News
SpaceX Falcon Heavy payload arrives in Florida for the first time in years
For the first time in almost three years, a spacecraft meant to launch on SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket has arrived in Cape Canaveral, Florida and begun to prepare for flight.
Known as Psyche, the scientific mission is designed to venture hundreds of millions of miles from Earth to explore a namesake asteroid that’s believed to be almost entirely metallic. Psyche will also mark NASA’s first operational use of Falcon Heavy, which offers performance far superior to other existing and soon-to-be-retired rockets and at a fraction of their cost.
However, even though Psyche is now the first payload (officially confirmed) to have arrived in Florida for a Falcon Heavy launch since May or June 2019, that doesn’t guarantee that it will be first to launch.
That uncertainty is the result of multiple chronically delayed US military payloads that were both supposed to launch on different Falcon Heavy rockets as early as late 2020. In June 2018, just four months after Falcon Heavy’s iconic launch debut, the US military purchased its first operational launch on the rocket. Known as AFSPC-52 and later renamed USSF-52 after the US government cobbled together a few loosely-related military groups and rebadged them as the “Space Force,” the mission was expected to launch as early as September 2020. In February 2019, the military announced that another Falcon Heavy rocket had been chosen to launch AFSPC-44 (USSF-44) as early as late 2020 or early 2021.
About a year ago, for unknown reasons, USSF-44 took USSF-52’s place as the US military’s first operational Falcon Heavy launch. Now, between three and four years after their initial launch targets, USSF-44 is scheduled to launch NET late June 2022 (a delay of ~18 months) and USSF-52 is set to follow as soon as October 2022 (a delay of ~25 months).
On April 29th, NASA’s Launch Service Program (LSP) revealed that the ~2600-kilogram (~5700 lb) Psyche spacecraft had completed the journey from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s (JPL) Pasadena, California assembly facilities to Kennedy Space Center, Florida. After several years of work spent designing, manufacturing, and assembling Psyche, the spacecraft ultimately arrived at on time, leaving it on track to launch on Falcon Heavy as early as August 1st, 2022.
At the moment, that makes Psyche’s launch far more likely to happen before USSF-44, which has repeatedly gotten within a few months of a purported launch target before the US military acknowledged additional delays. Like USSF-44, Psyche’s Falcon Heavy rocket – three boosters, an upper stage, and a fairing – will be entirely new. Due to the high performance required for each mission and the fact that both will be the first operational use of the rocket for NASA and the USSF, each brand-new Falcon Heavy center core will be intentionally expended.
If it launches more or less on time, USSF-44 will be SpaceX and Falcon Heavy’s first direct launch to geostationary orbit (GEO), requiring the rocket’s upper stage to survive a roughly six-hour-long coast and perform a lengthy orbit circularization burn around ~42,500 kilometers (~26,400 mi) above Earth’s surface. With a payload that weighs around four tons (~8800 lb), it’s little surprise that Falcon Heavy’s center core will be expended. Psyche, on the other hand, is headed into deep space on a trajectory that NASA’s own ELVPerf calculator – supplied with official performance data from SpaceX – says Falcon Heavy can launch more than four tons (~8800 lb) to while still recovering all three boosters. It’s unclear why NASA would need a 50-70% safety margin.
Regardless, the second half of 2022 could be quite the spectacle of Falcon Heavy launches after a more than three-year hiatus. On top of USSF-44, Psyche, and USSF-52, Falcon Heavy is tentatively scheduled to launch a ViaSat-3 communications satellite directly to GEO in Q3 2022 and, even more tentatively, the Space Force’s USSF-67 mission in November 2022.
Energy
Tesla Model 3 and Model Y can now do what only Cybertruck could
Tesla Model 3 and Model Y can power your home with Powerwall 3 during outages.
Tesla has turned its two top sellers into backup batteries for the house.
Tesla Energy announced on Tuesday that Powershare Home Backup is now available for new Model 3 and Model Y vehicles paired with a Powerwall 3, saying the car can “extend your home backup by over 2 days.” Minutes later, Tesla’s main account quoted the post with a broader pitch: “With Powerwall 3, every Tesla can now serve as your home’s backup battery.”
Until this week, the Cybertruck was the only Tesla that could send power back into a home, and that capability only began working alongside Powerwall 3 last month, after years of ambitious targets.
Tesla’s updated Powershare page says every Model 3 and Model Y ordered in the U.S. or Puerto Rico on or after October 1, 2026 can use the feature. Some, but not all, earlier cars also qualify. Owners can check on the touchscreen under Software, then Additional Vehicle Information, where a capable car shows “Powershare Support: Enabled.” As Electrek reported, bidirectional power on the two cars runs through an inverter Tesla calls PCS2 Lite, and the company has not said when that part entered production on each trim.
The home side is simpler. A house that already has a Powerwall 3 and either a Wall Connector 3 or Universal Wall Connector needs no additional equipment, and Tesla says compatibility is enabled through a software update. When the grid drops, the Powerwall and the car work together, with up to 11.52 kW of continuous power available. Tesla’s “over two days” estimate assumes a home using 30 kWh per day and a car starting at a 90 percent charge. Standard trims are rated for up to two days, while the Cybertruck adds more than three.
There are limits. Powerwall 2 and Powerwall+ support is listed as “coming soon.” Model S and Model X are not included, and Grid Support, the program that lets Cybertruck owners in Texas send power back to the grid during demand spikes for bill credits, is not available for Model 3 or Model Y.
The rollout also lines up with something Elon Musk said more than three years ago. At Tesla’s March 2023 Investor Day, Musk said, “I don’t think very many people are going to want to use bidirectional charging, unless you have a Powerwall.” Tesla has now shipped the feature for its volume cars with exactly that requirement attached.
The Powerwall pairing was the hard part on Cybertruck. Tesla told owners in December 2025 that Powershare with Powerwall had been pushed to mid 2026, and lead engineer Wes Morrill explained that two devices capable of forming a home’s grid have to negotiate which one leads during an outage, across multiple generations of hardware. With that work done for the truck, Tesla was able to extend it to the Model 3 and Model Y within a month.
Ford and GM have offered home backup from their EVs for several years, but both require a separate inverter and backup hardware. Tesla’s version leans on equipment many Powerwall 3 owners already have on the wall. Powershare for the two cars also ships as part of software update 2026.38.3, the same release that began delivering Halloween Mode on Tuesday.
Tesla is now starting to ship a “Halloween Mode” that is filled with some creepy and fun features; the company says, “This spooky update turns your Tesla into a haunted house on wheels.”
The update is just the latest in a series of updates that Tesla typically ships out in a seasonal fashion. The Spring and Summer Updates provided some fun novelty items while also packing some cool features that are actually useful for the ownership experience.
This one seems to be more fun-forward, and there are not any updates to the Full Self-Driving suite or overall operation of the vehicle. Instead, these novelty features are geared toward getting you in the mood for the Fall and Halloween.
Halloween Mode now rolling out 🎃
This spooky update turns your Tesla into a haunted house on wheels
– Ghost costume on your car’s avatar
– Enable Trick or Treat to play spooky sounds & flicker the lights when visitors approach
– New haunting light show, wraps & lock sound
– A rather chilling Photobooth
– Frighten people remotely by speaking through the app…your car will say it in a voice of its own
Side effects may include neighborhood notoriety
— Tesla (@Tesla) October 6, 2026
New Ghost Costume on Car Avatar
Driver Visualization will now show your vehicle as a ghost, as an all-white sheet is draped over the vehicle. Pedestrians are turned into mummies or skeletons, and other vehicles are all a spooky green:
Credit: Tesla
Additionally, the Park Scene with your Tesla now displays that ghost costume draped over your vehicle in the foreground of a scary backdrop with Jack-o-Lanterns and a haunted house:
Credit: Tesla
Trick or Treat Mode
Trick or Treat Mode will enable the vehicle to play spooky sounds and flicker the lights as visitors approach. This might be a nice touch for when you’re handing out candy to kids on Halloween Night.
Other Features
Tesla is also adding a new Light Show, new Wrap Options, and a new Lock Sound with this update.
Credit: Tesla
Additionally, Photobooth has a new Halloween option:
Credit: Tesla
You will also be able to speak remotely through the app and transmit your voice to people outside, which is not a new feature, but the car will say it in a voice of its own, which is a new feature with that bullhorn-like feature.
Investor's Corner
SpaceX reveals how its 1 Million AI satellite network will work and prevent space collisions
SpaceX reveals plans for one million Starmind AI satellites and calls out operators hiding maneuvers.
SpaceX has put the largest satellite count it has ever published into writing, and it says that plan only works if every other operator in orbit starts sharing what it knows.
In a new Space Safety page highlighted Tuesday morning by Sawyer Merritt on X, SpaceX said it “plans to operate up to 100,000 Starlink satellites and up to 1 million Starmind AI satellites to meet the growing demand for broadband and supercompute.” Starlink has a little over 11,000 satellites in orbit today, so the target alone implies roughly a ninefold expansion of the broadband network.
Starmind is SpaceX’s orbital AI compute constellation. Elon Musk confirmed the Starmind name in June after an xAI trademark filing surfaced, and in August SpaceX said it was working with Nvidia on the compute payload. The FCC accepted the filing for up to one million satellites back in February.
FCC accepts SpaceX filing for 1 million orbital data center plan
SpaceX also released a new render of what a full Starmind constellation could look like. Alongside it, SpaceX VP Michael Nicolls explained why the satellites will not operate on their own. “We need to operate clusters of satellites in tight formation to get enough coherent compute to run AI models efficiently,” Nicolls said. “A cluster will be 10-ish satellites connected with 10 terabits or so of bandwidth between them, and interconnected to the broader constellation.”
That is the most specific detail SpaceX has given on how Starmind will be built. Instead of a million independent servers, the network would work as tightly packed groups of about 10 satellites acting as one compute unit, with Starlink’s laser links carrying results back to Earth.
There is a bright and exciting future for humanity ahead – and space is fundamental to that future.
To achieve this, space safety must be done right. We encourage every operator to not only share ephemeris data proactively the same way Starlink already does, but to also adopt the high standards of space safety that SpaceX and Starlink use every day → https://t.co/QizAkQZvEm
— Starlink (@Starlink) October 6, 2026
Packing satellites that close together, at that scale, makes collision avoidance the central problem, and most of the Space Safety page is aimed at other operators. SpaceX said Starlink encountered collision risks with about 650 unique maneuvering third party satellites in 2026, and only about half of them shared data. Over six months, Starlink recorded roughly 164,000 more collision risks where the closest approach came within four hours of an unannounced maneuver.
Some operators keep maneuver plans private over proprietary concerns, while others cannot get government permission to share them. SpaceX called those policies “counterproductive,” saying they “largely only serve to create preventable collision risk between satellites.” Starlink is also offering a free ephemeris sharing and screening platform that returns risk results within a minute, backed by its Stargaze network of 30,000 optical sensors.
The push comes as the Starmind application draws opposition from astronomers and environmental groups. In a September filing with the FCC, SpaceX said each Starmind satellite could weigh up to 4,000 kg, nearly seven times the mass of a Starlink V2 Mini. Musk has brushed off crowding concerns before, telling viewers in June that “space is enormous” and that SpaceX already knows how to run very large constellations safely.
SpaceX’s Starmind page says its Gigasat factory in Bastrop, Texas, is designed to produce AI satellites at scale, with deployment of thousands of units starting as soon as late 2027.
Tesla Model 3 and Model Y can now do what only Cybertruck could
Tesla ships ‘spooky’ Halloween Mode with creepy and fun features
