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SpaceX set to end longest gap between Falcon launches in two years
NASA has confirmed that SpaceX’s next Falcon 9 launch is now scheduled to occur no earlier than 3:37 am EDT (07:37 UTC) on Saturday, August 28th.
Known as CRS-23, the cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS) is noteworthy for two major reasons. Most importantly, CRS-23 will mark SpaceX’s first-ever reuse of an upgraded Cargo Dragon 2 spacecraft. Simultaneously, that reuse milestone will coincide with another when SpaceX smashes its internal record for orbital spacecraft turnaround later this month.
Second, much to the surprise of virtually everyone watching from the sidelines, SpaceX’s last launch occurred on June 30th – in the first half of 2021. One step removed from the mission’s technical specifics, CRS-23 will, in other words, also be SpaceX’s first launch in almost two months – a gap not seen in two years.
The last time SpaceX went two or more months between launches was in August 2019, when the company took a more than three-month hiatus for unknown reasons. Prior to that unexpected pause, the only other times in the last half-decade that SpaceX has stopped launching for more than a handful of weeks was after catastrophic Falcon 9 launch and static fire failures in June 2015 and September 2016 – both of which took 4-6 months to recover from.
In other words, long gaps between SpaceX launches are both rare and, on average, against the company’s will. Most recently, there were some signs that the military-run Florida launch range was down for most of July 2021 to complete routine maintenance. However, per Boeing’s second uncrewed Starliner flight test tracking towards a mid-August launch before that mission was scrubbed indefinitely, the range clearly reopened sometime earlier this month. After completing a spectacular 20 orbital Falcon 9 launches in the first half of the year, though, the second half of 2021 has been exactly the opposite for SpaceX.
Given reports that CEO Elon Musk ordered a temporary mass-emigration of hundreds of SpaceX employees at other facilities to the company’s Boca Chica, Texas “Starbase,” it’s possible that Musk is effectively sacrificing a sustained Starlink launch cadence to expedite Starship’s path to orbit. However, anything beyond the simple fact that SpaceX hasn’t launched since June 30th is speculation. Ultimately, CRS-23 is on track to be SpaceX’s first orbital launch in 59 days.
As for CRS-23, the mission will see SpaceX reuse its upgraded Crew Dragon-derived Cargo Dragon 2 spacecraft for the first time. Known as C208, the Dragon 2 capsule in question debuted in December 2020 and safely returned from orbit to Earth almost 40 days later on January 14th, 2021. Now, at least according to one of the traditional mission patches created for CRS-23, Cargo Dragon capsule C208 is scheduled to launch to orbit again less than eight months later – potentially smashing the record for Dragon capsule turnaround by 102 days (>30%).
At ~226 days from orbital reentry and splashdown to its next orbital launch, Dragon 2 capsule C208’s CRS-23 reuse will be almost twice as fast as the fastest Dragon 1 capsule reuse (418 days), demonstrating what SpaceX has described as significant improvements in reusability.
Tesla Robotaxi ride-hailing without a Safety Monitor is proving to be a difficult task, according to some riders who made the journey to Austin to attempt to ride in one of its vehicles that has zero supervision.
Last week, Tesla officially removed Safety Monitors from some — not all — of its Robotaxi vehicles in Austin, Texas, answering skeptics who said the vehicles still needed supervision to operate safely and efficiently.
BREAKING: Tesla launches public Robotaxi rides in Austin with no Safety Monitor
Tesla aimed to remove Safety Monitors before the end of 2025, and it did, but only to company employees. It made the move last week to open the rides to the public, just a couple of weeks late to its original goal, but the accomplishment was impressive, nonetheless.
However, the small number of Robotaxis that are operating without Safety Monitors has proven difficult to hail for a ride. David Moss, who has gained notoriety recently as the person who has traveled over 10,000 miles in his Tesla on Full Self-Driving v14 without any interventions, made it to Austin last week.
He has tried to get a ride in a Safety Monitor-less Robotaxi for the better part of four days, and after 38 attempts, he still has yet to grab one:
Wow just wow!
It’s 8:30PM, 29° out ice storm hailing & Tesla Robotaxi service has turned back on!
Waymo is offline & vast majority of humans are home in the storm
Ride 38 was still supervised but by far most impressive yet pic.twitter.com/1aUnJkcYm8
— David Moss (@DavidMoss) January 25, 2026
Tesla said last week that it was rolling out a controlled test of the Safety Monitor-less Robotaxis. Ashok Elluswamy, who heads the AI program at Tesla, confirmed that the company was “starting with a few unsupervised vehicles mixed in with the broader Robotaxi fleet with Safety Monitors,” and that “the ratio will increase over time.”
This is a good strategy that prioritizes safety and keeps the company’s controlled rollout at the forefront of the Robotaxi rollout.
However, it will be interesting to see how quickly the company can scale these completely monitor-less rides. It has proven to be extremely difficult to get one, but that is understandable considering only a handful of the cars in the entire Austin fleet are operating with no supervision within the vehicle.
Tesla has given its biggest hint that Full Self-Driving in Europe is imminent, as a new feature seems to show that the company is preparing for frequent border crossings.
Tesla owner and influencer BLKMDL3, also known as Zack, recently took his Tesla to the border of California and Mexico at Tijuana, and at the international crossing, Full Self-Driving showed an interesting message: “Upcoming country border — FSD (Supervised) will become unavailable.”
FSD now shows a new message when approaching an international border crossing.
Stayed engaged the whole way as we crossed the border and worked great in Mexico! pic.twitter.com/bDzyLnyq0g
— Zack (@BLKMDL3) January 26, 2026
Due to regulatory approvals, once a Tesla operating on Full Self-Driving enters a new country, it is required to comply with the laws and regulations that are applicable to that territory. Even if legal, it seems Tesla will shut off FSD temporarily, confirming it is in a location where operation is approved.
This is something that will be extremely important in Europe, as crossing borders there is like crossing states in the U.S.; it’s pretty frequent compared to life in America, Canada, and Mexico.
Tesla has been working to get FSD approved in Europe for several years, and it has been getting close to being able to offer it to owners on the continent. However, it is still working through a lot of the red tape that is necessary for European regulators to approve use of the system on their continent.
This feature seems to be one that would be extremely useful in Europe, considering the fact that crossing borders into other countries is much more frequent than here in the U.S., and would cater to an area where approvals would differ.
Tesla has been testing FSD in Spain, France, England, and other European countries, and plans to continue expanding this effort. European owners have been fighting for a very long time to utilize the functionality, but the red tape has been the biggest bottleneck in the process.
Tesla Europe builds momentum with expanding FSD demos and regional launches
Tesla operates Full Self-Driving in the United States, China, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship V3 gets launch date update from Elon Musk
The first flight of Starship Version 3 and its new Raptor V3 engines could happen as early as March.
Elon Musk has announced that SpaceX’s next Starship launch, Flight 12, is expected in about six weeks. This suggests that the first flight of Starship Version 3 and its new Raptor V3 engines could happen as early as March.
In a post on X, Elon Musk stated that the next Starship launch is in six weeks. He accompanied his announcement with a photo that seemed to have been taken when Starship’s upper stage was just about to separate from the Super Heavy Booster. Musk did not state whether SpaceX will attempt to catch the Super Heavy Booster during the upcoming flight.
The upcoming flight will mark the debut of Starship V3. The upgraded design includes the new Raptor V3 engine, which is expected to have nearly twice the thrust of the original Raptor 1, at a fraction of the cost and with significantly reduced weight. The Starship V3 platform is also expected to be optimized for manufacturability.
The Starship V3 Flight 12 launch timeline comes as SpaceX pursues an aggressive development cadence for the fully reusable launch system. Previous iterations of Starship have racked up a mixed but notable string of test flights, including multiple integrated flight tests in 2025.
Interestingly enough, SpaceX has teased an aggressive timeframe for Starship V3’s first flight. Way back in late November, SpaceX noted on X that it will be aiming to launch Starship V3’s maiden flight in the first quarter of 2026. This was despite setbacks like a structural anomaly on the first V3 booster during ground testing.
“Starship’s twelfth flight test remains targeted for the first quarter of 2026,” the company wrote in its post on X.
Tesla Robotaxi ride-hailing without a Safety Monitor proves to be difficult
Tesla gives its biggest hint that Full Self-Driving in Europe is imminent
