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SpaceX’s massive Falcon Heavy rocket aims for December 29 inaugural launch
Based on information released by NASASpaceflight.com, a highly reliable source of insider details, SpaceX’s first Falcon Heavy rocket could roll out to the LC-39A launch pad before the end of November, less than a month away. While the first roll-out (or two) will be dedicated solely to “Wet Dress Rehearsals” (WDR), this will be the first time the iconic vehicle makes it to the pad, and will be a historic event regardless of what follows.
No earlier than (NET) “late-November”, the first WDR will see Falcon Heavy go through the usual motions of propellant loading while also conducting an array of systems checks and validations to verify that things are proceeding as expected. This first test will not culminate in any sort of hot-fire, and is more intended to verify that the massive rocket is playing well with the modifications made to the launch pad and the Transporter/Erector/Launcher (TEL) that carries it from the integration facilities to the pad. If major issues come up, they will be dealt with and followed by a second identical WDR. If there are no issues with the first WDR, the second rehearsal could smoothly morph into the first static fire of the integrated vehicle.
As Chris Gebhardt of NSF discusses in some detail, the first Falcon Heavy static fire(s) conducted at LC-39A will be of groundbreaking importance, as SpaceX is currently unable to test fully-integrated Falcon Heavy vehicles at its McGregor, Texas facilities due to the rocket’s sheer power. A lot, thus, rests on these first static fires, currently scheduled to begin around December 15th.
Falcon Heavy and Dragon 2 could one day enable circumlunar space tourism. (SpaceX)
Given the distinctly experimental nature of Falcon Heavy’s inaugural launch, specific dates are best taken as general placemarkers, and the actual dates of the first flow depend entirely upon the tests that precede each subsequent step. Nevertheless, the dates provided by NASASpaceflight point to Falcon Heavy’s first static fire on December 15th, followed two weeks later by a tentative launch date of December 29th.
Staying focused on Mars: Is Falcon Heavy necessary?
Even an uncertain launch date of that specificity is still a historic event for Falcon Heavy, long lampooned and straw-manned as an example of SpaceX’s silly pie-in-the-sky claims and Elon Musk’s oversimplification of complex engineering tasks. There is a grain of truth to such contentions, but they tend to miss the point by huge margins. The actual market for mid-level heavy-lift launch vehicles like Falcon Heavy is quite simply too small to be a major motivator for a commercial launch company like SpaceX. One must remember that SpaceX was not founded to be a run-of-the-mill launch provider. The company’s goal, as has been reiterated ad infinitum, is “enabling human life on Mars”, something that has explicitly prefaced every single job posting on the company’s website for more than half a decade.
For a time, it appeared that Falcon Heavy might eventually be used to enable SpaceX’s Red Dragon program, intended to field-test the technologies needed for month-long cruises in deep space and landing large payloads on Mars. However, the program was cancelled earlier this year, in favor of what Musk called “vastly bigger ships”. Indeed, updated Mars plans unveiled on September 29th showed that SpaceX was forging ahead with an updated BFR and BFS, and hopes to fly its first missions to Mars in 2022.
SpaceX’s massive BFR, intended to create and support a human colony on Mars, is visualized taking to the sky. Experience from operating Falcon Heavy will likely benefit BFR once it eventually begins hot-fire testing. (SpaceX)
Falcon Heavy will admittedly become the most powerful operational launch vehicle when it first lifts off in approximately two months, and it will likely retain that title well into 2020, when NASA’s Space Launch System may conduct its first launch. However, regardless of the impressive technological accomplishments it will embody, Falcon Heavy simply is not powerful or affordable enough to ever realistically enable a sustained human presence on Mars. SpaceX does have a small number of customers actively waiting with payloads for Falcon Heavy – its second mission is currently penciled in for June 2018 – and it is reasonable to assume that some or all of those missions will be completed simply out of due diligence. SpaceX may also be motivated to continue the Falcon Heavy program as a possible entrant in a recently-announced USAF competition meant to partially fund the development of multiple US-built heavy-lift launch vehicles.
More simply still, experience derived from igniting and simultaneously operating Falcon Heavy’s 27 Merlin 1D rocket engines will to some extent benefit BFR’s development and operations, as the conceptual vehicle is currently expected to host 31 Raptor engines on its first stage.
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- Taken on October 9th by Ted Meyer, this airborne shot shows that LZ-1’s second pad (on the left) is close to completion. (tedwardmeyer/Instagram)
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- LZ-1’s operational landing pad has seen hosted multiple successful landings from 2016-2017. (SpaceX)
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- The base of the TEL now sports multiple additional launch clamps (large grey protrusions) that will be needed for Falcon Heavy’s three first stage cores. (SpaceX)
Whether Falcon Heavy is to remain a development or production priority for SpaceX after its first several launches is unclear, but the vehicle’s inaugural launch and all subsequent launches are bound to be spectacles to behold. The company’s second Florida-based launch pad, intended to support two simultaneous landings of Falcon Heavy’s side boosters, appears to be nearly complete. At LC-39A, the facility’s TEL already sports major visible modifications necessary for it to operate with Falcon Heavy. All three of the first Heavy’s first stage cores have already completed hot-fire testings in Texas and are now located at Cape Canaveral, awaiting their first integrated tests later this month. Delays to the December 29th launch date are probable, but the various components needed for Falcon Heavy’s first launch have truly come together, and the vehicle’s launch is now simply a matter of “when”. Place your bets!
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is heading to Czechia after the Czech Ministry of Transport recognised the Dutch RDW’s provisional type approval, making the country the seventh EU member state to clear the system for public roads. Tesla Europe announced on 21 September 2026 that “FSD Supervised is now approved in Czechia” and that rollout “will begin soon.”
The decision marks a notable reversal. Earlier in 2026, Prague had declined to automatically recognise the Netherlands’ April approval, citing concerns over speed-limit compliance, traffic-sign recognition and driver-attention monitoring, and arguing that a coordinated EU approach was preferable. Officials said months of expert review, talks with Tesla and other member states, and real-world data from countries already using the system resolved those issues.
🚨 Tesla FSD heading to Czechia 🇨🇿 pic.twitter.com/mkzlM9QjrB
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) September 21, 2026
“Safety remains the top priority,” the ministry stated.
FSD Supervised remains a Level 2 driver-assistance system: the driver must stay engaged and is legally responsible. Eligible vehicles need AI4, the company’s most up-to-date hardware version. Tesla is expected to push the feature over the air in the coming days, following the pattern seen after earlier national approvals.
Europe’s rollout began when Dutch regulator RDW issued a provisional EU type approval on 10 April 2026 after extensive testing. Mutual recognition then produced a rapid cascade: Lithuania (20 May), Estonia (29 May), Denmark (9 June), Belgium (10 June) and Slovenia (7 September). Czechia now completes that list of seven.
The approvals cover only a modest share of the EU population, but they add political weight ahead of a 6 October vote by the Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles. A qualified majority, at least 15 of 27 member states representing 65 percent of the EU population, could open the remaining markets, including large ones such as Germany, France, Italy and Spain that have so far preferred to wait for a bloc-wide decision.
For Czech Tesla owners, the immediate prize is access to the same supervised highway and city driving already available in the other six countries. For Tesla, each new market generates additional European driving data and strengthens the case that FSD Supervised can operate safely under the continent’s varied road rules. The Czech approval is therefore both a local milestone and another incremental step toward a wider European launch.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has established a Temporary Flight Restriction over SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas, rocket development and test facility, a move widely viewed as preparation for Tesla’s October 1 Roadster reveal. The restriction took effect September 18 and runs through October 2.
NOTAM FDC 6/3825 covers a 1.5-nautical-mile radius around the site near Waco and extends from the surface to 10,000 feet above ground level. The FAA cited hazards under 14 CFR 91.137(a)(3) and barred aircraft and drones from the zone. Tesla’s invitation to reservation holders already placed the event in Waco, about 20 minutes from McGregor, making the timing and location more than coincidental.
A TFR has appeared around SpaceX’s McGregor Testing Site up to 10,000ft and runs through until the 2nd of October 👀 pic.twitter.com/rcZ4p4JkLm
— Niall Anderson (@INiallAnderson) September 18, 2026
What stands out is the altitude. Typical recent TFRs at McGregor for engine static fires and component tests have used far lower ceilings, often around 2,000 feet. Raising the limit to 10,000 feet is unusually high even compared with some Starbase restrictions and signals operations that go beyond a standard ground-level engine test.
That extra airspace has fueled speculation about the long-promised SpaceX Package for the Roadster. Elon Musk has described cold-gas thrusters that could deliver sub-one-second 0-60 times and, more dramatically, brief lift-off. Reports earlier this year indicated Tesla planned a remote-controlled demonstration at McGregor in which the car would leave the ground with no one inside; spectators kept hundreds of yards away because of the noise.
The 10,000-foot envelope would give operators a large safety buffer even if the vehicle only hovers a short distance.
Tesla has not confirmed a flight demo. The company has only used the phrase “Go for launch” and posted a teaser image of the car on what looks like a launch pad. The TFR itself mentions only hazards. Still, closing airspace this high and this close to the reveal date strongly suggests the event will include more than a static display.
Whether the Roadster actually hovers on October 1 remains to be seen. What is certain is that the FAA has cleared a large vertical slice of Texas sky for whatever Tesla and SpaceX intend to show. Reservation holders heading to Waco will be among the first to find out if the car can do more than drive.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk drops a surprise update on Boring Company’s next big dig
Musk says Boring Company could shrink the Austin to San Antonio drive to just minutes.
Elon Musk says The Boring Company is working on what he called “a simple, precursor Hyperloop” tunnel connecting Austin and San Antonio, targeting speeds above 200 mph and cutting a drive that can take up to two and a half hours down to a consistent under 30 minutes. Musk posted the idea on X Sunday, in a reply to a repost of an AI generated video imagining a science fiction future with human colonies on other worlds, which he shared with the line “This is the future we shall bring into being.”
This is the future we shall bring into being pic.twitter.com/8aD0w8MDVc
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 20, 2026
The Boring Company’s own account picked up the idea in the same thread, adding a detail about how the trip would actually work: “Because Loop/Hyperloop is express (i.e. no intermediate stops), one could travel from an Austin parking lot to a favorite San Antonio restaurant in about 30 minutes. As long as they both have Loop stations.” That framing ties the proposed intercity link to the same station model the company already runs in Las Vegas, where riders enter the tunnel network through small, garage style stops rather than one central terminal.
This is not the company’s first run at the Austin to San Antonio corridor. Boring Company floated tunnels between the two cities as far back as 2021, and later competed for a separate San Antonio Loop project tied to the airport before that specific bid stalled. Pitches for tunnels in Chicago, Los Angeles, and a New York to Washington corridor have followed a similar pattern of big announcement without a shovel in the ground.
What is different this time is the balance sheet, especially since The Boring Company closed a 3 billion dollar funding round led by investors in the United Arab Emirates earlier this month at a valuation near 23 billion dollars, giving the tunneling company more capital to chase speculative projects than it had during its earlier Texas pitches. The company is also mid-build on two other intercity systems it has actually broken ground on, inc;luding a Nashville tunnel linking downtown to the airport, where a second boring machine finished commissioning in June, and its Las Vegas network, where the station count keeps climbing on paper faster than tunnels get dug.
That gap between announcement and execution is the reason to treat Sunday’s post as an opening bid rather than a project. A tunnel spanning roughly 80 miles between two metro areas, running at speeds Boring Company has not demonstrated over any real distance, would dwarf anything the company has built. For now, the Austin to San Antonio Hyperloop exists as a caption under an AI generated space video.
Tesla Full Self-Driving expands to another European country
Tesla Roadster event requires restricted airspace, and the FAA obliges
