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SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy likely to launch NASA telescope after ULA skips competition
On the heels of what will likely be NASA’s most significant telescope launch for at least a decade, the space agency appears to be about to select the launch provider for its next most expensive space telescope – a contract that SpaceX seems all but guaranteed to win.
Tory Bruno, CEO of the United Launch Alliance (ULA), revealed on February 15th that SpaceX’s chief competitor won’t even attempt to compete for the contract to launch NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (NGRST; formerly the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope or WFIRST). Named after Nancy Roman, who played a foundational role in the creation and launch of NASA’s famous Hubble Space Telescope, the Roman Space Telescope could potentially be the second most expensive NASA spacecraft launched this decade.
WFIRST was made possible when the US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) chose to donate one of two Hubble-class spy telescopes it had merely sitting around and gathering dust to NASA in the mid-2010s. From a mechanical perspective, the telescope will be very similar to Hubble. However, in the decades since HST’s launch, electronics and sensor technology have dramatically improved, allowing NASA to pack instruments capable of simultaneously imaging 100 times the field of view HST is capable of into a similar package.
Additionally, instead of the Hubble’s primary focus on ultraviolet and visible wavelengths, the Roman Space Telescope will observe in infrared wavelengths, making it a perfect complement to the brand-new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which is also exclusively focused on the infrared spectrum. Combined, they could operate hand in hand, with NGRST acting like a surveyor or scout and JWST enabling a much closer look at noteworthy discoveries. Additionally, thanks to the inclusion of an unprecedentedly capable in-space coronagraph instrument, NGRST will be able to block out the light of stars, making it a game-changing tool for exoplanet discovery – exoplanets that JWST may then be able to image in even more detail with its much larger mirror.
The telescope must first be built and then make it to orbit, however. Expected to weigh at least 4.2 tons (~9250 lb) and designed to operate at the L2 Sun-Earth Lagrange point hundreds of thousands of miles from our planet, only large American rockets are an option for the $4.3 billion Roman Space Telescope’s launch. After a recent delay, that launch has slipped to no later than May 2027. However, NASA appeared to be in the final stages of selecting a launch provider as of late last month [PDF], meaning that the space agency may not be able to take advantage of potential launch options planned to debut over the next few years.
That includes Blue Origin’s New Glenn and Relativity Space’s Terran R. However, even ULA’s Vulcan Centaur rocket appears to have been precluded due to rules that generally mean that only rockets certified for NASA launches today can be awarded a contract to launch a high-value spacecraft. As such, while there is a good chance that one or all of the above rockets will have launched repeatedly and potentially achieved NASA LSP certification by 2027, they have little hope of winning a 2022 competition for a 2027 launch when facing a competitor with a rocket that’s already certified.
In this case, that competitor is SpaceX, whose Falcon Heavy rocket is certified for even the most risk-averse NASA LSP (Launch Service Program) missions. In just the last two years, SpaceX has won contracts to launch NASA’s Psyche asteroid explorer (Aug 2022), VIPER Moon rover (Q4 2023), GOES-U weather satellite (Q2 2024), Europa Clipper (Q4 2024), and the PPE and HALO modules of the Gateway lunar space station (Q4 2024). In fact, because ULA has already promised all of its remaining Delta IV Heavy and Atlas V rockets and because ULA’s Vulcan and Blue Origin’s New Glenn have yet to launch at all, SpaceX is actually the only US launch provider with rockets that are both available for future NASA launches and certified to launch and compete for them.
For some upcoming missions, it’s possible that NASA will wait much closer to the launch date in order to ensure a more competitive environment, but that’s not always possible if the design of an exceptionally sensitive payload (like a large space telescope) must be optimized for a specific vehicle. In the case of the Roman Space Telescope, that means that without a major departure from established rules and norms, SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket is all but guaranteed to win the contract to launch it.
Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, says that something that was expected with version 14.3 of the company’s Full Self-Driving platform has already partially shipped with the current build of version 14.2.
Tesla and CEO Elon Musk have teased on several occasions that reasoning will be a big piece of future Full Self-Driving builds, helping bring forth the “sentient” narrative that the company has pushed for these more advanced FSD versions.
Back in October on the Q3 Earnings Call, Musk said:
“With reasoning, it’s literally going to think about which parking spot to pick. It’ll drop you off at the entrance of the store, then go find a parking spot. It’s going to spot empty spots much better than a human. It’s going to use reasoning to solve things.”
Musk said in the same month:
“By v14.3, your car will feel like it is sentient.”
Amazingly, Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.2.2.2, which is the most recent iteration released, is very close to this sentient feeling. However, there are more things that need to be improved, and logic appears to be in the future plans to help with decision-making in general, alongside other refinements and features.
On Thursday evening, Elluswamy revealed that some of the reasoning features have already been rolled out, confirming that it has been added to navigation route changes during construction, as well as with parking options.
He added that “more and more reasoning will ship in Q1.”
🚨 Tesla’s Ashok Elluswamy reveals Nav decisions when encountering construction and parking options contain “some elements of reasoning”
More uses of reasoning will be shipped later this quarter, a big tidbit of info as we wait v14.3 https://t.co/jty8llgsKM
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) January 9, 2026
Interestingly, parking improvements were hinted at being added in the initial rollout of v14.2 several months ago. These had not rolled out to vehicles quite yet, as they were listed under the future improvements portion of the release notes, but it appears things have already started to make their way to cars in a limited fashion.
Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.2 – Full Review, the Good and the Bad
As reasoning is more involved in more of the Full Self-Driving suite, it is likely we will see cars make better decisions in terms of routing and navigation, which is a big complaint of many owners (including me).
Additionally, the operation as a whole should be smoother and more comfortable to owners, which is hard to believe considering how good it is already. Nevertheless, there are absolutely improvements that need to be made before Tesla can introduce completely unsupervised FSD.
Elon Musk
Tesla’s Elon Musk: 10 billion miles needed for safe Unsupervised FSD
As per the CEO, roughly 10 billion miles of training data are required due to reality’s “super long tail of complexity.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has provided an updated estimate for the training data needed to achieve truly safe unsupervised Full Self-Driving (FSD).
As per the CEO, roughly 10 billion miles of training data are required due to reality’s “super long tail of complexity.”
10 billion miles of training data
Musk comment came as a reply to Apple and Rivian alum Paul Beisel, who posted an analysis on X about the gap between tech demonstrations and real-world products. In his post, Beisel highlighted Tesla’s data-driven lead in autonomy, and he also argued that it would not be easy for rivals to become a legitimate competitor to FSD quickly.
“The notion that someone can ‘catch up’ to this problem primarily through simulation and limited on-road exposure strikes me as deeply naive. This is not a demo problem. It is a scale, data, and iteration problem— and Tesla is already far, far down that road while others are just getting started,” Beisel wrote.
Musk responded to Beisel’s post, stating that “Roughly 10 billion miles of training data is needed to achieve safe unsupervised self-driving. Reality has a super long tail of complexity.” This is quite interesting considering that in his Master Plan Part Deux, Elon Musk estimated that worldwide regulatory approval for autonomous driving would require around 6 billion miles.
FSD’s total training miles
As 2025 came to a close, Tesla community members observed that FSD was already nearing 7 billion miles driven, with over 2.5 billion miles being from inner city roads. The 7-billion-mile mark was passed just a few days later. This suggests that Tesla is likely the company today with the most training data for its autonomous driving program.
The difficulties of achieving autonomy were referenced by Elon Musk recently, when he commented on Nvidia’s Alpamayo program. As per Musk, “they will find that it’s easy to get to 99% and then super hard to solve the long tail of the distribution.” These sentiments were echoed by Tesla VP for AI software Ashok Elluswamy, who also noted on X that “the long tail is sooo long, that most people can’t grasp it.”
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Tesla earns top honors at MotorTrend’s SDV Innovator Awards
MotorTrend’s SDV Awards were presented during CES 2026 in Las Vegas.
Tesla emerged as one of the most recognized automakers at MotorTrend’s 2026 Software-Defined Vehicle (SDV) Innovator Awards.
As could be seen in a press release from the publication, two key Tesla employees were honored for their work on AI, autonomy, and vehicle software. MotorTrend’s SDV Awards were presented during CES 2026 in Las Vegas.
Tesla leaders and engineers recognized
The fourth annual SDV Innovator Awards celebrate pioneers and experts who are pushing the automotive industry deeper into software-driven development. Among the most notable honorees for this year was Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s Vice President of AI Software, who received a Pioneer Award for his role in advancing artificial intelligence and autonomy across the company’s vehicle lineup.
Tesla also secured recognition in the Expert category, with Lawson Fulton, a staff Autopilot machine learning engineer, honored for his contributions to Tesla’s driver-assistance and autonomous systems.
Tesla’s software-first strategy
While automakers like General Motors, Ford, and Rivian also received recognition, Tesla’s multiple awards stood out given the company’s outsized role in popularizing software-defined vehicles over the past decade. From frequent OTA updates to its data-driven approach to autonomy, Tesla has consistently treated vehicles as evolving software platforms rather than static products.
This has made Tesla’s vehicles very unique in their respective sectors, as they are arguably the only cars that objectively get better over time. This is especially true for vehicles that are loaded with the company’s Full Self-Driving system, which are getting progressively more intelligent and autonomous over time. The majority of Tesla’s updates to its vehicles are free as well, which is very much appreciated by customers worldwide.
Tesla AI Head says future FSD feature has already partially shipped
Tesla’s Elon Musk: 10 billion miles needed for safe Unsupervised FSD
