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SpaceX confirms Starlink launch plans hours before Thursday liftoff
Update: Waiting longer than it ever has before, SpaceX finally confirmed it will attempt to launch Starlink 4-3 less than seven hours before the mission’s planned 6:12 pm EST (23:12 UTC), December 2nd liftoff. SpaceX has yet to publish any additional details or webcast links for the launch but should (in theory) do so within the next few hours.
SpaceX has raised Falcon 9 vertical for a record-breaking Starlink and rideshare mission known as Starlink Group 4 Launch 3 (4-3).
According to Spaceflight Now, Falcon 9 rolled out to SpaceX’s Cape Canaveral LC-40 launch pad and was expected to perform a static fire test as early as Monday, November 29th, briefly firing up the mystery flight-proven booster’s nine Merlin 1D engines to verify the rocket’s health. As of early Wednesday, that static fire has yet to happen, leaving SpaceX just ~36 hours to test the rocket before its current 5:57 pm EST (22:57 UTC), December 2nd launch target.
Despite its name, Starlink 4-3 will be SpaceX’s second Group 4 launch and is scheduled to deliver another 50-52 laser-linked Starlink V1.5 satellites to low Earth orbit. Normally, Starlink 4-3 would be carrying 53 Starlink satellites but SpaceX will instead swap out two or three Starlink satellites for two rideshare payloads from Earth observation company Blacksky.
Starlink 4-3 will be SpaceX’s fifth Starlink rideshare mission and second with Earth imaging satellites from Blacksky after Starlink V1 L9’s successful August 2020 launch. Each weighing around 60 kg (130 lb), Blacksky’s small ‘Gen2’ satellites are designed to capture images of Earth at resolutions of up to 0.9 meters per pixel. If successful, the launch will raise the number of operational Blacksky satellites in orbit from 8 to 10. Another two launches are expected to occur in the next two months for a total of 14 satellites.
Like past Starlink rideshares, SpaceX will likely launch Falcon 9 to a slightly higher orbit than usual – tailored to each customer’s needs. For SXRS-2, Spaceflight says Falcon 9 will deploy all Starlink and rideshare payloads in a (likely circular) 430 km (270 mi) low Earth orbit. In comparison, Falcon 9 deployed Starlink 4-1 in an orbit roughly 340 by 220 km.
For SpaceX, Starlink 4-3 will set at least two major spaceflight records. First, if all goes well, it will be SpaceX’s 27th launch of 2021 – a new record for annual launch cadence. Though CEO Elon Musk originally hoped for 40-48 launches this year, it appears that SpaceX will still manage around 29-31 by the end of December. However, if SpaceX managed to excise the apparent Starlink production gremlins that partly caused its launch cadence to plummet from 20 missions in the first half of 2021 to ~10 in the second half, 2022 could potentially meet Musk’s 2021 expectations.
Additionally, as pointed out by a Teslarati reader, Starlink 4-3 could also see Falcon 9 become the first American rocket in history to successfully complete more than 100 orbital launches in a row, narrowly beating out McDonnell Douglas’ retired Delta II rocket for the title. Earlier this year, many outlets already reported that SpaceX’s May 26th Starlink-28 launch was its 100th consecutive launch. While true in a very literal sense, it ignores SpaceX’s infamous Amos-6 Falcon 9 failure, which occurred well before liftoff but still destroyed both the rocket and payload. Following NASA’s DART mission earlier this month, which was Falcon 9’s unequivocal 100th launch success, Starlink 4-3 will be Falcon 9’s 101st orbital launch since Amos-6.
Only Russia’s R-7 (Soyuz) rockets – the most-launched rocket family in history – have successfully launched more times in a row. Since 1966, Soyuz rockets have launched more than 1900 times and the family has repeatedly completed 100 consecutively successful launches over its decades of operation. Eleven years after its debut, Falcon 9 currently stands at 127 fully successful launches – a lifetime away from matching Soyuz but still well on its way to a thoroughly impressive second place.
Stay tuned for official confirmation from SpaceX of Starlink 4-3’s pending static fire and December 2nd launch date.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
SpaceX’s Starship flew successfully Friday, landing both stages and deploying its first Starlink V3 satellites.
Starship’s thirteenth test flight delivered exactly what SpaceX needed with a clean liftoff, two successful stage recoveries, and the first real payload the vehicle has ever carried to space. Booster 20 and Ship 40 lifted off at 5:51 p.m. CT from Starbase, and by the time the mission wrapped roughly an hour later, both halves of the rocket had done exactly what they were supposed to do.
Booster 20 separated from Ship 40 a few minutes into the flight and stuck a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico about six minutes after liftoff. That is a meaningful turnaround from Flight 12 in May, when the booster lost several engines during its boostback burn before a hard water landing attempt.
Starship as seen from Starlink satellites pic.twitter.com/e2hvfmnewh
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 25, 2026
Starship 40’s performance was arguably the bigger win. The vehicle deployed the first 20 operational Starlink V3 satellites Starship has ever carried, then flew a suborbital arc to a landing in the Indian Ocean that SpaceX commentator Dan Huot called the company’s softest splashdown yet. “This is a dream scenario for this team that’s trying to get this heat shield data,” Huot said on the live broadcast, according to Space.com’s live coverage. “I’m a little over the moon right now. Wow. Lucky number 13.”
Unlike the mass simulators SpaceX flew on Flight 12, these were production Starlink V3 satellites, meant to extend solar arrays and antennas and attempt to link with the broader constellation before reentering minutes later. Getting real hardware through a full deploy sequence on only the second flight of the V3 generation keeps Starship on schedule for the payload work NASA is counting on for future Artemis lunar landings.
What an awesome launch, really seems like everything went super well and it was all incredibly smooth.
SpaceX is awesome. Very interested to see how the market will respond on Monday pic.twitter.com/KSHmyBfV55
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 25, 2026
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 25, 2026
The flight also arrives at a moment when SpaceX needed a win. SPCX has traded below its $135 IPO price since mid-July, as Teslarati reported when the mission slipped to Friday, and short interest has climbed to roughly a third of the tradable float. A clean flight will not fix a balance sheet, but it does answer the one question SpaceX absolutely needed answered this week: whether the fixes made after the July 16 abort would hold up under real flight conditions. They did, on both stages, on the first try after the redesign.
SpaceX has not set a target date for Flight 14, though the company has said it wants to push toward an orbital attempt on the next mission. After Friday, that goal looks a lot more within reach.
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner in Los Angeles dominated the company’s global usage rankings after just one year, proving the concept is more than just a one-off novelty location that will fade away.
The performance could incite the company to build more locations, something that CEO Elon Musk has hinted at for some time.
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner delivered 21.2 GWh of energy in its first year of operation, the company’s head of Charging, Max de Zegher, revealed on X. Of the top 10 most utilized Supercharger locations in Tesla’s global infrastructure, the Diner in Los Angeles was the most used by drivers, and it wasn’t particularly close:
Tesla Diner opened exactly 1 year ago. Inspiring that futuristic places like this exist.
It’s our highest usage Supercharger in the world: 21.2 GWh delivered in a year, 1.6k sessions/day.
Top 10 Superchargers by energy delivered: https://t.co/9YvJ8lw696 pic.twitter.com/koB3AUJHws
— Max (@MdeZegher) July 21, 2026
On its launch day one year ago, nobody was too sure what the Tesla Diner would be about. It seemed like an interesting concept, and considering it had been in the works for years, it was a highly anticipated launch that many were looking forward to.
Based on its success, we could see additional Diners with Superchargers built throughout the United States, and potentially beyond. Musk has said on several occasions that the company would be willing to bring the Diner idea to more markets.
Tesla makes major change at Supercharger Diner amid epic demand
Of the markets that Musk has mentioned, both Palo Alto and Austin have come to be perceived as ideal selections. However, there are no concrete plans as of now to build new Supercharger Diners anywhere; the location on Santa Monica Boulevard will remain the exclusive spot to pick up Tesla-inspired eats, at least for the time being.
Tesla short sellers won big following the company’s massive fall on Wall Street after it reported subpar Earnings on Wednesday.
Tesla short sellers collected about $4.12 billion in single-day profits on Thursday, according to Bloomberg. Shares fell as much as 15 percent during Thursday’s session. It closed as one of the worst days for Tesla on Wall Street in the past three years.
Investors sold off the stock after Tesla said it would aggressively direct its spending toward AI and its Optimus robot project. The company had record revenues, which were driven by one of the strongest quarters in terms of vehicle deliveries in company history.
However, it missed EPS estimates by reporting just $0.33, a far cry from the $0.53 analysts expected.
S3 Partners reported that about 3 percent of Tesla’s outstanding stock is sold short. Managing Director at S3, Ihor Dusaniwsky, provided the short seller’s potential profit, as well as another figure: shorts have likely had paper gains of $8.92 billion this year, as Tesla shares are down 30 percent in 2026.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla has burned short sellers many times in the past, but the company’s latest Earnings Call was a chance for those skeptics to taste some payback. Although the company gave some very transparent information regarding future projects, the rollout of Robotaxi, Optimus, and Semi, many investors took their profits on Thursday.
Notable short sellers like Michael Burry have been transparent about their skepticism around Tesla shares. Burry just revealed three weeks ago that he had opened up a new short on the stock, stating he shorted Tesla shares at $416.22. “Happy it jumped back to this level,” he said in a blog post.
At the time of publication, Tesla shares were down about 3 percent and the stock was trading at $309.92.
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner probably just secured more locations
