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SpaceX’s next Falcon Heavy begins to arrive at 39A as center core heads to TX

Falcon Heavy just prior to its first fully-integrated static fire. (SpaceX)

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8 years ago

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Approximately a week after a Falcon Heavy side booster – the first of two – arrived at SpaceX’s LC-39A launch complex, a sign of late-stage preparation for the massive rocket’s second and third launches, a Falcon Heavy center stage was spotted rolling through the Waco, Texas locale on its way to SpaceX’s McGregor testing facilities.

Signified by the outlines of unusual bumps under the Falcon booster’s protective shrink wrap, this probable Falcon Heavy center core’s Texas arrival indicates that SpaceX has most likely completed static fire testing of both side boosters, with the second booster now likely to depart McGregor and/or arrive at SpaceX’s Florida facilities in the coming weeks.

In February 2018, Falcon Heavy took flight for the first time ever, bringing to an end an almost mythical series of delays that pushed the rocket’s debut back more than five years. Aside from the unintentional demise of Falcon Heavy Flight 1’s center core, the inaugural launch was a spectacular and technologically valuable success, perfectly verifying the rocket’s ability to safely ignite, launch, separate, and recover two Falcon 9-class boosters simultaneously. SpaceX also took the opportunity – a payload with no practical value aside from inspiration – to perform a successful six-hour coast of the Falcon upper stage, demonstrating a capability critical for many potentially valuable launch contracts.

The next Falcon Heavy’s first side booster delivery was caught by several onlookers around December 21. (Instagram)

Now verified by planning schedules, SpaceX plans to attempt a truly impressive feat in the first half of 2019. Assuming all goes well during the center booster’s static fire and the subsequent integration and static fire of all three first stages, the company intends to launch the same Falcon Heavy hardware (all three boosters) twice in as little as two months, currently tentatively penciled in for February/March and April 2019.

Corroborated a few weeks ago by a NASA official involved in one of the payloads that will be present on that planned April launch, SpaceX plans to attempt recovery of both the side boosters and center core and rapidly refurbish them after their first launch in February or March, nominally placing the 6000 kg (~13,200 lb) Arabsat 6A satellite into a high-energy orbit. Perhaps as few as 4-8 weeks later, the rocket will be reintegrated, perform a second static fire at Pad 39A, and launch once again with a USAF rideshare known as Space Test Program (STP) 2, a program specifically designed to allow the Air Force to support low-risk test launches of unproven rockets.

Even more so than the fact that an ~8-week Falcon Heavy turnaround would simultaneously break SpaceX’s previous booster turnaround record in triplicate, the biggest reason to be skeptical of these plans is the fact that this schedule appears to require that the USAF fly a mission on not one but three flight-proven Falcon boosters. This stands at odds with the military branch’s unwillingness (by all appearances) to so much as allow a brand new Falcon 9 enough propellant margin (typically just a few percent) to land itself after the December 23rd launch of GPS III SV01, let alone allow their satellites to ride on a previously-flown rocket.

 

The major wrench in the machine here is the fact that GPS III SV01 most likely cost the USAF upwards of $700M to procure and will ultimately become a critical part of a widespread infrastructural upgrade, whereas STP-2 features two dozen or so small satellites worth dramatically less than the single GPS satellite SpaceX launched last month. STP-2 also operates under a program that is in large part meant to offer opportunities for new or wholly unproven launch vehicles (like Falcon Heavy) to conduct experimental launches, carrying the assumption that certifying those rockets for national security space (NSS) missions would be in the best interests of the Air Force and DoD.

As such, the back-to-back Falcon Heavy launch schedule is by no means impossible despite the fact that it offers up many reasons to doubt its plausibility. Either way, the fact that the next Falcon Heavy’s center core has already left SpaceX’s Hawthorne factory – following in the footsteps of two new side boosters – is a nearly unequivocal sign that the rocket’s second launch rapidly approaching.

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Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

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Elon Musk’s surprise addition to the X Takeover lineup has fans talking

Elon Musk will join Saturday’s X Takeover at Giga Texas for a live virtual interview.

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2 hours ago

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October 9, 2026

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Credit: Tesla Owners Silicon Valley
Credit: Tesla Owners Silicon Valley

Elon Musk will join X Takeover at Giga Texas on Saturday for a live virtual interview, according to Sawyer Merritt, who shared the news late Thursday. Musk will not be on stage in Austin. The conversation is set to stream for free on the @teslaownersSV account on X.

Organizers had kept expectations in check. In a September update, Tesla Owners Silicon Valley said Musk had appeared at the event twice before but was not promising a third appearance, even as fans hoped he would walk the Giga Texas grounds in person. A virtual spot matches 2024, when Musk gave a surprise interview of about an hour to the crowd in San Luis Obispo, as Teslarati reported at the time.

This year’s edition is a first in several ways. It is the first X Takeover held outside California and the first at a Tesla facility, with tickets selling out in eight days. Tesla provides the venue, but the event is produced independently by Tesla Owners Silicon Valley. The main event runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. CT, followed by a drone and light show at 9 p.m. Maye Musk is the keynote speaker, Franz von Holzhausen is set for a virtual keynote, and Nicki Minaj is the special guest. Joe Tegtmeyer, whose drone footage Teslarati used to track the Optimus factory steel frame at Giga Texas, is also on the speaker list.

Musk’s interview topics have not been revealed, but the backdrop is busy. Tesla doubled its Cybercab fleet in Austin in late September, and last week Musk explained why Robotaxi hours only moved from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m.. Merritt also reported Thursday that Texas DMV records now show 319 registered Cybercabs, up from 169. NHTSA’s deadline for Tesla’s sworn answers on Cybercab certification is October 30, and Tesla reports third quarter earnings on October 21.

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Fans who cannot make it to Austin can watch the livestream on X. Musk tends to say more in unscripted settings than he does in prepared remarks, which is the reason this one is worth having open on Saturday.

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It’s official: SpaceX takes aim at Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile

SpaceX is buying 800 MHz spectrum from Grain to turn Starlink Mobile into a carrier.

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14 hours ago

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October 8, 2026

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Starlink D2D direct to device vs Verizon, AT&T (Concept render by Grok)

SpaceX has agreed to buy a nationwide block of low band wireless spectrum, a deal the company says will let Starlink Mobile operate as a full US carrier rather than a satellite add-on for someone else’s network.

The company announced the agreement on X on Thursday afternoon, saying it will “pave the way for @Starlink to become a major mobile carrier in the US.” The seller is Grain Management, a private investment firm that confirmed in a statement that SpaceX will acquire 100% of its nationwide 800 MHz portfolio. That covers up to 14 MHz of paired spectrum in the 817 to 824 MHz and 862 to 869 MHz bands. Neither side disclosed a price, and the deal still needs FCC approval.

Grain only recently picked up the licenses itself. It bought the portfolio from T-Mobile in a transaction that closed in August, paying cash plus its own 600 MHz spectrum. Rival AST SpaceMobile had been testing satellites on the same bands before SpaceX stepped in.

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SpaceX said its 2 GHz spectrum will handle high bandwidth capacity, while the new 800 MHz layer “ensures Starlink Mobile’s signal penetrates through obstacles, such as walls, and can provide service to customers’ devices even when they are in buildings.” The company added that most existing phones already support the band, so customers would not need new hardware to use it.

That 2 GHz spectrum came from SpaceX’s EchoStar acquisition last year, which gave the company exclusive S band rights in the US and global Mobile Satellite Service licenses. The Grain spectrum is different in an important way: it is tailored for service from ground towers, not satellites. SpaceX said that combination would make Starlink Mobile “the first network operator to deploy both satellite and terrestrial spectrum.”

The announcement also follows a key regulatory win. Earlier this week, the FCC approved SpaceX’s plan to deploy 15,000 second generation Starlink Mobile satellites, which the company has said will carry up to 100 times the data density of the current system, as Teslarati previously reported.

Shares of AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile fell in extended trading after the announcement. T-Mobile is currently SpaceX’s launch partner for Starlink Mobile in the US, which makes its position the most complicated of the three.

SpaceX has not been subtle about its plans. During the company’s August earnings call, President and COO Gwynne Shotwell said she expected Starlink Mobile to win over customers from the major carriers. “I anticipate us to be able to acquire quite a few of their customers because I think our service will be better,” she said, pointing to dead zone coverage and resilience during disasters. Shotwell also described plans for low cost cellular base stations that could pair with existing Starlink dishes.

SpaceX has targeted 2027 for deployment of its next generation Starlink Mobile satellites, with upgraded service expected by the end of that year. The FCC review of the Grain deal now determines when the terrestrial half of that network can come online.

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Trump presents Elon Musk with National Medal of Science, calls him “modern-day Thomas Edison”

Trump gave Elon Musk the National Medal of Science and compared him to Thomas Edison.

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21 hours ago

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October 8, 2026

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Elon Musk holds the National Medal of Science alongside President Donald Trump at the “Science: A New Golden Age” summit in Washington on October 8, 2026.
Elon Musk holds the National Medal of Science alongside President Donald Trump at the “Science: A New Golden Age” summit in Washington on October 8, 2026.

Elon Musk now has the highest honor the U.S. government gives to scientists and engineers. President Donald Trump presented him with the National Medal of Science on Thursday at the White House’s “Science: A New Golden Age” summit, held at the Institute of Peace in Washington, according to the White House.

Trump called Musk a “national treasure” and “our modern-day Thomas Edison.” “Few Americans in history have done more to advance America’s national interest than Elon in one field after another,” the president said. He also described Musk as an “industrial titan, brilliant engineer and one of the greatest technology founders to ever live.”

The official citation credits Musk “for engineering achievements of extraordinary ambition and scale that have pushed the frontiers of space exploration, intelligent systems, communications, and beyond, renewing American technological leadership and opening a new chapter in American manufacturing.” Tesla is not named in it, but “intelligent systems” and “American manufacturing” cover a lot of ground that Tesla and the Terafab chip project occupy.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and AMD CEO Lisa Su received the same medal. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell were given the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. It was the first time Trump has handed out either award in his two terms. As Teslarati noted when the list was first reported on Wednesday, the National Science Foundation says 529 people have received the Medal of Science since Congress created it in 1959.


The ceremony closes a loop that opened in 2025, when Musk left DOGE and criticized the “Big Beautiful Bill,” sparking a public feud. Al Jazeera noted that Musk was the largest contributor to Trump’s 2024 campaign, and CNBC reported that all of the honorees have given financially to Trump or Republican causes in some form. The reconciliation has moved quickly in recent weeks. Musk sat at Trump’s left at the September 29 White House AI lunch, was named to help lead the Pentagon’s Project Meridian study on the future of warfare, and adopted the administration’s “super intelligence” wording when he said SpaceXAI will become SpaceXSI.

For Tesla and SpaceX shareholders, the practical question is what the closer relationship means for federal approvals. Tesla’s Robotaxi and Cybercab expansion depends on national autonomy rules, and SpaceX’s Starship and Starlink plans run through the FAA, FCC and NASA. Thursday’s ceremony did not change any of that directly.

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