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SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy fairing tries to enter hyperspace, lands in net in new videos
SpaceX and CEO Elon Musk have released videos offering an extended look at the unexpectedly dramatic conditions Falcon payload fairings are subjected to during atmospheric reentry, as well as the first successful landing in GO Ms. Tree’s net.
Captured via an onboard GoPro camera during Falcon Heavy’s June 25th launch of the USAF Space Test Program-2 (STP-2) mission, the minute-long cut shows off a light show more indicative of a spacecraft entering hyperspace than the slightly more mundane reality. Shortly after SpaceX posted the reentry video, CEO Elon Musk followed up with a video showing a fairing’s gentle landing in Ms. Tree’s net. More likely than not, the fairing with the camera attached and the fairing that became the first to successfully land in Mr. Steven’s (now GO Ms. Tree’s) net are the same half. Regardless, the videos help document a major step forward towards SpaceX’s ultimate goal of fairing reuse.
“In a pleasant, last-minute surprise, SpaceX fairing recovery vessel Mr. Steven has departed Port Canaveral for its first Falcon fairing catch attempt in more than half a year. The speedy ship has already traveled more than 1250 km (800 mi) in ~48 hours and should soon be in position to attempt recovery of Falcon Heavy Flight 3’s payload fairing halves.
Over the last week or two, Mr. Steven has been officially renamed to GO Ms. Tree, a strong indicator that Guice Offshore (GO) – a company SpaceX is heavily involved with – has acquired the vessel from financially troubled owner/operator Sea-Tran Marine. With this likely acquisition, nearly all of SpaceX’s non-drone ship vessels are now leased from – and partially operated by – GO. The name change is undeniably bittersweet for those that have been following Mr. Steven’s fairing recovery journey from the beginning. However, it’s also more than a little fitting given that the vessel switched coasts and suffered an accident that forced SpaceX to replace the entirety of its arm-boom-net assembly. Much of Mr. Steven – now GO Ms. Tree – has been replaced in the last few months and with any luck, the vessel is better equipped than ever before to snag its first Falcon fairing(s) out of the air.”
— Teslarati.com, June 24th
As they say, the rest is history. Some 60-75 minutes after Falcon Heavy lifted off from Pad 39A on June 25th, Ms. Tree successfully caught a parasailing fairing for the first time ever, just barely snagging one of the two halves at the very edge of the ship’s net. Two days later, Ms. Tree arrived back at Port Canaveral. Another 24 hours after that, the intact, dry fairing half was safely lifted onto land and transported to a local SpaceX facility dedicated to analyzing (and eventually refurbishing) recovered Falcon fairings.
Landing on Ms. Tree pic.twitter.com/4lhPWRpaS9— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 4, 2019
With any luck, the successful catch will prove that the years of work have been worth it, demonstrating that fairing halves caught – rather than fished out of the ocean – are structurally sound and clean enough to be quickly and affordably reused. While Falcon fairings have been estimated to take up less than 10% of the material cost of Falcon 9 production (~$6M, $3M/half), the manufacturing apparatus needed to build them takes up a huge amount of space. Additionally, the process of oven-curing huge, monolithic carbon fiber fairings introduces fundamental constraints that physically limit how quickly they can be built.
Fairing reuse would be an invaluable benefit for SpaceX’s internal Starlink launches, of which dozens and – eventually – hundreds will be needed to build an operational constellation of satellites. Thanks to the wonders of Falcon 9 Block 5 booster reuse, the internal cost of a flight-proven booster is essentially just the cost of refurbishment and then the propellant and work-hours needed to launch it. What remains is the cost of the expendable Falcon upper stage (unlikely to be recovered or reused) and payload fairing, now reasonably consistent at landing intact on the ocean surface but yet to demonstrate practical reusability.
As proposed, SpaceX’s completed Starlink constellation represents almost 12,000 satellites. Assuming no progress is made with packing density, no larger payload fairing is developed, and Starship doesn’t reach orbit until the mid-2020s (admittedly unlikely), Starlink will require almost exactly 200 Falcon 9 launches, each carrying 60 satellites. According to Musk, despite the fact that the first 60 satellites launched were effectively advanced prototypes, the cost of launch is already more than the cost of satellite production.
Speaking at a conference in 2017, Musk noted that payload fairings cost about $6M to produce, roughly 10% of Falcon 9’s $62M list price. In 2013, Musk stated that the first stage represented less than 75% of the overall cost of Falcon 9 production, meaning that the rocket’s upper stage probably represents another 15-20% (call it a 70:20:10 split), or ~$9-12M. Conservatively assuming that the operating costs of Falcon 9 refurbishment, launch, and recovery are roughly $5M per mission, the internal cost to SpaceX for a launch with a recoverable flight-proven booster and an expended fairing and upper stage could be just $20-25M and may be even lower.
For reference, assuming 200 Falcon 9 launches, SpaceX could save nearly $600M by consistently recovering and reusing just one fairing half on average per launch, up to as much as $1.2B if both halves can be consistently recovered and reused. June 25th’s successful fairing catch is the biggest step yet in that direction and is hopefully a sign of many good things to come for SpaceX’s latest attempt at building truly reusable rockets.
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Elon Musk
Tesla shows what Roadster drivers will see on screen before thruster activation
Tesla’s Roadster video reveals a fighter jet inspired cockpit with a 5,500 PSI thruster gauge.
Tesla has given future owners their clearest look yet at the cockpit of its next generation Roadster. In a 34 second video posted to X on Friday afternoon, the company walked through the car’s touchscreen with a caption: “Inspired by fighter jet cockpits, Roadster’s interface was designed around the pilot.”
The clip opens on a black screen with red graphics and a 3D wireframe of the car, which sits beside the Roadster’s squared off yoke. Tapping parts of the model brings up controls for the rear wing, including low drag and high downforce positions, along with a charging page with a charge limit bar and a small music player. A row of tabs along the bottom reads Home, Vehicle, Listen, Climate and Navigate.
Most of the video is spent in Track Mode. The dashboard shows a live circuit map, a list of session lap times, brake and motor temperatures, and pressure and temperature readouts for each tire. A setup page lets the driver pick Auto, Low Drag, High Downforce or Custom aero modes, adjust aero balance and brake balance, and switch stability and traction control off. Along the bottom, a status bar reads “Thruster · 5,500 PSI” next to a “Boost Ready” indicator.
That gauge ties the software to the hardware Tesla showed off near Waco, Texas on October 15. The Thrust and Rocket versions use cold gas thrusters fed by carbon overwrapped pressure vessels, and Tesla lists 0 to 60 mph times of under 0.9 seconds and under 0.59 seconds for them, as Teslarati detailed in its breakdown of the three Roadster configurations. The base Performance car relies on a fan and ground sealing system for grip, and the aero settings on screen match the active wings and suction setup covered in our look at how the Roadster generates downforce.
The Roadster layout is a departure from the rest of Tesla’s lineup. Instead of a map centered screen, the Roadster puts the car itself at the center of the home page, and Tesla’s Roadster page lists two smaller forward displays alongside the main touchscreen. Tesla has not said whether any of the Track Mode telemetry will make its way to the Model 3 Performance or other vehicles.
The interface could still change before deliveries. Elon Musk said at the event that Roadster production will begin in 2028, and Tesla says the flagship Rocket version is not approved for public road use. Reservations are open with a $50,000 payment, while Thrust is listed as a limited release and Rocket is invite only.
Those who want to see the car in person will get their first chance this weekend. The Roadster goes on display in the lobby of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles from October 24 to 27, according to Sawyer Merritt, the first time the public will be able to view it up close.
Elon Musk
Tesla reveals Optimus Academy, where robots teach themselves
Tesla has begun building production quality Optimus robots in Fremont and revealed its training plan.
Tesla has started building Optimus on the high volume line it set up inside its Fremont factory, and the company says the robots coming off it are the first that meet the bar for a real product. “The bots coming off this line are the first production-quality bots that we have manufactured,” Tesla wrote in its third quarter shareholder letter, adding that it has “proven that the current manufacturing process for Optimus is suitable for a commercial product.”
The line sits in space that built the Model S and Model X until this spring. Tesla cleared the old vehicle line in 46 days, as Teslarati reported in July, to make room for robot production sized for one million units a year. On Wednesday’s earnings call, Elon Musk said most of the equipment for that capacity is already in Fremont, with output set to climb toward roughly 20,000 robots a week as the line ramps.
Musk described the ramp as a classic S curve. “The growth of Optimus is an S curve, but the initial curve is a shallow slope,” he said. The team is now refining the robot’s AI, electromechanical design, reliability and service life, and Musk expects that work to be finished by the end of next year, when Tesla plans to start delivering Optimus to outside companies for dangerous, repetitive and around the clock jobs.
The most interesting part of the call was how Tesla plans to teach the robots. Its cars send real driving data back to the AI team from millions of vehicles, but Optimus has no fleet like that yet. “A big difference with Optimus versus the cars is we don’t have this vast fleet of cars from which we can gather training data,” Musk said. Tesla’s answer is an Optimus Academy, where 10,000 to 20,000 robots will practice a wide range of tasks and feed what they learn into the next version of the model. Every unit off the Fremont line becomes a source of that training data.
Smarter hardware is on the way too. Tesla plans to put its AI5 chip into Optimus next year, and Musk said a new Optimus video should arrive within one or two months showing the robot completing tasks driven by AI rather than preprogrammed motions. He took aim at rival humanoid demos that only run scripted routines, saying those would not hold up in the real world.
The supply chain is lining up behind the program. In September, Tesla certified Tuopu, Joyson and Sanhua as mass production partners for Optimus components. A far larger Optimus factory is also rising at Giga Texas, where drone footage from Joe Tegtmeyer showed the steel frame nearing completion, and Musk has pegged that plant’s long term target at 10 million robots a year.
Tesla executives also said Optimus production costs are trending toward the expected manufacturing cost of Cybercab, a sign the robot is being engineered for volume from the start. The hands remain the toughest piece of the design, a point Musk also made at the X Takeover event earlier this month, as Teslarati covered at the time, and that is where much of the current engineering effort is focused.
Elon Musk
The Starship moon landing number NASA and Elon Musk can’t agree on
Musk disputes NASA estimate of 22 Starship launches for Moon landing, predicting 6 to 8.
Elon Musk is disputing a new NASA safety panel estimate of how many Starship launches it will take to put astronauts on the Moon, saying the real number will be less than half the panel’s figure.
On Thursday, NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel held its quarterly public meeting. Panel member Charlie Precourt, a former NASA astronaut, flagged the fueling process for SpaceX’s lunar lander as a major risk for Artemis IV, the mission planned to land a crew on the Moon in 2028. “We need to keep our eyes on numerous required fuelings for the lander,” Precourt said, according to Ars Technica. “I think the last estimate is around 22 flights.”
Ars Technica’s Eric Berger posted the comment on X, and Musk replied. “That’s way too high,” Musk wrote. “Actual number will be more like 6 to 8.”
The disagreement comes down to a basic problem with sending a ship as large as Starship to the Moon. Starship burns nearly all of its propellant just reaching Earth orbit, so it cannot continue on to the Moon without stopping for a refill. SpaceX’s answer is a gas station in space. First, a Starship that works as a storage tank, called a depot, is launched into orbit. Then a series of tanker Starships launch one at a time, dock with the depot and pump their leftover propellant into it. Once the depot is full, the lunar lander version of Starship launches, docks, fills up and heads for the Moon.
Every tanker trip is its own full rocket launch, which is why the count matters. More launches mean more time, more cost and more chances for something to go wrong before astronauts ever leave Earth. Berger estimated that even if SpaceX reaches twice weekly Starship launches by the end of 2027, filling a depot at the panel’s number would still take roughly three months.
How many tankers are needed depends mostly on how much propellant each one can carry to orbit and how much is lost along the way. Starship’s fuel and oxygen are stored at extremely cold temperatures, and some of it slowly boils off while waiting in orbit. More is lost in each transfer. NASA appears to be working from what Starship can lift today, while Musk’s range assumes a more capable rocket.
Musk has pushed back on higher counts before. In 2021, after a government document suggested 16 launches, he called that “extremely unlikely” and said eight tankers would be the most required.
Much of the answer depends on hardware SpaceX has not finished flying. As Teslarati noted earlier this year, the company plans to carry out the refueling process with its upgraded V3 Starship, and Precourt described Artemis IV as carrying “a large number of firsts.” He also praised NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman’s team for working to clear obstacles for both SpaceX and Blue Origin, whose Blue Moon lander does not rely on orbital refueling for its first mission.
Tesla shows what Roadster drivers will see on screen before thruster activation
Tesla reveals Optimus Academy, where robots teach themselves
