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SpaceX Starlink launch suffers third weather scrub, next attempt Tuesday
Update: Multiple weather constraint violations forced SpaceX to scrub today’s Starlink-12 launch attempt less than half an hour before liftoff, marking the mission’s third weather-related scrub and fourth abort overall since mid-September. As of October 4th, the US Air Force 45th Space Wing predicted a 40% chance of weather violation.
SpaceX’s fifth Starlink-12 launch attempt is scheduled no earlier than 7:29 am EDT (11:29 UTC) on Tuesday, October 6th. The mission-specific T-1 weather forecast predicts a 70% chance of favorable conditions.
On the heels of a rare last-second Falcon 9 launch abort, SpaceX is closing in on its third attempt to launch the 12th batch of operational Starlink satellites.
Scheduled to lift off from Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Launch Complex 39A (Pad 39A) no earlier than (NET) 7:51 am EDT (11:51 UTC) on Monday, October 5th, Starlink-12 was originally scheduled to launch in mid-September. Bad weather at the Atlantic Ocean landing zone caused a ten-day delay from September 17th to the 27th, followed by a pad weather delay on the 28th.
After a ULA Delta IV Heavy mission with range priority was scrubbed for the seventh time on September 30th, SpaceX tried to launch Starlink-12 again but suffered an abort – later blamed on a pad sensor – seven seconds before liftoff. Finally, a new Falcon 9 launch with an upgraded GPS III satellite aboard was aborted just two seconds before liftoff on October 2nd. Moved from NET October 3rd to the 5th just prior to GPS III SV04’s separate launch delay, Starlink-12 is now up next.
Interrupting what has otherwise been a much-improved level of launch readiness and schedule reliability for Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy’s Block 5 upgrade, this recent string of delays – while mostly the result of weather and ULA’s own NROL-44 launch delays – has even become a concern for CEO Elon Musk. Currently focused on building out SpaceX’s new Starship factory and pushing towards the rocket’s first high-altitude and orbital test flights in Boca Chica, Texas, Musk stated that he would be flying to Cape Canaveral “to review hardware in person” on the week of October 5th.
Musk also says that SpaceX is “doing a broad review of launch site, propulsion, structures, avionics, range, & regulatory constraints” to determine if an apparent goal of “48 launches” in 2021 is feasible.
To be fair to SpaceX, most of the plague of delays suffered by the company in the last month has been caused by a mixture of weather and the range’s preferential treatment of ULA’s “national security” NROL-44 launch. Additionally, of an impressive seven ULA NROL-44 launch attempts between August 26th and September 30th, just a single one was caused by weather – the remaining six a result of a wide variety of technical software and hardware bugs. SpaceX’s Starlink-12 and GPS III SV04 missions have only suffered one technical launch abort each on September 30th and October 2nd.
In other words, short of upgrading Falcon rockets to launch and land in worse weather conditions, most of SpaceX’s delays have been largely out of the company’s control, while ULA’s NROL-44 struggles demonstrate just how much worse things could be. According to an unofficial analysis of 44 Falcon Block 5 launches since May 2018, only four technical launch aborts have been triggered by a booster fault. Pad-caused aborts have been roughly as common, meaning that 1 in roughly 6 to 8 SpaceX launches suffers some kind of abort shortly before liftoff, on average.
Altogether, Falcon Block 5 rockets have been relatively dependable for on-time, on-schedule launches even if SpaceX has struggled with more repeated delays than usual in the last few months. To achieve anywhere close to 48 launches annually, however, major improvements will need to be made, likely including upgrades to whatever is responsible for Falcon 9’s weather constraints. As of October 2020, SpaceX has never launched four times in one month (or four times in the same ~30-day period). To launch 48 times in one year, SpaceX will need to average four launches per month. That, of course, in no way accounts for the possibility that 2020-esque summer weather could functionally cut 4-8+ weeks off of Falcon 9’s annual availability.
Regardless, SpaceX will begin live coverage of the third Starlink-12 launch attempt around 7:35 am EDT (11:35 UTC). Tune in to (hopefully) catch the company’s 17th launch this year.
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Elon Musk
Tesla gives the Roadster an official “Go for launch” demonstration date
Tesla teased an October 1 Roadster reveal, reviving years of delayed SpaceX thruster hover promises.
Tesla teased an October 1 event date for its next generation Roadster, posting an image on X Saturday that shows the car lit up like it is sitting on a launch pad, with the date “10.01” stamped across the bottom and the caption “Go for launch.” A countdown clock on Tesla’s Roadster order page now points to the same date, which falls on a Thursday. The company has not said where the event will happen or whether it will be streamed at the moment. Stay with us @Teslarati for live updates.
Go for launch pic.twitter.com/Khu03eiZ04
— Tesla (@Tesla) September 12, 2026
Tesla has since sent formal invitations to reservation holders confirming the event will take place in Waco, Texas, about 90 minutes north of its Austin headquarters, based on a digital ticket shared on X by Sawyer Merritt. Tesla did not name the exact venue, though Waco sits close to SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas, rocket test site, previously reported as the planned location for a Roadster thruster demonstration. The invite sets the reveal for 8:30 p.m. Eastern on October 1, requires RSVPs by midnight on September 16, and limits entry to guests 21 and older. Invitations are non-transferable.
The tease follows nine years of a project defined by unimaginable specs along with slipped dates. Musk first showed the second generation Roadster in November 2017 as a surprise reveal at the end of the Tesla Semi event, promising a 0 to 60 mph time under two seconds, a top speed above 250 mph, 620 miles of range from a 200 kWh battery, and production starting in 2020. At last November’s shareholder meeting, Musk set an April 1 demo date and joked the choice gave him “deniability” if it slipped again, which it did, moving first to late April, then to “a month or so,” then to August.
Tesla Roadster SpaceX Package’s 1.1-second 0-60 mph launch visualized in concept video
Whatever Tesla shows on October 1 is expected to center on the SpaceX developed thruster package Musk has described since 2018. Internally code named A71, a nod to the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, the system reportedly uses cold gas thrusters fed by a composite overwrapped pressure vessel, the same tank design SpaceX uses on Falcon 9. Musk has said a thruster equipped Roadster could hit 60 mph in about 1.1 seconds under roughly 2.75 g of launch force, well past the 1.9 second figure quoted for the standard car. That version reportedly will not be street legal and has reportedly been discussed as a limited run sold through a track only program.
The standard Roadster is still expected to carry the original $200,000 base price and $250,000 Founders Series tier, both set when Tesla opened $50,000 and $250,000 reservations in 2017. Tesla VP of Vehicle Engineering Lars Moravy has confirmed production will happen at Gigafactory Texas, with Musk targeting 2027 or 2028, 12 to 18 months after whatever the company demonstrates next month.
Tesla is planning to roll out some pretty significant safety and accident avoidance features with Full Self-Driving version 15, which will be the next major FSD deployment from the company.
Tesla AI lead Ashok Elluswamy used a near-miss this week to preview what the company says is the next leap in Full Self-Driving.
In response to a driver whose car had swerved away from another vehicle pulling out of a parking lot, Elluswamy wrote that he was glad the owner was safe and that “even earlier prediction of hazards, even faster reaction time and overall significantly better safety and collision avoidance” would arrive with FSD v15.
Glad you are safe. Even earlier prediction of hazards, even faster reaction time and overall significantly better safety and collision avoidance coming as part of the next big upgrade (v15).
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) September 11, 2026
The comment landed as Tesla continues to treat software as the primary safety upgrade path. v15 is described internally as a larger architectural step, with a much bigger neural network and tighter coupling between prediction and control.
The company has already begun using early v15 software in some robotaxi operations while rolling out safety features such as Automatic Collision Evasion into current customer cars, allowing the driving stack to intervene even when the driver is in manual control.
Tesla is rolling out a new FSD version with a massive safety addition
Tesla’s published telemetry is the backbone of its safety argument. In recent North American Vehicle Safety Report data, vehicles with FSD (Supervised) engaged traveled roughly 5.1 million to 5.7 million miles between major collisions, defined as airbag-deployment events.
Tesla’s estimate of the U.S. average over the same period is about 699,000 miles per comparable crash. That is the comparison Tesla often frames as roughly seven times fewer major collisions.
A tighter comparison uses the same Tesla fleet. Cars driven manually with active safety features such as automatic emergency braking still recorded a major collision about every 2.1 million miles. Against that baseline, FSD’s advantage shrinks to roughly 2.4 to 2.7 times fewer severe crashes, which independent researchers argue is the more apples-to-apples figure.
European data released in 2026 pointed in the same direction: Tesla reported FSD as 3.5 times safer than manual driving in the Netherlands and 4.1 times fewer collisions than manually driven Teslas with active safety across more than 100 million kilometers in five approved countries.
Those numbers do not settle every debate. NHTSA’s Standing General Order still shows Tesla accounting for the large majority of U.S. Level 2 driver-assist crash reports, in part because the fleet logs far more assisted miles than rivals. Critics also note that Tesla’s “U.S. average” mixes crash definitions and driving mix.
Even so, Tesla’s own same-car comparisons, plus lower rates of automatic emergency braking and harsh maneuvers when FSD is engaged, are the evidence Elluswamy is pointing to when he says v15 will push prediction and collision avoidance further. The claim is not that software already eliminates risk. It is that each major version is meant to widen the gap between the system and an unaided human driver.
Cybertruck
Tesla’s most delayed Cybertruck feature is finally here
Tesla finally links Cybertruck Powershare with Powerwall 3 for extended home backup after years overdue.
Tesla’s Cybertruck can now pair with a Powerwall 3 to keep a house running longer during an outage, a feature the company first promised when the truck launched in November 2023.
The official Cybertruck account posted the update on X Thursday: “Powerwall 3 & I can now power your house together. This extends your home backup by over 3 days, equivalent to 9 additional Powerwalls,” Cybertruck lead engineer Wes Morrill confirmed the rollout separately, calling it the first time a vehicle and a home battery have worked together this way. Powerwall 2 and Powerwall+ compatibility is still coming later this year, per both the Cybertruck account and Morrill.
Powerwall 3 & I can now power your house together⁰ ⁰This extends your home backup by over 3 days, equivalent to 9 additional Powerwalls pic.twitter.com/8G2twIm6AN
— Cybertruck (@cybertruck) September 10, 2026
Powershare itself is not new. Tesla enabled the version that lets Cybertruck power tools, appliances or another EV through its bed outlets when the truck launched in 2023. Home backup through a Powershare Gateway and Universal Wall Connector arrived in 2024, and Tesla extended that support to homes with solar the following year. What has been missing until now is Powershare working alongside an existing Powerwall, instead of functioning as a separate backup source competing for the same job.
The pairing matters because a single Powerwall home battery typically covers a home for about a day, less if usage is heavy or the outage stretches into a heat wave or freeze. A second Powerwall for more backup storage costs several thousand dollars installed. A Cybertruck instead uses a battery the owner already has, one large enough here to add roughly three more days of backup without mounting another unit or booking an installer visit. For households in wildfire, hurricane or winter storm regions where outages run past a day, that keeps the refrigerator and medical equipment running instead of shutting down.
The company told owners in October 2024 that Powerwall integration was coming sometime in 2025. That date passed, and in December 2025 Tesla pushed the target to mid-2026, with Morrill explaining at the time that two grid-forming devices need to negotiate which one manages a home during an outage, and that certifying the process across multiple generations of Powerwall took longer than expected.
For owners who bought Powershare hardware expecting it to work with whatever battery setup they already had, Thursday’s update closes a gap that has shown up repeatedly in owner complaints since Cybertruck deliveries began. Tesla has also rolled out a separate Powershare grid support program in Texas, letting Cybertrucks send power back to the grid during high demand events, so the truck’s role in a home’s energy setup keeps expanding even as individual pieces of it arrive later than promised.
Tesla gives the Roadster an official “Go for launch” demonstration date
Tesla plans big safety improvements for Full Self-Driving v15
