SpaceX
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says Starlink launch will reuse Falcon Heavy’s fairing
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has revealed that the company successfully recovered both Falcon Heavy Flight 2 fairing halves intact and plans to reuse them this year on an operational Starlink launch.
This will be SpaceX’s first attempt to reuse Falcon payload fairings, a capability that could ultimately save up to 10% – around $6M – and countless production time per launch. Intriguingly, the Falcon Heavy fairing halves were recovered without the use of dedicated recovery vessel Mr. Steven – the vessel has been out of commission for months after an accident ripped off two of its four arms. Instead, the fairing halves parasailed to a soft ocean landing where SpaceX recovery experts aboard GO Searcher and GO Navigator carefully extracted both halves from the surface of the Atlantic. In order to reuse the fairing halves, SpaceX will need to somehow solve – if they haven’t already – the challenge of cleaning contaminated fairings.
How To Clean Your Fairing
The challenge of reusing payload fairings that have been some combination of immersed and thoroughly coated with salt water is by no means an easy one, evidenced primarily by the fact that no company or space agency has yet to try. As a temporary part of a rocket’s uppermost stage, every kilogram of weight present on the fairing can have an almost equally deleterious effect on that same rocket’s ability to place payloads in orbit. This is why the added complexity of additional deployable fairing mechanisms is universally accepted – by jettisoning fairings as soon as possible, rockets are able to carry significantly more payload to a given orbit.
This means that adding even more weight and complexity to fairings – optimized to be extraordinarily light for their often massive sizes – is avoided with extreme prejudice. This is the problem SpaceX faces in its quest to reliably recover and reuse fairings – how does one take fragile objects landing in the middle of the ocean after traveling no less than two kilometers per second (~1.2 mi/s) at apogees upwards of 100 km (62 mi) and prevent them from being destroyed, all while keeping them as light as possible?
SpaceX’s solution was to attach GPS-guided parafoils to each fairing half, as well as cold gas thrusters that allow the halves to orient themselves and remain stable between separation and parafoil deployment. Part two of that solution was to quite literally catch those floating halves out of the air with a giant, speedy boat outfitted with an equally giant net held up by four arms. Despite 5+ catch attempts and many, many controlled drop tests, that vessel – Mr. Steven – has never managed to successfully catch a Falcon fairing half. In early 2019, SpaceX moved the ship from California to Florida due to a launch drought facing the company’s West Coast launch facilities. Less than two weeks after arriving in Florida, an unknown accident resulted in the vessel losing both its net and two of its four arms to the sea, and Mr. Steven has since remained inactive – aside from infrequent trips out and about – in Port Canaveral.
Judging from CEO Elon Musk’s twofold declaration that SpaceX will now reuse its first Falcon fairings without any involvement from Mr. Steven, it’s safe to say that success will sadly bring about the end of the leased fairing recovery vessel’s utility to SpaceX. However, there is a chance that this is not the case.
The fact that SpaceX is choosing to reuse a partially waterlogged fairing for the first time on an internal Starlink internet satellite launch suggests that whatever the solution may be, it may not be compatible – or at least kosher – with current industry standards. All prior reusability milestones have been tested on commercial launches after some sort of private agreement with the customers involved, including the first Falcon 9 booster reuse and the first instances of the same booster being launched for the third time. This is likely not fair to SpaceX or its excellent customers, though. The simpler explanation is that testing unproven technologies and hardware solutions on internal launches fundamentally minimizes the risk conveyed to paying customers that likely can’t afford to lose their spacecraft.
There remains one additional explanation: SpaceX’s solution for reusing waterlogged fairings is, in fact, too immature or is an unacceptable risk of contamination for customers relative to industry standards of design. Instead, SpaceX may have chosen to build some sort of contamination resistance into the clean-slate design of its Starlink satellites, something that would be impractical to expect of customers who have spacecraft that are either already designed or built. Redesigning – let alone rebuilding – complex systems is an extremely costly endeavor. However, wide-reaching changes are far easier to implement when starting from a functionally blank page, exactly where SpaceX is with its first-generation Starlink satellites. As such, SpaceX may have decided to do just this after it realized that catching fairings could be far harder than expected and would thus remain a major bottleneck for Starlink launches if left unsolved.
Finally, it’s unclear if Musk is referring to the very first operational Starlink launch – scheduled as early as May 2019 – or an additional follow-on mission later this year. Refurbishing and reflying fairings for the first time in just one month would be an extremely impressive achievement but may also be an impractical schedule for pathfinder technology development. For now, this serves as a reminder that SpaceX’s first operational Starlink launch is scheduled one month from now.
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Elon Musk
SpaceX weighs Nasdaq listing as company explores early index entry: report
The company is reportedly seeking early inclusion in the Nasdaq-100 index.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is reportedly leaning toward listing its shares on the Nasdaq for a potential initial public offering (IPO) that could become the largest in history.
As per a recent report, the company is reportedly seeking early inclusion in the Nasdaq-100 index. The update was reported by Reuters, citing people familiar with the matter.
According to the publication, SpaceX is considering Nasdaq as the venue for its eventual IPO, though the New York Stock Exchange is also competing for the listing. Neither exchange has reportedly been informed of a final decision.
Reuters has previously reported that SpaceX could pursue an IPO as early as June, though the company’s plans could still change.
One of the publication’s sources also suggested that SpaceX is targeting a valuation of about $1.75 trillion for its IPO. At that level, the company would rank among the largest publicly traded firms in the United States by market capitalization.
Nasdaq has proposed a rule change that could accelerate the inclusion of newly listed megacap companies into the Nasdaq-100 index.
Under the proposed “Fast Entry” rule, a newly listed company could qualify for the index in less than a month if its market capitalization ranks among the top 40 companies already included in the Nasdaq-100.
If SpaceX is successful in achieving its target valuation of $1.75 trillion, it would become the sixth-largest company by market value in the United States, at least based on recent share prices.
Newly listed companies typically have to wait up to a year before becoming eligible for major indexes such as the Nasdaq-100 or S&P 500.
Inclusion in a major index can significantly broaden a company’s shareholder base because many institutional investors purchase shares through index-tracking funds.
According to Reuters, Nasdaq’s proposed fast-track rule is partly intended to attract highly valued private companies such as SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic to list on the exchange.
Elon Musk
Starbase after dark: Musk’s latest photo captures a Spaceport on the brink of history
SpaceX’s Starbase city in Boca Chica, Texas is rapidly transforming the southern tip of the Lone Star State into one of the most ambitious launch complexes in history.
A striking nighttime photograph of SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas, shared recently by Elon Musk on X, offers a dramatic glimpse of an operation that is rapidly transforming the southern tip of the Lone Star State into one of the most ambitious launch complexes in history.
The most immediately visible change in the photo is the presence of two fully erected Starship launch towers dominating the coastal skyline. The second orbital launch pad, known as Pad B, now features its fully erected tower, OLIT-3, which stands approximately 474 feet tall and incorporates an integrated water-cooled flame trench designed to minimize damage and reduce turnaround time between launches. The dual-tower silhouette against the night sky signals a decisive shift from experimental testing facility to high-cadence launch operations.
Grok Image concept of Elon Musk’s latest Starbase photo via X
Back at Starbase, Pad 2 is approaching hardware completion, with upgraded chopstick arms, a new chilldown vent system, and all 20 hold-down arms now fitted with protective doors to shield them from the intense exhaust of up to 33 Raptor 3 engines, according to a deeper dive by NASASpaceFlight.
SpaceX has also received approval to nearly double the footprint of the Starbase launch site, with groundwork already underway to add LNG liquefaction plants, expanded propellant storage, and additional ground support infrastructure.
The photo also carries a milestone civic dimension. Starbase officially became a Texas city in May 2025 after a community vote, with SpaceX employees elected as mayor and commissioners of the newly incorporated municipality. That legal status streamlines launch approvals and gives SpaceX direct control over local infrastructure decisions.
The FAA has approved an increase in launches from Starbase in Texas from five to twenty-five per year, clearing the runway for the kind of flight frequency needed to fulfill Starship’s ultimate mission of ferrying cargo and crew to the Moon, servicing the Department of Defense, deploying next-generation Starlink satellites, and eventually establishing Elon Musk’s long sought after goal of a self-sustaining human presence on Mars.
Seen from above in the dark, Starbase looks less like a test site and more like a spaceport.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk shares updated Starship V3 maiden launch target date
The comment was posted on Musk’s official account on social media platform X.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shared a brief Starship V3 update in a post on social media platform X, stating the next launch attempt of the spacecraft could take place in about four weeks.
The comment was posted on Musk’s official account on social media platform X.
Musk’s update suggests that Starship Flight 12 could target a launch around early April, though the schedule will depend on several remaining milestones at SpaceX’s Starbase launch facility in Texas.
Among the key steps is testing and certification of the site’s new launch tower, launch mount, and tank farm systems. These upgrades will support the next generation of Starship vehicles.
Booster 19 is expected to roll to the launch site and be placed on the launch mount before returning to the production facility to receive its 33 Raptor engines. The booster would then return for a static fire test, which could mark the first time a Super Heavy booster equipped with Raptor V3 engines is fired on the pad.
Ship 39 is expected to undergo a similar preparation process. The vehicle will likely return to the production site to receive its six engines before heading to Massey’s test site for static fire testing.
Once both stages are prepared, the booster and ship will roll out to the launch site for the first full stack of a V3 Super Heavy and V3 Starship. A full wet dress rehearsal is expected to follow before any launch attempt.
Elon Musk has previously shared how SpaceX plans to eventually recover Starship’s upper stage using the launch tower’s robotic arms. Musk noted that the company will only attempt to catch the Starship spacecraft after two successful soft landings in the ocean. The approach is intended to reduce risk before attempting a recovery over land.
“Should note that SpaceX will only try to catch the ship with the tower after two perfect soft landings in the ocean. The risk of the ship breaking up over land needs to be very low,” Musk wrote in a post on X.
Such a milestone would represent a major step toward the full reuse of the Starship system, which remains a central goal for SpaceX’s long-term launch strategy.
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