SpaceX
SpaceX’s April 7th Falcon Heavy launch a step toward new commercial markets
A bit less than 14 months after SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy took to the sky for the first time, the company’s super-heavy-lift rocket – the only such vehicle in the world that is currently operational – has garnered a pending date for its second launch attempt and commercial debut.
While there is some inherent uncertainty surrounding the (once again) fairly new rocket, SpaceX has now officially filed a plan with the Cape Canaveral range authorities that would see Falcon Heavy nominally conduct a critical static fire test as soon as March 31st, followed one week later by a launch target of no earlier than (NET) 6:36 pm EDT (22:36 UTC), April 7th. Set to place the ~6000 kg (13,200 lb) Arabsat 6A communications satellite in a high-energy geostationary orbit, a successful mission that ultimately proves Falcon Heavy’s commercial utility could also raise global launch market interest in the rocket, including potential anchor customers like NASA.
Falcon Heavy enters a different era
While it could be fairly argued that SpaceX has already near-flawlessly demonstrated Falcon Heavy’s performance and basic existence with the rocket’s February 2018 launch debut, that debut is really only half the story when it comes to breaking into commercial markets as a serious contender. Above all else, the fact remains that Falcon Heavy is often seen as infamous for what is perceived as a torturous, delay-ridden period of development, a common partial misunderstanding that has not exactly been combated by the now 14+ months separating the rocket’s first and second launch attempts. In the industries that have the most potential interest in Falcon Heavy, on-time launches are a central selling point of launch vehicles, with affordability effectively being a luxury behind timeliness and overall reliability.
Despite the success of Falcon Heavy’s debut, what SpaceX has not yet demonstrated is the ability to reliably and accurately insert a large customer payload into a specific orbit, for a specific (i.e. contracted) price. Adding another partial hurdle to the path before Falcon Heavy, the rocket’s first launch featured a hardware setup that could be described as a one-off, owing to the fact that Flight 1 utilized a mishmash of flight-proven Block 2 boosters and one unique Block 3-derived center core. By the time that the rocket was ready for its first launch, SpaceX was just three months away from debuting Falcon 9’s Block 5 variation, framed as the family’s ‘final’ version. Featuring an extensive range of major changes to Falcon structures, Merlin engines, avionics, reusability, and manufacturing processes, this ultimately meant that the next Falcon Heavy to fly would be a significantly different rocket compared to its sole predecessor.
While we actually know very little about what the task of re-certifying Falcon Heavy’s Block 5 upgrade for flight entailed, the minimum of 14 months separating flights 1 and 2 offers at least a partial idea of just how extensive the required rework was. With a long-delayed customer’s extremely expensive (likely $150-300M+) satellite on the line, there is a surplus of pressure on SpaceX to both complete this launch flawlessly and do so as soon as possible.
If all goes well with the imminent launch of Arabsat 6A and the USAF’s STP-2 mission shortly thereafter, SpaceX will have done a great deal to assuage many industry doubts about Falcon Heavy, particularly its practical launch availability and the company’s ability to ensure that its launches are at least roughly on-time. As of today, SpaceX has won five firm launch contracts for Falcon Heavy – three in the last year alone – and has the potential to acquire several additional contracts in the coming years, ranging from additional national security satellites from the NRO and USAF to flagship NASA science missions like the Jupiter-bound Europa Clipper. Aside from Blue Origin’s New Glenn (launch debut NET 2021), ULA’s Vulcan (also NET 2021), and ULA’s Delta IV Heavy (likely far too expensive), SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy is also the frontrunner for commercial contracts to launch segments of a proposed lunar space station, with launches potentially beginning as early as the early 2020s.
Further still, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine announced earlier this month that the space agency was actively considering a stand-in fix for
Either way, the long term prospects of Falcon Heavy rocket could potentially be both lucrative for SpaceX and immensely beneficial for satellite industries and national space agencies alike. If SpaceX can demonstrate that it has inherited Falcon 9’s now thoroughly impressive reliability and moderate to great schedule assurance, the market for Falcon Heavy could end up supporting a major fraction of SpaceX’s sizable launch business.
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Elon Musk
SpaceX nails “Lucky 13” astronaut launch, leaning into Tesla tradition and superstition
SpaceX launched Crew-13 astronauts to the ISS Thursday, setting up a record fast Dragon docking.
SpaceX launched NASA’s Crew-13 mission to the International Space Station on Thursday morning, getting four astronauts to orbit despite a forecast of thunderstorms and gusty winds that had threatened to push the flight to Friday.
Falcon 9 lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 11:10 a.m. ET carrying Dragon Grace, NASA confirmed. On board are NASA commander Jessica Watkins, NASA pilot Luke Delaney, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov. The first stage booster, B1101, landed at Landing Zone 40 beside the pad on its third flight after previously supporting Crew-12 and a Starlink mission.
Liftoff of Crew-13! pic.twitter.com/vteT0DXMTh
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 1, 2026
It was the first spaceflight for Delaney, Kutryk and Teteryatnikov. Watkins, who flew on Crew-4 in 2022, became the first NASA astronaut to launch aboard a Crew Dragon twice.
Before launch, the crew rode to the pad in Teslas, a tradition on NASA’s SpaceX crew flights since 2020. This time the cars carried specialty plates reading “Lucky 13.” Watkins said the mission patch leans into the number on purpose, as a nod to Apollo 13 and the resilience of that crew.
Grace is now on a short trip to the station. Docking at the forward port of the Harmony module is scheduled for about 7 p.m. ET, roughly 7 hours and 50 minutes after liftoff, which Space.com notes would be the fastest Crew Dragon transit to the ISS yet. Most Dragon flights take around 15 to 24 hours to catch the station. Hatch opening is planned for 8:25 p.m. ET.
The launch came more than two weeks later than originally planned. An oxidizer leak was found in Grace’s propulsion system in August, and NASA and SpaceX added time for tests. That pushed back the return of Crew-12, which has been aboard the station since February and is now set to splash down off Southern California next week. Crew-13 is expected to stay about six months.
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SpaceX already holds NASA orders for crew rotations through Crew-17, while Boeing is preparing an uncrewed Starliner flight to the station as early as December.
Crew-13 was only the first of three SpaceX launches planned for Thursday, as Teslarati previewed on Wednesday. A Falcon 9 launched its Transporter-18 mission from California today, where Google will be launching its first orbital artificial intelligence (AI) test satellite. Meanwhile, Falcon Heavy is set to launch the classified NROL-97 mission for the National Reconnaissance Office from Launch Complex 39A at 11:53 p.m. ET. Its two side boosters will return to Landing Zones 1 and 2, which means Central Florida could hear up to three sonic booms in a single day. The busy stretch follows Starship’s Flight 14 on Monday, which reached orbit for the first time.
Elon Musk
The Pentagon taps Elon Musk to design the battlefield of the future
Hegseth named Elon Musk to help lead Project Meridian, a Pentagon study of future warfare.
Elon Musk has a new role in the Trump administration. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on war.gov Wednesday that Musk will help lead Project Meridian, a new Pentagon study meant to identify the weapons and technologies the U.S. military will need to fight wars decades from now.
Hegseth unveiled the project during his State of the Force address at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia. Musk will direct the effort alongside Anduril founder Palmer Luckey and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, working under Pentagon Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael. All three men were in attendance, and Hegseth said their first meeting would take place directly after the speech inside a secure compartmented facility, according to The Hill.
Hegseth said the group “will be focused on discovering, developing, and fielding the weapons and systems that our children and our grandchildren will need in their lifetimes, without any creative limitations or restrictions, on any future battlefield, from under the Earth to beyond the Moon.” He added that Meridian is not meant to produce new strategy or policy documents.
SpaceX to become America’s Military data backbone for missiles, drones, and warfighters
A memo released after the announcement gives Michael until January 28, 2027, to deliver findings, a window of 120 days. It names artificial intelligence, autonomy, directed energy, robotics and biotechnology as the fields expected to change how wars are fought. The results will come as a public report with a classified annex. The memo says the study will run through a partner organization it does not name, and it does not mention Musk directly. His role comes from Hegseth’s speech and a Pentagon press release.’
Musk had not commented publicly on the appointment as of Wednesday evening. This will be Musk’s first official advisory role in the administration since he left DOGE last year.
The mandate overlaps heavily with Musk’s companies. SpaceX is one of the Pentagon’s largest contractors, with 2026 defense awards topping $8 billion, much of it tied to launches and a suspected Starshield buildout out of Vandenberg. The Pentagon’s release says Meridian will examine domains “from subterranean depths to the cislunar frontier,” which maps onto The Boring Company’s tunneling and Starship’s lunar plans. Tesla’s work on autonomy and Optimus falls within the fields the memo lists.
Meridian was one of six initiatives Hegseth announced Wednesday. Another is a new Autonomous Warfare Command, which the department wants operating as a four-star combatant command by October 1, 2027.
The news lands a day before SpaceX is scheduled to fly a classified National Reconnaissance Office payload on Falcon Heavy, one of three launches the company has planned for Thursday.
News
SpaceX set to launch astronauts and a classified Falcon Heavy mission on the same day
SpaceX plans three launches Thursday, including Crew-13 astronauts and Falcon Heavy’s first classified NRO mission.
SpaceX is lining up one of the busiest single days in its history, and the company offered a preview on Wednesday morning with a simple post on X: “Sunrise at pad 40.” The video and photos show Falcon 9 standing at Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral, roughly a day before it is scheduled to carry four astronauts to the International Space Station.
That launch is only the first of three SpaceX missions planned for Thursday, October 1, across both coasts.
Sunrise at pad 40 pic.twitter.com/J7Qme4VvIX
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 30, 2026
Crew-13 is targeting liftoff at 11:10 a.m. ET, with a backup opportunity Friday at 10:47 a.m. ET. NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins will command the mission, with NASA’s Luke Delaney as pilot and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov serving as mission specialists. According to NASA, Dragon is set to dock with the forward port of the station’s Harmony module around 8 p.m. ET, less than nine hours after launch. Watkins is the only member of the crew who has flown before, and Kutryk will become the first Canadian to reach orbit through NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
The Falcon 9 booster is flying for the third time after supporting Crew-12 and a Starlink mission, and it will attempt a landing at Landing Zone 40 beside the pad. That site made its debut in February when the Crew-12 booster touched down there, as Teslarati reported at the time. Crew-13 will relieve the Crew-12 astronauts, who have been aboard the station since the middle of February.
On the West Coast, another Falcon 9 is scheduled to lift off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in a window running from 2:18 to 3:16 p.m. ET, a flight NASASpaceflight lists as a Transporter rideshare mission.
The day is set to close at 11:53 p.m. ET, when Falcon Heavy launches from Launch Complex 39A with NROL-97, the first National Reconnaissance Office payload ever to fly on the rocket. SpaceX rolled the vehicle out to the pad Tuesday night. Its two side boosters, which previously flew GOES-U, ViaSat-3 F3 and NASA’s Roman Space Telescope, will return to Landing Zones 1 and 2, while a new center core will be expended in the Atlantic. The Roman launch took place on August 30, so NROL-97 will come barely a month later as Falcon Heavy’s third flight of 2026 and 14th overall.
NASA taps SpaceX to launch the telescope that could unlock new worlds
If all three Florida boosters land as planned, it would be the first time the Space Coast has seen landings at LZ-40, LZ-1 and LZ-2 on the same day, according to the Orlando Sentinel, which has warned residents in Brevard, Orange and Volusia counties that more than one sonic boom is possible.
The schedule arrives just three days after Starship reached orbit for the first time on Flight 14 from Starbase, Texas, deploying 26 Starlink V3 satellites. If Thursday’s missions stay on time, SpaceX will have flown Starship, Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy from four different pads in about four days.
Crew-13 is also the start of a longer run for Dragon. NASA recently added Crew-15, Crew-16 and Crew-17 to SpaceX’s contract in a $946 million modification, keeping Dragon as the agency’s only operational ride to the station while Boeing’s Starliner remains grounded.
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