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SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket shown off in unprecedented detail ahead of next US Air Force launch
The United States Air Force (USAF) has published a number of spectacular photos shared by SpaceX, revealing some unprecedentedly detailed views of a Falcon 9 rocket in various stages of manufacturing.
Likely taken in and around SpaceX’s massive Hawthorne, California rocket factory and headquarters and McGregor, Texas test facilities in recent weeks, these new photos show the work being done behind the scenes to prepare a brand new Falcon 9 rocket for SpaceX’s next US Air Force launch. Over the last few years, the extremely competitive Falcon 9 rocket has secured SpaceX up to five launch contracts for the USAF’s next-generation GPS III satellite constellation.
Made up of three explicit contracts and two contract options to be exercised (or discarded) later on, SpaceX completed the first of those contracts in December 2018, successfully launching GPS III SV01 – the first of 32 planned satellites. As evidenced by the name, GPS III is the latest iteration of US Global Positioning System satellites and should offer better security, a greater resistance to jamming and interference, and improved navigational accuracy. Unfortunately, it could be several years to half a decade or more before civilian users begin to see the benefits from GPS III, but chances are good that SpaceX will come to launch a vast majority of the upgraded satellites.
According to the post that accompanied the photos published by the Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC), SpaceX’s second USAF GPS III mission – this time carrying Space Vehicle 03 (SV03) – is scheduled to launch no earlier than (NET) the end of Q1 2020. Preparations are reportedly well underway for the critical launch: SMC says that SpaceX has already delivered the mission’s new Falcon 9 Block 5 booster from its Hawthorne factory to McGregor, Texas, where technicians are now preparing the reusable rocket for a routine static fire test before shipping it east to Florida.
Additionally, the GPS III SV03 mission’s Falcon 9 payload fairing is apparently already at SpaceX’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station facilities, likely waiting for Air Force to ship the large satellite to Florida. If identical to SpaceX’s first GPS III launch, the GPS III SV03 spacecraft will weigh approximately 3800 kg (8400 lb) and will be launched to an elliptical orbit measuring some 1000 km by 20,200 km (620 mi x 12,500 mi).
Astute observers will notice that both the GPS III satellite mass and the orbit it’s heading to are significantly lower than an array of prior missions that have launched heavier satellites much higher and still recovered the Falcon 9 booster along the way. SpaceX’s first GPS III launch was particularly exceptional because it marked the first and only time that a new Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket was intentionally expended without any attempt to land the booster.
In fact, Falcon 9 booster B1054 didn’t even have a semblance of landing legs or grid fins installed, a testament to the certainty of its premature demise. Thankfully, whatever the dubiously technical reasons that led to B1054’s demise, it appears that SpaceX may actually be allowed to recover the Falcon 9 booster (likely B1060 or B1061) assigned to launch GPS III SV03. Although nothing has actually been said along those lines, the Falcon 9 booster pictured in the middle photo below – implied to be the Air Force’s next GPS launch vehicle – clearly has some of the basic hardware needed for landing legs.
As such, there is at least a small excuse to preserve hope that SpaceX’s next Falcon 9 GPS III launch will feature a booster landing, thus preventing a premature and extremely wasteful demise after just a single launch. Even if the US Air Force never actually qualifies flight-proven commercial rockets to launch its payloads, the recovered booster should be able to support anywhere from several to 90+ additional launches before SpaceX actually needs to retire or expend the booster.
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Tesla is being sued by the family of the woman who was killed in a Texas crash involving a Model 3. The driver, who is also being sued, claimed the vehicle was operating on Autopilot mode, but Tesla executives have come out challenging that claim, stating that the driver of the vehicle overrode the system.
The lawsuit was filed by 76-year-old Martha Avila’s daughter and her husband, who allege a “design defect” involving a Tesla and a failure to warn. The suit alleges negligence against Tesla and the driver, Michael Butler.
Butler “stated he was operating with an automated driving assistance system engaged at the time of the crash,” the Harris County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. He showed no signs of intoxication and was cooperative, the Sheriff’s Office said, according to NBC News.
Just after reports of the crash and numerous headlines that immediately blamed Tesla’s Autopilot suite, both Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Head of AI Ashok Elluswamy challenged that. Musk said the crash made “no sense” given that Tesla Autopilot and Full Self-Driving do not travel at the speeds the door cameras captured the car traveling at, which Tesla says was 73 MPH.
Tesla finally clarifies fatal Texas crash, confirms driver manually overrode acceleration
Elluswamy also revealed that Tesla data showed Butler overrode the system by pressing the accelerator to 100%, and that the pedal was compressed fully even after the car had crashed. Tesla has not released this data to the public, likely because it is communicating with agencies like the NHTSA on an investigation.
The suit uses a Washington Post analysis of government data that “identified at least 17 fatal incidents linked to Tesla Autopilot.”
This is far from the first time an accident has been blamed on Autopilot. A fatal crash in Texas was blamed on Autopilot several years ago, but when Tesla released data to the NTSB, which was investigating the crash, Autopilot was not available where the crash occurred, and Autosteer was never enabled, meaning the car was manually controlled at the time of the accident.
“Application of the accelerator pedal was found to be as high as 98.8 percent,” the NTSB said in their findings. The highest recorded speed in the five seconds leading up to the impact was 67 miles per hour. The area where the crash occurred is residential, and Texas State laws… pic.twitter.com/XGD97NHVZ2
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) March 18, 2026
More information on the accident will be released as Tesla works with agencies to find the cause of the crash. From personal experience, it is hard to imagine Tesla Autopilot or FSD operating in this manner. It drives sometimes too cautiously in residential areas in parking lots, at least in my experience. Speeding happens, but at this rate in this type of area, it is hard to believe.
We look forward to more details being released with time.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has awarded the 2025-2026 Tesla Cybertruck crew cab pickup its highest honor: Top Safety Pick+. This marks the Cybertruck as the only full-size pickup to achieve this distinction in recent evaluations.
The award applies specifically to vehicles built after April 2025, following structural upgrades including front underbody reinforcements and footwell modifications.
These changes enabled strong performance in updated crash tests. The Cybertruck earned “Good” ratings in the small overlap front (driver and passenger sides), updated moderate overlap front, and updated side tests—core requirements for the Top Safety Pick+ designation.
It also secured acceptable or good headlights across trims and a “Good” rating for its standard front crash prevention system in pedestrian scenarios, along with acceptable or good performance in vehicle-to-vehicle testing.
The Cybertruck avoided every single pedestrian collision, including:
- Daytime child crossing
- Nightitime adult crossing
- Night parallel adult
In IIHS pedestrian front crash prevention tests, @Cybertruck avoided every single collision – daytime, nighttime & different angles
It was also the only pickup to earn Top Safety Pick+ (highest award) in 2026https://t.co/BNPqT9TbsW pic.twitter.com/M6nwDisBFK
— Tesla (@Tesla) June 24, 2026
In the large pickup category, competitors such as the Toyota Tundra received only a standard Top Safety Pick, while the Ford F-150 and Ram 1500 did not qualify for either award. This positions the Cybertruck as a standout in occupant protection and crash avoidance among its peers.
Credit: IIHS
Ironically, the same vehicle celebrated for superior U.S. safety performance remains banned from public roads in the United Kingdom and much of Europe. Regulators there cite the Cybertruck’s sharp external edges and highly rigid stainless-steel construction as failing pedestrian-protection standards. European and UK rules require rounded surfaces on protruding parts to minimize injury risk in collisions with vulnerable road users.
Critics also point to the truck’s substantial weight and unyielding body structure, which some argue could transfer more force to other vehicles or pedestrians rather than absorbing it.
Tesla’s engineering philosophy underpins the Cybertruck’s strong IIHS results. The vehicle features a distinctive stainless-steel exoskeleton made from ultra-hard 30X cold-rolled stainless steel. This provides exceptional structural rigidity and a robust safety cage that resists deformation in side impacts and rollovers.
Engineers designed integrated load paths to channel crash forces away from the occupant compartment while allowing controlled energy absorption in key zones. Post-April 2025 refinements to the front underbody further optimized performance in overlap crashes.
Complementing the passive structure is Tesla’s advanced active safety suite, including the standard Collision Avoidance Assist system with automatic emergency braking. This contributed directly to the vehicle’s strong front crash prevention scores. The skateboard platform and low center of gravity also enhance stability and handling, reducing the likelihood of certain crashes.
The IIHS recognition highlights how Tesla’s combination of high-strength materials, structural innovation, and software-driven safety systems can deliver top-tier protection in rigorous testing. While global regulatory differences on design and pedestrian interaction continue to limit the Cybertruck’s availability outside North America, its U.S. safety credentials set a new benchmark for full-size pickups.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s newest Starmind will make earth data centers obsolete
Elon Musk confirmed Starmind as SpaceX’s AI satellite constellation name, targeting one million orbital compute nodes.
Elon Musk confirmed that Starmind will be the official name of SpaceX’s planned AI satellite constellation, following a trademark filing by xAI that surfaced earlier this week. Starmind is what’s being described to the FCC as a constellation of up to one million AI satellites
It’s worth noting that SpaceX’s Starlink communication satellite and Starmind are built on the same orbital infrastructure concept but serve entirely different purposes. Starlink is a connectivity network, with satellites receiving and relaying data between points on Earth, and functioning as a high-speed internet backbone in space. The satellites themselves do not process or think, and move information from one place to another, the same function a fiber cable performs underground.
SpaceX just forced Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile to team up for the first time in history
Starmind, on the other hand, is something completely different, and tather than moving data, its satellites would compute data through artificial intelligence and directly in orbit using onboard processors powered by large solar arrays. Where a Starlink satellite is essentially a very fast pipe, a Starmind satellite is a server. The practical implication is that Starmind would allow AI models to run inference, process queries, and generate outputs from space, then beam results down to users anywhere on Earth within milliseconds, and without the data ever needing to travel to a terrestrial data center.
Starship will be able to carry 30 to 50 AI1 satellites per launch, delivering the equivalent of dozens of server racks per flight, with no land acquisition, no power grid approval, and no cooling infrastructure required on the ground.
SpaceX is pursuing this new technology as terrestrial data centers are running into hard limits such as lack of physical space, community opposition, and power and water consumption at a scale that is increasingly difficult to permit. Space has unlimited solar power, natural vacuum cooling, and no zoning boards. Musk said in a June 8 video presentation that he expects space to become the lowest-cost location to deploy AI compute within two to three years. Two AI1 prototypes are scheduled to launch in early 2027, with volume production targeted for the end of that year at a new facility called Gigasat.
The real world applications Starmind enables extend well beyond powering Grok. A constellation of orbiting AI processors could run inference workloads for any paying customer, anywhere on Earth, with latency measured in milliseconds rather than the seconds associated with ground-based cloud routing across continents. Starmind, if it scales as described, would make SpaceX the landlord of AI compute the same way Starlink made it the landlord of satellite internet.
Tesla and driver sued by family of woman killed in Texas crash: what we know
Tesla Cybertruck is officially the safest pickup, IIHS says
