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No SpaceX Falcon Heavy payload is safe as NASA Psyche mission announces delay
SpaceX’s first dedicated Falcon Heavy launch for NASA has been hit by a seven-week delay after spacecraft engineers discovered a software anomaly during preflight processing.
Named after the exotic metallic asteroid it’s designed to explore, NASA’s Psyche spacecraft completed its journey from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center launch facilities in late April. To this day, it’s the first and only Falcon Heavy payload to actually reach Kennedy Space Center since mid-2019. At the time of its arrival, it was somewhat unclear when Falcon Heavy would finally end its three-year launch hiatus or what payload(s) would be atop the rocket for the event.
Three weeks later, both things are still unclear, but now for different reasons.
On May 23rd, Spaceflight Now reported that it had received a written statement from NASA confirming that Psyche’s launch had been delayed from August 1st, 2022 to no earlier than (NET) September 20th “after ground teams discovered an issue during software testing on the spacecraft.” After the spacecraft’s arrival at a Kennedy Space Center payload processing facility, teams have spent the last few weeks combing over Psyche and making sure that it survived the journey without issue. At an unknown point, engineers would have needed to power on the spacecraft’s computers to perform extensive diagnostic tests. It’s also possible that a late build of Psyche’s flight software was being analyzed externally before final installation.
Either way, something went wrong. For the moment, all NASA is willing to say is that “an issue is preventing confirmation that the software controlling the spacecraft is functioning as planned.” Although it does seem to center around software, such a vague statement fails to rule out the possibility of a hardware problem, which could help to better explain why NASA and the spacecraft team rapidly chose to delay Psyche’s launch by more than seven weeks.
For unknown reasons, virtually every near-term Falcon Heavy payload has slipped significantly from its original launch target. Within the last few weeks, USSF-44 – meant to launch as early as June 2022 after years of delays – was “delayed indefinitely.” Delayed from Q3 2020, USSF-52 is now scheduled to launch in October 2022. ViaSat-3, once meant to launch on Falcon Heavy in 2020, is now NET September 2022. Jupiter-3, a record-breaking communications satellite that wasn’t actually confirmed to be a Falcon Heavy launch contract until a few weeks ago, recently slipped from 2021 and 2022 to early 2023.
Only USSF-67, which hasn’t had its official launch target updated in more than a year, is reportedly still on track to launch somewhere within its original launch window (H2 2022). If it actually does launch without delay on a Falcon Heavy rocket in November 2022, it will be quite the outlier. Meanwhile, Psyche’s September 20th delay means that it could now conflict with Falcon Heavy’s ViaSat-3 mission, which must use the same launch pad. More likely than not, ViaSat-3 was already likely to slip into Q4, but the situation exemplifies how agonizing scheduling launches for almost half a dozen chronically-delayed payloads must be for SpaceX.
Meanwhile, SpaceX must also store and maintain nine different Falcon Heavy boosters as they are forced to continue waiting for their long-assigned missions. SpaceX’s entire fleet of operational Falcon 9s – including one Falcon Heavy booster temporarily serving as a Falcon 9 – contains 12 boosters, meaning that more than 40% of all Falcon boosters are currently dead weight.
Tesla is ending Cybertruck production sometime in mid-2027, according to CEO Elon Musk.
Musk made the announcement on X last night, which came as a shock to many. He said that the Cybertruck will end production “to make room for increased Cybercab production” at Gigafactory Texas.
It is a huge blow to the fans of Tesla who have come to love the Cybertruck and identify with it as a symbol of their fandom. It has been the best-selling electric pickup, but it has had an underwhelming sales performance in terms of what was expected. This is mostly due to Tesla not meeting the prices it planned to offer the Cybertruck, as its unveiling and actual release were four years apart.
Tesla will be winding down production of the Cybertruck at Gigafactory Texas around the middle of next year to make room for increased Cybercab production
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 6, 2026
Overall, the responses were mixed. Some fans understood the move toward Cybercab production, especially as Tesla is truly pushing the autonomous future through its Robotaxi platform. However, others did not understand it.
“Damn, how many Cybercabs do you guys need?” one response read. Another said it was “Sad but understandable.”Even analyst Gary Black had responded to the news, stating he hoped Tesla planned to replace it with a traditional pickup design.
It doesn’t seem like that will be the case.
Tesla is so hell-bent on delivering autonomy and eventually providing a driverless service that owning a car seems like an arbitrary idea, according to their thesis. Instead, Cybercabs will be available to pick you up and drop you off on demand, safely, without any human help.
As a result, Tesla has thinned its lineup considerably, and one can only ask where the vehicle lineup goes from here. Eventually, it seems like Cybercab could be the only vehicle that Tesla will sell.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s next Starship flight set to make history on Friday the 13th
SpaceX is targeting Friday, November 13 for Starship Flight 15 and its first ship catch.
SpaceX is targeting Friday, November 13 for Starship Flight 15, the mission the company plans to use for its first attempt at catching the ship itself with the launch tower.
SpaceX Vice President of Launch Kiko Dontchev shared the date on stage at the UP.Summit on Thursday, according to Ars Technica’s Eric Berger, who was in attendance. It is the first launch target to come directly from a SpaceX executive. Until now, the public schedule had relied on FAA air traffic planning slides, which listed Flight 15 for no earlier than November 8 and later November 12. SpaceX has not posted an official mission page yet, and no launch time has been shared.
The date lands inside the window Elon Musk sketched out last month. Speaking at Giga Texas on October 10, Musk said the flight would “probably launch a little bit before Thanksgiving,” as Teslarati reported. On SpaceX’s third quarter earnings call ten days later, he confirmed that Flight 15 would try to catch both the Super Heavy booster and the ship, and put the odds of a successful ship catch at “more likely than not.” SpaceX also aired an animation of the maneuver during that webcast, showing the ship swinging vertical over Starbase before dropping into the tower’s chopsticks.
The hardware is ready. Booster 22 fired all 33 of its Raptor engines for a full duration static fire at Pad 2 on October 25. Ship 42 followed with a single engine burn simulating a deorbit maneuver on October 26 and a 60 second firing of all six engines the next day, according to NASASpaceflight. Ship 42 had already rehearsed the catch in September, when the Pad 2 arms lifted it into position and crews connected the quick disconnect arm while the vehicle hung from the tower.
The remaining hurdle is regulatory. The FAA’s Starship page does not yet list a Flight 15 license. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said in October that, after “significant constructive engagement with the FAA,” she expects the license to cover a return to the launch site and a tower catch for both stages. Bringing the ship home means a reentry path that heads toward land, rather than ending over open ocean as every Starship flight so far has.
SpaceX has caught Super Heavy three times, on Flights 5, 7 and 8, but the ship comes back from orbital velocity and has never been caught. Flight 14 on September 28 was the first Starship to reach orbit, deploying 26 Starlink V3 satellites before splashing down despite an early engine shutdown that Musk blamed on engine computer software.
Musk has called a successful ship catch “the first time that there’s been full recovery of an orbital class rocket,” and he has already named the step after it: a Flight 16 where both the booster and the ship fly again. NASASpaceflight reports that Ship 43, the next vehicle in line, is set for static fire testing in December.
EVgo has tapped Tesla Superchargers for its most recent efforts to expand its charging presence in the United States, a move that seems logical based on the effectiveness of the automaker’s own infrastructure.
EVgo opened its first Supercharger site in Illinois, a 12-stall station near downtown Chicago at 3145 South Ashland Avenue in the Riverside Square & River’s Edge center, right beside a grocery store. This marks the start of the company’s plan to deploy hundreds of Supercharger stalls across the United States, primarily at grocery-anchored Regency Centers properties where drivers can shop, eat, or run errands while they charge.
We’ve opened our first EVgo Supercharger location in Illinois, marking the start of our plan to add hundreds of Supercharger stalls across the U.S.
Designed for both NACS and CCS vehicles with Magic Dock technology, these new sites help make fast charging more accessible and convenient for all EV drivers. Learn more: https://t.co/V92t5FDryQ
— EVgo Fast Charging Network (@evgonetwork) November 5, 2026
The new location uses Tesla’s Magic Dock technology so both NACS and CCS vehicles can plug in natively without drivers needing to carry their own adapters. Peak power reaches 325 kW at this site, with pricing set between $0.25 and $0.35 per kWh depending on the hour—the same rate for Tesla and non-Tesla drivers.
The stalls also appear in Tesla’s in-car navigation and Trip Planner, making them easy for Tesla owners to find and route to. Illinois has seen EV registrations rise nearly 60 percent over the past two years, and EVgo’s broader network has experienced more than 700 percent growth in charging demand over three years, so the timing fits the market’s trajectory.
Choosing Tesla hardware through the Supercharger for Business program turns out to have been a smart, practical move.
Tesla’s V4 stalls and cabinets deliver high, reliable power with a proven track record of strong uptime, while Magic Dock delivers true dual-standard compatibility in one package. Because the sites show up in Tesla’s navigation tools, EVgo instantly gains visibility among millions of existing Tesla drivers, which should raise utilization and help the company double its addressable market as more vehicles adopt NACS. EVgo still owns the stations and sets pricing, yet benefits from Tesla’s established hardware, longer cables, and operational support.
The result is faster, lower-risk infrastructure expansion that serves every EV driver—Tesla or otherwise—with convenient, high-power charging at everyday retail locations. For drivers, that means fewer adapters, more predictable stops, and a denser network just as electric vehicles become everyday transportation.
Tesla is ending Cybertruck production
SpaceX’s next Starship flight set to make history on Friday the 13th
