SpaceX
SpaceX to launch replacement satellite two years after fateful Falcon 9 failure
On September 1st, 2016, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket suffered a catastrophic anomaly during a static fire test, causing an explosion that completely destroyed the vehicle, the launch pad, and Spacecom’s $200M Amos-6 satellite. This ultimately triggered a months-long investigation into what CEO Elon Musk described as “the most difficult and complex failure [SpaceX has] had in 14 years.”
More than two years and 41 successful consecutive launches later, SpaceX and Israeli satellite operator Spacecom are reportedly aiming to launch Amos-6’s replacement – Amos-17 – as early as the end of May, around three months from now.
Business in Brief: Spacecom says it will launch Amos 17 satellite within four months https://t.co/nkIFd7DzHJ
— Haaretz.com (@haaretzcom) February 25, 2019
Nearly two and a half years distant, the reverberations of SpaceX’s Amos-6 Falcon 9 failure continue to reverberate loudly. Aside from demanding changes to the operational procedures used to launch Falcon 9 and forcing an extensive critical analysis of design, production, and qualification methods, SpaceX has spent countless resources pursuing an extensive redesign of the component pointed at as the primary source of the explosion that destroyed Falcon 9. Known as composite overwrapped pressure vessels (COPVs), SpaceX uses the bottles to store extremely high-pressure helium (5000+ psi, 340+ bar) to pressurize Falcon 9’s RP-1 and oxygen tanks, as well as nitrogen to power its cold-gas maneuvering thrusters.
According to a failure analysis performed by SpaceX with NASA, the USAF, the NTSB, and the FAA, it was concluded that the cause could be traced back to a complex series of events centered around those helium COPVs. Meant to be the first mission to utilize subcooled propellant and oxidizer, the extreme cold in the upper stage LOx tank caused solid oxygen to form on the outside of the COPVs located inside it. While complex, the gist was that liquid (and perhaps solid) oxygen could have formed around the outside of the COPV, potentially finding its way in between the carbon fiber wrappings, creating a buckle in the fibers, and ultimately causing fibers to break. Near the end of this process, those breaking fibers could have created a spark or breached the helium tank, instantaneously overpressurizing the upper stage and causing an explosion.
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NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) and NASA itself have aired concerns about those COPVs since 2016, triggering an extraordinarily comprehensive program of testing, characterization, and redesign of the COPVs SpaceX uses. They have now successfully flown on 3-4 Falcon 9 launches under the same expedited propellant loading conditions that an identical rocket will undergo in preparation for Crew Dragon launches. CEO Elon Musk spent several minutes discussing the redesigned COPVs in a May 2018 press conference and did not mince words when he described them as “by far the most advanced pressure vessel[s] ever developed by humanity.”
“The amount of testing and research that’s gone into COPV safety is gigantic. This is by far the most advanced pressure vessel ever developed by humanity. It’s nuts. And I’ve personally gone over the test design, I’ve lost count how many times. But the top engineering minds at SpaceX have agonized over this. We’ve tested the living daylights out of it. We’ve been in deep, deep discussions with NASA about this. And I think we’re in a good situation.” – SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, May 2018
NASA and ASAP concerns have since been alleviated, culminating on February 22nd with an official announcement that NASA was ready for SpaceX to conduct the first uncrewed launch of its Crew Dragon spacecraft on March 2nd. It’s thus almost poetic that customer Spacecom chose the same week to announce a target date for the Falcon 9 launch of a satellite built to replace the destroyed Amos-6, known as Amos-17. Soon after the Amos-6 disaster, Spacecom settled on a free SpaceX launch contract for a future satellite instead of an immediate $50M payout. Procured for around $160M, SpaceX is reportedly targeting the launch of the Boeing-built satellite during the week of May 27th, likely from Launch Complex 40 (LC-40) – the same pad that suffered extensive damage during the September 2016 anomaly.
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- Spacecom’s Boeing-built Amos-17 satellite. (Boeing)
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- Falcon 9 shows off some of its COPVs in a tour of SpaceX’s Hawthorne factory. (SpaceX)
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- An impressive view of Crew Dragon (DM-1), Falcon 9 B1051, and its upper stage. (SpaceX)
Since Amos-6, SpaceX’s record of reliability has been effectively spotless and now stands at an impressive 41 consecutive successful launches, including Falcon Heavy’s February 2018 debut. Aside from the sheer volume of launches SpaceX performed in a little over two years, the company has pushed full speed ahead towards its goal of routinely reusing Falcon 9 boosters. Less than 24 months after the first commercial reuse, SpaceX has landed Falcon 9 boosters 34 times and reused them 20 times, numbers that are only likely to grow in 2019.
Set to occur shortly after the planned launch debuts of Crew Dragon and Falcon Heavy (commercially), SpaceX will hopefully be able to place Amos-17 in a healthy orbit and thus effectively retire the Amos-6 saga before the second half of 2019.
Check out Teslarati’s newsletters for prompt updates, on-the-ground perspectives, and unique glimpses of SpaceX’s rocket launch and recovery processes!
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Elon Musk’s massive Terafab project, which will be the first true conglomeration between each of his major entities, is set to get its final location soon, the CEO said on Tesla’s recent earnings call.
“The Terafab, we expect to announce a location soon, and provide more details about our plans in that regard. We’ll leave that to the product, the launch announcement rather than try to squeeze it into an earnings call,” Musk said last Wednesday.
Tesla Terafab set for launch: Inside the $20B AI chip factory that will reshape the auto industry
Terafab was announced by Musk back in March and was essentially a massive, vertically integrated semiconductor manufacturing project that would provide all the chips the three companies needed for their AI initiatives without needing third-party companies.
The plant will produce over 1 terawatt of AI compute each year, and will help back up projects like Optimus, Full Self-Driving, and other AI-based projects that Musk’s companies are working on.
In April, less than a month after the project was launched, Intel announced it would join the project, contributing manufacturing expertise and consulting to Terafab as a whole. Intel is one of three chip manufacturers that produce sub-5 nanometer chips at scale. TSMC and Samsung are the other two.
However, there was no true indication of where Terafab would end up, but most believe it will likely be somewhere in Texas. Business Insider has reported that SpaceX plans to build out Terafab in Grimes County, Texas, but this is unconfirmed.
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Musk confirmed recently that it would not be on Giga Texas property, as it is simply too large.
The sheer scale of TERAFAB is going to be insane.
Elon said it wouldn’t be suitable for anywhere on Giga Texas property because it’s too big:
“We couldn’t possibly fit the Terafab on the GigaTexas campus. It will be far bigger than everything else combined there.
Several… pic.twitter.com/79GbhNNuf4
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) March 23, 2026
Terafab holds much of Musk’s grand ambitions for the future within its construct. It holds so much responsibility for the future and the biggest projects that Musk’s companies can imagine.
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“I think this is a very big announcement and it deserves to have its own day in the spotlight and not be squeezed into an earnings call,” he said. “I do think Terafab is going to be an amazing initiative and a necessary one, and one without which we will be constrained in our ability to scale Optimus production, because we simply won’t have enough AI chips.”
He continued by stating that Terafab is necessary for scaling Optimus, which Musk said could be the biggest product of any kind of all time. “It’s crucial to solve that, and we’ll have to solve memory, logic, and packaging in order to scale Optimus.”
SpaceX performed a secret test on a specific portion of Starship with its recent 13th test flight last week, CEO Elon Musk revealed.
Starship’s 13th test flight took place last Friday, and in many aspects, it was one of the most overwhelmingly successful launches in the project’s history.
All of the mission objectives were met without incident, both the Super Heavy Booster and Ship managed to perform safe splashdowns in the Gulf of America and the Indian Ocean, respectively, and the deployment of Starlink satellites came and went without any complications.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 25, 2026
However, there was more on the agenda for SpaceX with Flight 13. Musk revealed an internal test of the ship’s heat shield tiles, as the space exploration company wanted to push them to the limits after previous issues.
Many noticed that Starship’s initial launch seemed to be more accelerated than normal, and that was not a mistake. Musk revealed that SpaceX decided to give Flight 13 an intentionally aggressive acceleration rate in an effort to test how well the tiles would remain attached to the ship:
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This flight intentionally had much higher acceleration to test how well the heat shield tiles would remain attached at high dynamic pressure.
Test was successful.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 25, 2026
SpaceX had issues with some of the heat shield tiles remaining attached early on in the Starship program. The first six test flights presented some kind of anomaly with them, so the company’s big focus with them was to figure out a way to keep them intact through the duration of the flight.
Things truly improved as Flight 10 showed that ceramic tiles generally stayed attached to the ship far better due to refined attachment, as SpaceX utilized pins instead of adhesives. Flights 10 through 13 truly showed some clear progress with the heat shield tiles, and this latest test seems to be where some real progress was noticed, especially by Musk.
The 13th Starship launch last Friday was the second with Starship V3, SpaceX’s latest and greatest iteration of the spacecraft. Goals and ambitions are getting even grander as the project continues to progress. Musk has already hinted that SpaceX will likely try to catch Starship with Flight 14.
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Just hours after Starship Flight 13 achieved a successful soft splashdown of its upper stage in the Indian Ocean on July 24, Elon Musk announced an ambitious next step for the company’s next launch of the rocket.
“Unless we discover problems after mission data review, SpaceX will attempt to catch the ship with the tower on [the] next flight,” the SpaceX CEO posted on X on Friday.
That “next flight” is expected to be Flight 14. The plan involves returning the Starship upper stage, commonly called the “ship,” to the Starbase launch tower in Texas and catching it mid-air using the same mechanical “chopsticks” arms that have already proven themselves with the Super Heavy booster.
Unless we discover problems after mission data review, SpaceX will attempt to catch the ship with the tower on next flight
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 25, 2026
A successful catch would mark the first time an orbital-class upper stage has been recovered this way, advancing SpaceX’s goal of full and rapid reusability for the entire vehicle.
SpaceX has already demonstrated the tower-catch technique multiple times with Super Heavy. The first successful catch came on Flight 5 in October 2024, when Booster 12 was plucked from the sky by the Mechazilla arms. Subsequent flights, including those involving Boosters 14 and 15, repeated the feat. Several of those recovered boosters were later inspected, refurbished, and flown again, proving the system’s viability for quick turnaround.
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Traditional reusable rockets, such as SpaceX’s own Falcon 9 or Blue Origin’s New Shepard, land on legs either on land or droneships. Rocket Lab has recovered its small Electron first stages by helicopter, but those are far lighter vehicles.
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
The China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), a subsidiary of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. (CASC), completed a catch of its booster on July 10. They are the only entity besides SpaceX to attempt and complete the feat.
Flight 13 provided encouraging data. The ship executed a controlled reentry, flipped, and soft-landed intact in the ocean after deploying Starlink satellites, offering the first clear post-splashdown views of an undamaged heat shield. The Super Heavy booster, meanwhile, experienced a harder splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.
Musk has previously stressed that ship catches would only follow multiple successful soft ocean landings to minimize risk of debris over land.
If Flight 14 succeeds, SpaceX would take a major stride toward routine, rapid reuse of both stages—critical for lowering launch costs and supporting ambitious plans for lunar and Mars missions. For now, teams are reviewing the Flight 13 data. Should everything check out, the next Starship flight could deliver one of the most spectacular recoveries in aerospace history.
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Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.3.6 review: a rare regression, but some bright spots
Musk’s massive Terafab project will get final location soon
