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Watch SpaceX’s last launch and landing of 2020 live [webcast]
Update: Despite no plans for a preflight static fire, SpaceX remains on track to attempt its last launch and landing of 2020 as early as 9 am EST (14:00 UTC), Thursday, December 17th.
After performing a routine preflight wet dress rehearsal (WDR) and booster static fire prior to every launch since September 2016, SpaceX has gradually begun to loosen the requirement for flight-proven rockets in 2020. Instead, if a prior flight or post-flight inspection reveal issues, static fires will serve more as a data-driven diagnostic tool. For flight-proven boosters with a clean bill of health, so to speak, SpaceX appears to be confident enough to skip the procedure on a few internal Starlink launches and the odd customer mission.
Now, despite NROL-108 begin the NRO’s first direct launch contract with SpaceX and first flight on a flight-proven Falcon 9 rocket of any kind, let alone the four-flight booster assigned to support it, the espionage agency apparently has equal faith in SpaceX. Falcon 9 B1059, a new upper stage and payload fairing, and the unspecified NROL-108 payload(s) went vertical at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Launch Complex 39A on December 16th – far too late for any WDR or static fire testing prior to an early December 17th launch attempt.
The mission will be SpaceX’s 26th and final launch of 2020 and – barring a major surprise – the last orbital US launch of the year. As usual, SpaceX will broadcast the launch live, with coverage beginning around 15 minutes prior to liftoff (8:45 am EST/UTC-5).
The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) says that SpaceX remains on track to attempt its last Falcon 9 launch and landing of the year after an almost two-month delay.
Originally scheduled to launch as early as October, the secretive orbital espionage agency’s NROL-108 launch plans were quietly revealed in routine communication permission requests filed by SpaceX with the FCC. Unfortunately, those plans came around the same time as a Falcon 9 booster engine issue aborted a SpaceX launch at the last second and forced the company to undergo a quick but extensive anomaly investigation. As it turns out, the Falcon 9 booster assigned to support NROL-108 (B1059) was practically siblings with the three new boosters affected by the investigation.
SpaceX may have had to swap some of the nine Merlin 1D engines on B1059, although a far less likely outcome given that B1059 had successfully completed four launches and landings at that point. Ultimately, while nothing is known for sure, payload-side issues with the NROL-108 satellite(s) are the most likely cause of most of the eight-week delay that followed. Now, confirmed by the NRO on December 14th, SpaceX is scheduled to launch its second mission for the spy agency no earlier than (NET) 9 am to 12 pm EST (14:00-17:00 UTC) on Thursday, December 17th.
For SpaceX, this will be the third time in a single month that a customer has effectively leapfrogged several Falcon 9 booster reuse milestones, once again exhibiting an extreme amount of confidence in the company’s expertise with flight-proven rockets. On December 6th, Falcon 9 booster B1058 lifted off for the fourth time in support of SpaceX’s CRS-21 space station resupply mission for NASA, marking the space agency’s first launch on a twice- or thrice-flown booster.
On December 13th, carrying a large communications satellite for Sirius XM, another Falcon 9 booster lifted off for the seventh time, becoming the first private customer to launch on a five-flight or six-flight SpaceX rocket.
As few as four days after SXM-7, SpaceX is now scheduled to launch the mysterious NROL-108 mission. It will be the first time the NRO has launched a payload on a flight-proven commercial rocket of any kind, as well as its first launch on a two-flight, three-flight, or four-flight booster – by far the biggest numerical leap a SpaceX customer has ever taken. NRO’s first and only SpaceX launch – technically contracted by spacecraft provider Bell Aerospace, not NRO itself – was completed in May 2017.
While less significant, NROL-108 will also be SpaceX’s first US government launch on a four-flight Falcon 9 booster, yet another indication that even its most conservative customers have fully bought into the value and technical viability of reusable rockets.
After launch, Falcon 9 B1059 will flip around and head back towards the Florida coast for a landing at one of SpaceX’s two East Coast Landing Zones. Deploying a minute or so after booster separation, Falcon 9’s two payload fairing halves are expected to splash down some 330 km (~205 mi) downrange, where SpaceX recovery ships GO Search and GO Ms Tree will attempt recovery.
Although the two vehicles are built for completely different use cases, Tesla utilized engineering expertise while developing both the Cybercab and Semi to build a thermal architecture that would fit both vehicles. Of course, with some slight revisions.
The development was noted by Lars Moravy and Dan Priestley last week at Tesla’s Semi Handover event in Sparks, Nevada, where the company showed off its dedicated production facility for the Class 8 truck.
🚨 Tesla designed the integrated thermal systems for Cybercab and Semi at the same time as the vehicles were both in development
Tesla wanted to build one thermal system that worked with both vehicles, apart from small modifications.
Semi and Cybercab share parts 🤯 pic.twitter.com/KmzSsUbrcg
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) September 25, 2026
Tesla’s decision to develop one thermal architecture for both the Cybercab and Semi is one of the more revealing engineering choices in the company’s 2026 lineup:
“We designed it at the same time we designed the Cybercab and we said okay we’re going to take our most efficient vehicle and our biggest vehicle and we’re going to take one thermal system and make it work for both.”
Core parts, meaning the compressor, pumps, and heat exchangers, are shared, with only modest changes to cooling-loop sizing and a larger radiator on the truck. The result, they said, is a compressor and thermal stack already proven across millions of miles, delivering “reliability from day one.”
Priestley also highlighted a practical payoff of the indirect design:
“There’s no AC lines, there’s no refrigerant lines…It comes from the factory fully charged, sealed with refrigerant, and it just exchanges coolant. It doesn’t actually run refrigerant up to the front of the vehicle.”
This eliminates potentially leak-prone plumbing that would otherwise require hands-on service, reducing overall uptime and potentially cutting into business margins. The megamanifold runs cabin HVAC and every powertrain heating and cooling loop at once, recapturing waste heat from motors and the battery instead of dumping it the way a diesel engine does.
The approach is just the latest chapter in a continuing story of stretching thermal solutions across wildly different vehicles. Model Y’s Octovalve evolved into the Super Manifold used on Cybertruck, and later Model S/X refreshes. Cybercab then introduced Supermanifold V3, which Tesla says is 80 percent automated to build and 38 percent more efficient than typical automotive thermal systems.
This thermal system is also shared with Cybercab – one thermal system for both our most efficient vehicle & our biggest vehicle
— Tesla Semi (@tesla_semi) September 25, 2026
Tesla has done the same with the 4680 cells, both being utilized in the Cybertruck and Semi, and with heat-pump compressors that Priestley noted were already common across the passenger-car fleet.
Concurrent development of crucial vehicle elements buys scale and reliability that a truck-only thermal system could not match. High-volume passenger car parts are cheaper and more accessible, which can give fleets a sealed, low-maintenance loop of operation from their first day of operation.
For owners and operators, that translates into less energy spent on cabin heat in the colder months, fewer refrigerant-related repairs, and a thermal architecture already stress-tested at passenger-car volumes before the first high-volume Semi left the lines in Nevada.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk certainly tipped off some details of the Tesla Roadster event with a broadening of information regarding the company’s decision to delay the unveiling for two weeks.
For years, people have speculated about what the Roadster will be capable of. While there have been plenty of things said about what it *could* do, we have not seen or been told by Tesla what it will actually be capable of.
However, over the past few days, Tesla’s weather updates have truly pushed the speculation into Plaid Mode, basically all but confirming the car will have some sort of aerial capability — whether that would be hovering or fully flying remains to be seen — but it definitely seems that it will be able to leave the ground intentionally.
“Because this event can only be held outdoors…”
Tesla posted on Monday that it would delay the Roadster event until October 15, and it indicated that it had to do this because the event “can only be held outdoors.”
With the potential SpaceX collaboration to develop cold-gas thrusters that will help the vehicle go airborne, doing this indoors is probably not a safe, or even plausible, possibility.
Roadster event update
We’ve been tracking the weather closely with local meteorologists, but given the severe conditions predicted & because this event can only be held outdoors, we’ve made the difficult decision to reschedule.
New date is October 15. Additional details to…
— Tesla (@Tesla) September 28, 2026
FAA Airspace Restriction
The FAA gave Tesla a Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) for 10,000 feet above ground level, much higher than the typical 2,000-foot restrictions that are usually placed at SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas site.
Tesla Roadster event requires restricted airspace, and the FAA obliges
Some have said that this massive increase is due to Tesla’s need to restrict unauthorized drone use for spying on the event.
Elon Admits High Winds
“Due to high winds, the new Roadster demo is postponed by 2 weeks,” Musk said in a post on X yesterday.
Due to high winds, the new Roadster demo is postponed by 2 weeks https://t.co/dV3ojDh1iT
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 30, 2026
A reply reading, “What’s strong wind got to do with a car demo with four grounded wheels?” was directly below Musk’s post, satirically and sarcastically probing for more details.
All signs are pointing toward an aerial demonstration for the Roadster.
Tesla has secured $30 billion in fresh credit lines from Citibank and Wells Fargo in an effort to scale its biggest current projects.
Tesla agreed to a $20 billion three-year delayed-draw term loan facility from Citibank, it announced on Tuesday. Additionally, it signed a five-year, $8 billion revolving credit facility and a $2 billion, 364-day term credit facility with Wells Fargo.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), that it “may draw” from the $20 billion delayed-draw term “from time to time” and “no more than ten times during the 18 months following the closing date.” This loan matures on September 29, 2029.
The five-year revolving facility from Wells Fargo will also be accessed by Tesla “from time to time,” and will become due and payable on September 29, 2031. Tesla can request two separate one-year extensions.
On the $2 billion, 364-day revolving loan, it becomes due and payable on September 28, 2027. Tesla can also increase its additional commitments to an additional $4 billion across the Revolving Facilities. This would increase the total facilities to $14 billion. Tesla said it does not plan to utilize any of these loans in 2026.
Tesla plans to utilize the money to help prop up its ambitions to scale its biggest products, each of which is either in early launch phases or still in development. Of course, we’re talking about Cybercab and Semi, which have launched, and Optimus, which is still under heavy development and working toward initial release.
All three Tesla products have one thing in common: they’ve all required Tesla to build new manufacturing lines for them.
For the Semi, Tesla built a brand new factory in Sparks, Nevada, adjacent to the Tesla Gigafactory. For Optimus, Tesla sunset Model S and X production at the Fremont Factory, which brought an end to the two flagship models, thus creating manufacturing space for the humanoid robot. Finally, Cybercab is being built at Gigafactory Texas and officially entered production earlier this year.
The cash will help Tesla bolster its finances for the continuing development of these products. Tesla said that it forecasts its CapEx to be over $25 billion, up from just over $8.5 billion last year. These loans surely help with that spending.
Tesla Cybercab and Semi have more in common than you might think
Elon Musk weather update tips Tesla Roadster speculation into Plaid Mode
