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SpaceX Falcon Heavy booster spotted at Kennedy Space Center
SpaceX has been spotted transporting a Falcon Heavy booster through NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) facilities, offering a slight glimpse behind the scenes amid a seemingly unending series of launch delays for the most powerful operational rocket in the world.
Continuing a recent surge of Falcon Heavy booster appearances at or around SpaceX facilities, the latest instance saw the company transporting new, unflown Falcon Heavy center core south through KSC to its HangarX rocket storage and processing facilities. While it does not appear that this particular Falcon Heavy center core is the same core believed to be assigned to the rocket’s next launch, its movement is still significant.
First, it’s not entirely clear where the Falcon Heavy center core came from. SpaceX maintains several fragmented processing and storage facilities in hangars strewn throughout the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS), though SpaceX’s new HangarX facility – located within KSC ground – was presumably meant to organize booster and fairing storage, outfitting, and refurbishment under one roof.
Regardless, the new Falcon Heavy center core moved to HangarX on March 9th, 2022 was missing at least a few essential parts, suggesting that it could merely be headed there to be fully outfitted for an upcoming launch. However, it could also have been moved to HangarX for longer-term storage after waiting too long at a satellite storage facility. Due to seemingly unrelenting delays impacting at least three of several Falcon Heavy launches planned in 2022, SpaceX has been stuck shuffling more and more Falcon Heavy cores over the last six or so months.
As of September 2021, all three new Falcon Heavy cores meant to support USSF-44 – set to be the rocket’s first launch in more than two years – were already inside the integration hangar at Pad 39A, the only launch site able to support Falcon Heavy. Originally meant to launch in late 2020, both USSF-44 and USSF-52 have been more or less indefinitely delayed ever since. In September, USSF-44 – one or several geostationary US military satellites – was expected to launch as early as October 2021. Soon after, the launch was delayed to “early 2022.” As of March 2022, the US military now refuses to offer even a vague public estimate for the mission’s latest launch target.
Combined with a series of either two or three Dragon launches – all of which need Pad 39A – planned as early as late March, mid-April, and early May, it’s now all but guaranteed that Falcon Heavy will have to wait until May or June 2022 for its first launch since June 2019 – a staggering three-year gap. Due to those delays, SpaceX is currently juggling an unprecedented fleet of six (soon to be seven) unflown, ready-for-flight Falcon Heavy boosters on top of another dozen flight-proven Falcon 9 and Heavy boosters.
On top of the military’s USSF-44 and USSF-52 missions, both of which are now years behind schedule, satellite communications provider ViaSat also recently announced the latest in a long line of ViaSat-3 launch delays, pushing its Falcon Heavy launch from this spring to no earlier than “late summer” – i.e. late Q3 2022. Ironically, of Falcon Heavy’s near-term missions, only NASA’s Psyche spacecraft – designed to orbit and explore an exotic asteroid tens to hundreds of millions of miles from Earth – has survived the last year or two without a major launch delay. It remains on track to launch in August 2022.
In fact, given that there is apparently so much uncertainty surrounding USSF-44 and USSF-52 that the US military is no longer willing to offer any public schedule estimate, it’s starting to look likely that Psyche – barring its own delays – could launch before USSF-44, USSF-52, and ViaSat-3. If that’s the case, SpaceX has almost half a year to prepare for the launch and it would only make sense to move all Falcon Heavy cores to longer-term storage until schedule confidence improves.
Unfortunately, that means that until there are signs of tangible preparations or actual military payloads arriving at Cape Canaveral, it’s very likely that SpaceX will have to wait until August 2022 at the earliest for Falcon Heavy’s first launch in more than three years.
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Elon Musk’s Grok AI to be used in U.S. War Department’s bespoke AI platform
The partnership aims to provide advanced capabilities to 3 million military and civilian personnel.
The U.S. Department of War announced Monday an agreement with Elon Musk’s xAI to embed the company’s frontier artificial intelligence systems, powered by the Grok family of models, into the department’s bespoke AI platform GenAI.mil.
The partnership aims to provide advanced capabilities to 3 million military and civilian personnel, with initial deployment targeted for early 2026 at Impact Level 5 (IL5) for secure handling of Controlled Unclassified Information.
xAI Integration
As noted by the War Department’s press release, GenAI.mil, its bespoke AI platform, will gain xAI for the Government’s suite of tools, which enable real-time global insights from the X platform for “decisive information advantage.” The rollout builds on xAI’s July launch of products for U.S. government customers, including federal, state, local, and national security use cases.
“Targeted for initial deployment in early 2026, this integration will allow all military and civilian personnel to use xAI’s capabilities at Impact Level 5 (IL5), enabling the secure handling of Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) in daily workflows. Users will also gain access to real‑time global insights from the X platform, providing War Department personnel with a decisive information advantage,” the Department of War wrote in a press release.
Strategic advantages
The deal marks another step in the Department of War’s efforts to use cutting-edge AI in its operations. xAI, for its part, highlighted that its tools can support administrative tasks at the federal, state and local levels, as well as “critical mission use cases” at the front line of military operations.
“The War Department will continue scaling an AI ecosystem built for speed, security, and decision superiority. Newly IL5-certified capabilities will empower every aspect of the Department’s workforce, turning AI into a daily operational asset. This announcement marks another milestone in America’s AI revolution, and the War Department is driving that momentum forward,” the War Department noted.
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Tesla FSD (Supervised) v14.2.2 starts rolling out
The update focuses on smoother real-world performance, better obstacle awareness, and precise end-of-trip routing, among other improvements.
Tesla has started rolling out Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14.2.2, bringing further refinements to its most advanced driver-assist system. The new FSD update focuses on smoother real-world performance, better obstacle awareness, and precise end-of-trip routing, among other improvements.
Key FSD v14.2.2 improvements
As noted by Not a Tesla App, FSD v14.2.2 upgrades the vision encoder neural network with higher resolution features, enhancing detection of emergency vehicles, road obstacles, and human gestures. New Arrival Options let users select preferred drop-off styles, such as Parking Lot, Street, Driveway, Parking Garage, or Curbside, with the navigation pin automatically adjusting to the user’s ideal spot for precision.
Other additions include pulling over for emergency vehicles, real-time vision-based detours for blocked roads, improved gate and debris handling, and extreme Speed Profiles for customized driving styles. Reliability gains cover fault recovery, residue alerts on the windshield, and automatic narrow-field camera washing for new 2026 Model Y units.
FSD v14.2.2 also boosts unprotected turns, lane changes, cut-ins, and school bus scenarios, among other things. Tesla also noted that users’ FSD statistics will be saved under Controls > Autopilot, which should help drivers easily view how much they are using FSD in their daily drives.
Key FSD v14.2.2 release notes
Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14.2.2 includes:
- Upgraded the neural network vision encoder, leveraging higher resolution features to further improve scenarios like handling emergency vehicles, obstacles on the road, and human gestures.
- Added Arrival Options for you to select where FSD should park: in a Parking Lot, on the Street, in a Driveway, in a Parking Garage, or at the Curbside.
- Added handling to pull over or yield for emergency vehicles (e.g. police cars, fire trucks, ambulances).
- Added navigation and routing into the vision-based neural network for real-time handling of blocked roads and detours.
- Added additional Speed Profile to further customize driving style preference.
- Improved handling for static and dynamic gates.
- Improved offsetting for road debris (e.g. tires, tree branches, boxes).
- Improve handling of several scenarios, including unprotected turns, lane changes, vehicle cut-ins, and school buses.
- Improved FSD’s ability to manage system faults and recover smoothly from degraded operation for enhanced reliability.
- Added alerting for residue build-up on interior windshield that may impact front camera visibility. If affected, visit Service for cleaning!
- Added automatic narrow field washing to provide rapid and efficient front camera self-cleaning, and optimize aerodynamics wash at higher vehicle speed.
- Camera visibility can lead to increased attention monitoring sensitivity.
Upcoming Improvements:
- Overall smoothness and sentience.
- Parking spot selection and parking quality.
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Tesla is not sparing any expense in ensuring the Cybercab is safe
Images shared by the longtime watcher showed 16 Cybercab prototypes parked near Giga Texas’ dedicated crash test facility.
The Tesla Cybercab could very well be the safest taxi on the road when it is released and deployed for public use. This was, at least, hinted at by the intensive safety tests that Tesla seems to be putting the autonomous two-seater through at its Giga Texas crash test facility.
Intensive crash tests
As per recent images from longtime Giga Texas watcher and drone operator Joe Tegtmeyer, Tesla seems to be very busy crash testing Cybercab units. Images shared by the longtime watcher showed 16 Cybercab prototypes parked near Giga Texas’ dedicated crash test facility just before the holidays.
Tegtmeyer’s aerial photos showed the prototypes clustered outside the factory’s testing building. Some uncovered Cybercabs showed notable damage and one even had its airbags engaged. With Cybercab production expected to start in about 130 days, it appears that Tesla is very busy ensuring that its autonomous two-seater ends up becoming the safest taxi on public roads.
Prioritizing safety
With no human driver controls, the Cybercab demands exceptional active and passive safety systems to protect occupants in any scenario. Considering Tesla’s reputation, it is then understandable that the company seems to be sparing no expense in ensuring that the Cybercab is as safe as possible.
Tesla’s focus on safety was recently highlighted when the Cybertruck achieved a Top Safety Pick+ rating from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). This was a notable victory for the Cybertruck as critics have long claimed that the vehicle will be one of, if not the, most unsafe truck on the road due to its appearance. The vehicle’s Top Safety Pick+ rating, if any, simply proved that Tesla never neglects to make its cars as safe as possible, and that definitely includes the Cybercab.
Elon Musk’s Grok AI to be used in U.S. War Department’s bespoke AI platform
Tesla FSD (Supervised) v14.2.2 starts rolling out
