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SpaceX Falcon Heavy with Block 5 rockets targets November launch debut
According to several of its satellite passengers, SpaceX’s second launch of Falcon Heavy – this time with three Falcon 9 Block 5 boosters – is understood to be targeted for no earlier than November 2018 and will mark the first commercial mission for the world’s most powerful operational rocket.
Under the blanket label Space Test Program-2 (STP-2), Falcon Heavy’s first operational mission will be conducted for the US Air Force and see 25 various spacecraft – some weighing as much as 500 kilograms – launched into an equally varied selection of orbits, requiring a complex series of restarts and burns for the rocket’s upgraded Block 5 second stage. STP-2 also includes a huge 5000-kilogram ballast mass as a result of the decision to fly the mission as a demonstration of Falcon Heavy instead of a less powerful but cheaper and simpler single-booster Falcon 9. The total mass of all 25 payloads is likely far beneath the powerful rocket’s actual capabilities, as are the performance and propellant reserves required for the upper stage to inject different spacecraft into a number of orbits, hence the inclusion of so much dead mass.
Falcon 9 Block 5 shows off its interstage heat shielding and titanium grid fins. Falcon Heavy’s three boosters will likely look nearly identical. (Tom Cross)
Of those 25 distinct payloads, a number even include their own co-passenger satellites and experiments and have orbit requirements ranging from a basic circular low Earth orbit (~700km) to an odd, elliptical orbit with ends at 6000 and 12000km. For Falcon Heavy’s second flight, SpaceX will be fielding three highly reusable Block 5 boosters and a Block 5 upper stage with upgrades that enable the vehicle to operate far longer on orbit and reignite its Merlin Vacuum engine three or more times.
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- SpaceX’s second Falcon Heavy launch will either be the USAF’s STP-2, a collection of smaller satellites, or Arabsat 6A, a large communications satellite. (USAF)
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- One group of STP-2 passengers, known as DSX, has been awaiting launch for more than eight years. (USAF)
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- Falcon Heavy explodes off of Pad 39A in a spectacle of fire, Roadster in tow. (Tom Cross)
Unlikely to seriously tax Falcon Heavy’s brute-force payload lifting capabilities even with five metric tons of ballast, STP-2 will still be a lengthy and complicated endeavor for SpaceX’s Falcon upper stage – perhaps the most complex the company has yet to attempt. However, above all else, the most difficult aspect of the USAF STP-2 mission is almost certainly the comparatively mundane act of coordinating dozens of wildly different satellites and spacecraft from an equally varied number of different and geographically disparate institutions, companies, and government agencies, all of which must be ready for launch and attached to the same SpaceX payload adapter at roughly the same time to prevent mothballing launch delays.
RELATED: Reliving SpaceX Falcon Heavy: A press photographer’s memoir, not so much a blog post
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- Falcon Heavy as seen a day before launch, February 5. (Tom Cross)
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- All nine Merlin 1Ds displayed with their adorable cozies. (Tom Cross/Teslarati)
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- Falcon Heavy’s stunning dual side booster recovery. (SpaceX)
SpaceX’s first Falcon Heavy completed its spectacularly successful debut earlier this year with a mission that saw CEO Elon Musk’s own Tesla Roadster launch into orbit around the sun and culminated in the truly extraordinary near-simultaneous landings of the rocket’s two flight-proven side boosters. Those boosters both completed their first launches in 2016, nearly two years prior to their second and final flights, and the reinforced center core was built as a new but now-outdated Block 3, lessening the blow from its failure to land aboard the drone ship Of Course I Still Love You after separating from the upper stage. Like all Block 5 versions of Falcon, the second Falcon Heavy’s Block 5 boosters should be expected to support a number of launches before retirement, ranging from several to as many as 100.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk and Tesla AI Director share insights after empty driver seat Robotaxi rides
The executives’ unoccupied tests hint at the rapid progress of Tesla’s unsupervised Robotaxi efforts.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk and AI Director Ashok Elluswamy celebrated Christmas Eve by sharing personal experiences with Robotaxi vehicles that had no safety monitor or occupant in the driver’s seat. Musk described the system’s “perfect driving” around Austin, while Elluswamy posted video from the back seat, calling it “an amazing experience.”
The executives’ unoccupied tests hint at the rapid progress of Tesla’s unsupervised Robotaxi efforts.
Elon and Ashok’s firsthand Robotaxi insights
Prior to Musk and the Tesla AI Director’s posts, sightings of unmanned Teslas navigating public roads were widely shared on social media. One such vehicle was spotted in Austin, Texas, which Elon Musk acknowleged by stating that “Testing is underway with no occupants in the car.”
Based on his Christmas Eve post, Musk seemed to have tested an unmanned Tesla himself. “A Tesla with no safety monitor in the car and me sitting in the passenger seat took me all around Austin on Sunday with perfect driving,” Musk wrote in his post.
Elluswamy responded with a 2-minute video showing himself in the rear of an unmanned Tesla. The video featured the vehicle’s empty front seats, as well as its smooth handling through real-world traffic. He captioned his video with the words, “It’s an amazing experience!”
Towards Unsupervised operations
During an xAI Hackathon earlier this month, Elon Musk mentioned that Tesla owed be removing Safety Monitors from its Robotaxis in Austin in just three weeks. “Unsupervised is pretty much solved at this point. So there will be Tesla Robotaxis operating in Austin with no one in them. Not even anyone in the passenger seat in about three weeks,” he said. Musk echoed similar estimates at the 2025 Annual Shareholder Meeting and the Q3 2025 earnings call.
Considering the insights that were posted Musk and Elluswamy, it does appear that Tesla is working hard towards operating its Robotaxis with no safety monitors. This is quite impressive considering that the service was launched just earlier this year.
Elon Musk
Starlink passes 9 million active customers just weeks after hitting 8 million
The milestone highlights the accelerating growth of Starlink, which has now been adding over 20,000 new users per day.
SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service has continued its rapid global expansion, surpassing 9 million active customers just weeks after crossing the 8 million mark.
The milestone highlights the accelerating growth of Starlink, which has now been adding over 20,000 new users per day.
9 million customers
In a post on X, SpaceX stated that Starlink now serves over 9 million active users across 155 countries, territories, and markets. The company reached 8 million customers in early November, meaning it added roughly 1 million subscribers in under seven weeks, or about 21,275 new users on average per day.
“Starlink is connecting more than 9M active customers with high-speed internet across 155 countries, territories, and many other markets,” Starlink wrote in a post on its official X account. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell also celebrated the milestone on X. “A huge thank you to all of our customers and congrats to the Starlink team for such an incredible product,” she wrote.
That growth rate reflects both rising demand for broadband in underserved regions and Starlink’s expanding satellite constellation, which now includes more than 9,000 low-Earth-orbit satellites designed to deliver high-speed, low-latency internet worldwide.
Starlink’s momentum
Starlink’s momentum has been building up. SpaceX reported 4.6 million Starlink customers in December 2024, followed by 7 million by August 2025, and 8 million customers in November. Independent data also suggests Starlink usage is rising sharply, with Cloudflare reporting that global web traffic from Starlink users more than doubled in 2025, as noted in an Insider report.
Starlink’s momentum is increasingly tied to SpaceX’s broader financial outlook. Elon Musk has said the satellite network is “by far” the company’s largest revenue driver, and reports suggest SpaceX may be positioning itself for an initial public offering as soon as next year, with valuations estimated as high as $1.5 trillion. Musk has also suggested in the past that Starlink could have its own IPO in the future.
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NVIDIA Director of Robotics: Tesla FSD v14 is the first AI to pass the “Physical Turing Test”
After testing FSD v14, Fan stated that his experience with FSD felt magical at first, but it soon started to feel like a routine.
NVIDIA Director of Robotics Jim Fan has praised Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14 as the first AI to pass what he described as a “Physical Turing Test.”
After testing FSD v14, Fan stated that his experience with FSD felt magical at first, but it soon started to feel like a routine. And just like smartphones today, removing it now would “actively hurt.”
Jim Fan’s hands-on FSD v14 impressions
Fan, a leading researcher in embodied AI who is currently solving Physical AI at NVIDIA and spearheading the company’s Project GR00T initiative, noted that he actually was late to the Tesla game. He was, however, one of the first to try out FSD v14.
“I was very late to own a Tesla but among the earliest to try out FSD v14. It’s perhaps the first time I experience an AI that passes the Physical Turing Test: after a long day at work, you press a button, lay back, and couldn’t tell if a neural net or a human drove you home,” Fan wrote in a post on X.
Fan added: “Despite knowing exactly how robot learning works, I still find it magical watching the steering wheel turn by itself. First it feels surreal, next it becomes routine. Then, like the smartphone, taking it away actively hurts. This is how humanity gets rewired and glued to god-like technologies.”
The Physical Turing Test
The original Turing Test was conceived by Alan Turing in 1950, and it was aimed at determining if a machine could exhibit behavior that is equivalent to or indistinguishable from a human. By focusing on text-based conversations, the original Turing Test set a high bar for natural language processing and machine learning.
This test has been passed by today’s large language models. However, the capability to converse in a humanlike manner is a completely different challenge from performing real-world problem-solving or physical interactions. Thus, Fan introduced the Physical Turing Test, which challenges AI systems to demonstrate intelligence through physical actions.
Based on Fan’s comments, Tesla has demonstrated these intelligent physical actions with FSD v14. Elon Musk agreed with the NVIDIA executive, stating in a post on X that with FSD v14, “you can sense the sentience maturing.” Musk also praised Tesla AI, calling it the best “real-world AI” today.
Elon Musk and Tesla AI Director share insights after empty driver seat Robotaxi rides
Starlink passes 9 million active customers just weeks after hitting 8 million
