SpaceX
SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy Block 5 launch debut moved to April 10 to skip storms
SpaceX has decided to move Falcon Heavy’s commercial launch debut 24 hours to the right – from April 9 to 10 – to account for minor processing delays and dodge an unusually severe weather system currently active on the East Coast.
The giant rocket – flying for the first time in its Block 5 configuration – is now scheduled to lift off no earlier than (NET) 6:35 pm EDT (22:35 UTC) on Wednesday, April 10th. This minor delay has been more or less expected by close observers since Falcon Heavy Flight 2’s static fire test was pushed from March 31st to April 5th and is not a cause for concern. Instead, these fairly routine minor slips indicate that the rocket is flowing surprisingly smoothly towards its first commercial launch. In fact, launching on April 10th – five days after a static fire on April 5th – would be routine for Falcon 9, let alone a rocket with three Falcon 9 boosters.
In other words, these minor slips indicate that SpaceX has already managed to more or less transfer its growing experience and confidence with Falcon 9 Block 5 into its brand new Falcon Heavy Block 5 variant. Despite the fact that Falcon Heavy effectively has twice as many major components (three boosters and an upper stage vs. one booster and an upper stage) and uses a center core that is in many ways an entirely different rocket from Falcon 9, the Block 5 rocket’s first launch flow is proceeding as smoothly as SpaceX’s average Falcon 9 flow.
Those average flows typically take 24-48 hours to roll out to the pad and conduct a static fire, followed by an additional 24 or so hours before returning to the hangar. Excluding a few outliers, Falcon 9 Block 5 has typically required four to five days of processing between static fire and the first launch attempt, while the best and worst flows range from 3-10 days. If an observer was unaware that Falcon Heavy was launching, the rocket’s Flight 2 flow would thus be hard to distinguish from its far simpler brethren, suggesting that SpaceX learned a great deal from Falcon Heavy Flight 1 and has been able to communication almost all of the benefits of Block 5 to the triple-booster rocket.
SpaceX can thus retain its exceptionally efficient rocket processing backend, requiring minimal disruption to the rest of its Falcon 9 launch infrastructure and only minor modifications to dual-use hardware and facilities like Pad 39A’s transporter/erector (T/E) and main hangar. In fact, a single-core Falcon 9 booster – B1051 from Crew Dragon’s launch debut – can be seen in the background of Falcon Heavy’s processing, simultaneously undergoing refurbishment and checkouts before it ships West to Vandenberg Air Force Base.
It’s a small detail – both literally and figuratively – but it illustrates that Falcon Heavy integration is already routine enough that there is no need to suspend unrelated activities happening quite literally in the same room. As SpaceX continues to somewhat regularly launch Falcon Heavy, this routinization is likely to continually improve, particularly once the company begins to reuse Falcon Heavy boosters. The first Falcon Heavy-specific booster reuse is scheduled to occur as few as two months after the launch of Arabsat 6A for a USAF mission known as Space Test Program 2 (STP-2).
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Elon Musk has updated his timeline for when humans will walk on Mars and for when ships will simply get there.
The objective of getting to Mars has been one of Musk’s biggest goals since becoming a serial entrepreneur and realizing that time on Earth is limited. Musk has said several times he hopes to die on Mars, and not by impact.
Musk now believes that people will be on Mars in “roughly 5 to 7 years.” He said that a Mars lander will get there “a few years sooner.”
People on Mars in roughly 5 to 7 years.
Mars lander a few years sooner.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 29, 2026
The response from Musk comes after NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said that SpaceX’s biggest priority is the Moon and not Mars. Because of this, Isaacman conceded that he believes nuclear power and propulsion investments will provide “potentially the pathway with the fewest miracles required to put four people on Mars in the next 10 to 15 years.”
Of course, this is what NASA can do through taxpayer funding and nuclear investments, he added.
Musk’s grand ambitions are much more optimistic than most, and it is certainly a double-edged sword. This is not the first time timelines for Mars have been somewhat lofty, especially to those normal thinkers like you and me, not super geniuses like Musk.
In fact, the SpaceX and Tesla frontman has said on at least a dozen occasions that we could be on Mars in the coming years. Musk said 2020 would be the big year as early as 2009. In 2020, he was “highly confident” of a landing in 2026, and had even said 2024 in a best-case scenario.
The point is, the range has varied, and it’s anyone’s guess when we’ll get there. This latest adjustment to the timeline is typical of Musk, and while the Moon has seemingly taken priority over Mars, it is still worth mentioning that the ultimate goal is to make life multiplanetary, and it starts potentially with the Red Planet.
SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) got an absolutely crazy price target rating from Raymond James after the company experienced a tough first few weeks following its Initial Public Offering (IPO).
Despite the tumultuous start, SpaceX has plenty of believers, and the company’s massively successful Starship launch last Friday, its 13th test flight of the massive rocket, went so smoothly that Raymond James analysts pushed its price target on the company to roughly 7 times its current trading level.
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
The firm officially put a “Strong Buy” rating and an $800 price target on the stock. It currently trades at around $113. Its all-time high is $225.64, reaching this trading level shortly after shares first went public.
Raymond James’ price target is tied to the firm’s confidence after Starship’s 13th test flight. Analysts at the firm said it was an incremental step that reduces engineering risks, citing the widely successful heat shield test that CEO Elon Musk recently detailed, the smooth deployment of Starlink V3 satellites, and a successful in-space engine relight.
SpaceX also managed to see Starship splash down safely in the Indian Ocean, while the Super Heavy Booster fell down to the Gulf of America with no incidents.
It is interesting to see these launches have such a tremendous impact on the stock and what investors think of it. After SpaceX initially delayed the Starship launch last week, shares fell tremendously. Most probably did not realize that the stand-down is a standard practice, especially if everything is not perfect.
The mission was initially aborted due to an issue with Raptor engines. This was resolved, and Starship launched last Friday after another delay on Thursday, which was caused by weather.
Now that analysts have seen what SpaceX launches are capable of and how impressive the feat is, firms are adjusting their price targets accordingly, making it known that they have high expectations for the space exploration company.
Elon Musk’s massive Terafab project, which will be the first true conglomeration between each of his major entities, is set to get its final location soon, the CEO said on Tesla’s recent earnings call.
“The Terafab, we expect to announce a location soon, and provide more details about our plans in that regard. We’ll leave that to the product, the launch announcement rather than try to squeeze it into an earnings call,” Musk said last Wednesday.
Tesla Terafab set for launch: Inside the $20B AI chip factory that will reshape the auto industry
Terafab was announced by Musk back in March and was essentially a massive, vertically integrated semiconductor manufacturing project that would provide all the chips the three companies needed for their AI initiatives without needing third-party companies.
The plant will produce over 1 terawatt of AI compute each year, and will help back up projects like Optimus, Full Self-Driving, and other AI-based projects that Musk’s companies are working on.
In April, less than a month after the project was launched, Intel announced it would join the project, contributing manufacturing expertise and consulting to Terafab as a whole. Intel is one of three chip manufacturers that produce sub-5 nanometer chips at scale. TSMC and Samsung are the other two.
However, there was no true indication of where Terafab would end up, but most believe it will likely be somewhere in Texas. Business Insider has reported that SpaceX plans to build out Terafab in Grimes County, Texas, but this is unconfirmed.
Musk confirmed recently that it would not be on Giga Texas property, as it is simply too large.
The sheer scale of TERAFAB is going to be insane.
Elon said it wouldn’t be suitable for anywhere on Giga Texas property because it’s too big:
“We couldn’t possibly fit the Terafab on the GigaTexas campus. It will be far bigger than everything else combined there.
Several… pic.twitter.com/79GbhNNuf4
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) March 23, 2026
Terafab holds much of Musk’s grand ambitions for the future within its construct. It holds so much responsibility for the future and the biggest projects that Musk’s companies can imagine.
“I think this is a very big announcement and it deserves to have its own day in the spotlight and not be squeezed into an earnings call,” he said. “I do think Terafab is going to be an amazing initiative and a necessary one, and one without which we will be constrained in our ability to scale Optimus production, because we simply won’t have enough AI chips.”
He continued by stating that Terafab is necessary for scaling Optimus, which Musk said could be the biggest product of any kind of all time. “It’s crucial to solve that, and we’ll have to solve memory, logic, and packaging in order to scale Optimus.”
Elon Musk updates the SpaceX timeline for Mars
SpaceX gets an absolutely crazy price target after rough IPO
