tf, 2,080 kg
Raptor 2: 230 tf, 1,630 kg
Raptor 3: 250 tf, 1,525 kg
Raptor 4: 300 tf33 on Super Heavy = ~9,900 tf, nearly 3x Saturn V https://t.co/HQDswZhyvL
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 26, 2026
With 33 engines on SuperHeavy, the jump from earlier versions to a 300-ton Raptor 4 would produce roughly 9,900 metric tons of total liftoff thrust, nearly three times the Saturn V’s approximately 3,400 metric tons from its five F-1 engines.
This is not just a larger number on a data sheet, either, as sea-level thrust is the force available the moment the vehicle leaves the pad. This is when it is heaviest and still deep in Earth’s gravity well and dense atmosphere.
Higher levels of sea-level thrust directly improves the initial thrust-to-weight ratio of the full stack. A higher ratio produces faster acceleration off the pad, which shortens the time the rocket has to spend fighting gravity, and gravity losses during the first minute or two of the flight are a major drain on total available delta-v. Every second shaved off of that early climb preserves more propellant energy for reaching orbital velocity or for carrying extra payload.
Because Super Heavy’s engine count is constrained by vehicle diameter and packing density, increasing thrust per engine is the most straightforward way to raise total liftoff performance without redesigning the booster structure or design.
The same-mass target for Raptor 4 is equally important. Holding engine mass roughly constant while raising thrust improves the engine’s own thrust-to-weight ratio and reduces the structural and propellant mass fraction that must be carried solely to support the engines.
Earlier Raptor iterations also simplified or eliminated extensive vehicle-side hardware such as heat shields. These gains compound: more force for less installed mass leaves additional capacity for propellant, payload, or operational margins such as engine-out capability.
For Starship’s architecture, the practical effects are large. Greater liftoff thrust supports heavier vehicles, larger propellant loads, and higher payloads to low Earth orbit, figures SpaceX has targeted in the 100-plus-ton reusable range. That capacity underpins orbital refueling, lunar missions, and eventual Mars cargo and crew flights.
Continued growth in sea-level thrust therefore tightens the gap between theoretical rocket performance and the high flight rates and reusability needed to make large-scale space transport practical.
Tesla has expanded its Tesla Assisted Driving (TAD) suite to its tenth European country, as Latvia joined a growing list of European Union member states authorizing the company’s advanced driver assistance technology.
Tesla Europe announced this morning that the system is now approved in Latvia, with a software rollout to begin soon.
The approval and rollout follow recognition of a provisional European type approval originally granted by the Netherlands’ RDW authority on April 10.
🚨 Latvia has just received approval for Tesla Full Self-Driving (Supervised)
This is the 10th country in the EU to gain approval:
1. Netherlands — 10 April 2026 (original RDW approval)
2. Lithuania — 20 May 2026
3. Estonia — 29 May 2026
4. Denmark — 9 June 2026
5. Belgium — 10 June 2026
6. Slovenia — 7 September 2026
7. Czechia — 21 September 2026
8. Croatia — 29 September 2026
9. Slovakia — 16 October 2026— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 26, 2026
Latvia’s Road Traffic Safety Directorate (CSDD) evaluated the Dutch documentation, coordinated with the other national authorities, and reviewed updates from Tesla. These included tightened limits on speed offsets, automatic resets of any manual speed adjustments after each trip, and stronger driver monitoring.
In Europe, the feature is marketed as Tesla Assisted Driving after a recent rule change that labeled the name “Full Self-Driving” as misleading.
The system remains an SAE Level 2 driver assistance tool, not unsupervised autonomy. It can control speed, steering, braking, lane changes, and intersections while following a navigation route. Drivers need not keep their hands on the wheel at all times, yet they must continuously monitor the road and be prepared to intervene immediately.
The sequence of EU recognitions began with the Netherlands in April and continued through Lithuania, Estonia, Denmark, Belgium, Slovenia, Czechia, Croatia, and Slovakia. Most have relied on mutual recognition of the single Dutch provisional approval rather than independent national testing.
These national clearances do not yet constitute bloc-wide authorization. An EU-wide decision requires a qualified majority in the Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles: at least 15 of 27 member states representing 65 percent of the EU population. Larger markets, like Germany, France, and Italy, remain under review, and a vote is expected this December.
However, for Latvian Tesla owners with compatible vehicles and software, the imminent rollout expands access to the supervised system while underscoring that attentive human oversight remains essential.
Tesla has a Cybercab problem nobody saw coming
How SpaceX Is raising Raptor’s sea-level thrust while holding engine mass steady
