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SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy flies a complex mission for the Air Force in launch video
SpaceX has gone to unique lengths for the third launch of its Falcon Heavy rocket and made an exhaustive webpage dedicated to the mission, reviewing its importance to SpaceX and the United States and discussing most of its 23 manifested spacecraft.
Known as the US Air Force’s Space Test Program 2 (STP-2) mission, Falcon Heavy Flight 3 will be a critical pathfinder for the US military’s systematic utilization of both Falcon Heavy and its flight-proven boosters.
The STP-2 mission will be among the most challenging launches in SpaceX history with four separate upper-stage engine burns, three separate deployment orbits, a final propulsive passivation maneuver and a total mission duration of over six hours. [It] will demonstrate the capabilities of the Falcon Heavy launch vehicle and provide critical data supporting certification for future National Security Space Launch (NSSL) missions. In addition, [the USAF] will use this mission as a pathfinder for the [military’s systematic utilization of flight-proven] launch vehicle boosters.
SpaceX, April 2019
SpaceX offers a very effective summary of the various challenges presented by Falcon Heavy’s STP-2 mission and third launch. It’s as challenging as it is for one very specific and largely artificial reason. All the way back in 2012, the USAF contracted the launch to give SpaceX a low-risk opportunity to demonstrate specific capabilities the military branch requires before they certify a given rocket to launch high-value payloads. Originally intended to fly STP-2 in mid-2015, Falcon Heavy suffered almost five years of delays during its development, caused by a combination of unexpected technical difficulties and two catastrophic Falcon 9 failures in 2015 and 2016.
After spending the whole of 2017 gradually catching up on delayed customer launches, SpaceX successfully conducted Falcon Heavy’s launch debut on February 6th, 2018. Four months later, the Air Force announced that it had completed the SpaceX rocket’s preliminary certification and awarded the company a $130M launch contract for AFSPC-52, a classified military satellite. According to documents describing the mission, the satellite weighs approximately 6350 kg (~14,000 lb) and needs to be placed into a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) measuring 35,188km X 185km (21,850 mi X 115 mi).
Conveniently, Falcon Heavy’s commercial launch debut saw the massive rocket deliver the communications satellite Arabsat 6A – weighing ~6450 kg (~14,200 lb) – into an extremely high GTO, almost 90,000 km X 330 km (56,000 mi X 205 mi). In simpler terms, Falcon Heavy Flight 2 was an almost perfect demonstration that SpaceX is more than capable of successfully launching AFSPC-52, a milestone that could come as early as H2 2020.
The STP-2 mission should help to boost the US military’s confidence in Falcon Heavy even further. The mission is comprised of 23 separate satellites from a dozen or so different groups, ranging from a NOAA weather satellite constellation to a NASA-built atomic clock. The purpose of such a varied range of payloads is to have SpaceX’s Falcon upper stage (S2) place three separate sets into three distinctly different Earth orbits, a challenge that will require the rocket to ignite its Merlin Vacuum engine four times and survive in space for more than six hours.
SpaceX has been testing this critical long-coast technology since at least February 2018, when Falcon Heavy’s debut included a six-hour coast of the upper stage to send a Tesla Roadster on an Earth escape trajectory. SpaceX completed that test successfully and said Roadster is now orbiting the sun on a trajectory that regularly reaches beyond the orbit of Mars. SpaceX has continued to test the longevity of its universal Falcon upper stage, including a handful of on-orbit demonstrations after completing customer missions.
Aside from opening the door for new areas of competition in military launch procurement, successfully proving the long-coast capabilities of the Falcon upper stage will also mean that SpaceX can offer them commercially. Military launches often require long coasts in order to get spacecraft to their operating orbits as quickly as possible, typically involving an upper stage burning at the top of a transfer orbit to circularize said orbit. This capability can also be of significant value to non-government customers, however, as the faster a satellite can get to its operational orbit, the faster its owner can start using it to generate revenue. Traditionally, most commercial geostationary communications satellites are sent to transfer orbits, raising one end of the orbit (apogee) but leaving the low end (perigee) in low Earth orbit. Satellites then use their own propulsion systems to circularize their orbits before they can begin commercial operations.
It’s safe to assume that SpaceX is interested in commercially offering services like those above to make Falcon Heavy even more competitive with the likes of ULA’s Atlas/Delta/Vulcan rockets and Arianespace’s Ariane 5 and Ariane 6. The US military will almost certainly be the anchor customer, but a reliable upper stage with long-coast capabilities may one day allow Falcon Heavy to routinely launch commercial satellites directly into circular orbits or send flagship NASA spacecraft into deep space. But first, STP-2. According to Taiwan space agency NSPO, involved in the mission through their Formosat-7 constellation (also known as NOAA’s COSMIC-2), Falcon Heavy could launch STP-2 as early as June 22nd.
SpaceX’s dedicated STP-2 webpage can be viewed here.
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Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s AI Grok Bot can now handle banking while your Tesla FSD handles the road
Elon Musk says Grok Bot can manage your finances through linked bank and investment accounts.
Grok Bot now wants access to your wallet, with SpaceXAI rolling out a new Finance integration for its agent platform that lets users link bank, credit card and investment accounts thereby letting their Bots help manage spending, investments and more. Elon Musk amplified the announcement on X with a short endorsement, “Grok Bot can manage your finances.”
The feature builds on two earlier steps. In early September, Grok gained the ability to answer questions about spending, savings, investments and cash flow using accounts connected through Plaid, starting with users in the U.S. Before that, on August 28, SpaceXAI let Grok Bot buy things online through Link, with users approving every spend request and the Bot receiving a single use card for each payment.
Musk has already shown how far he wants users to push it. In late August, when Tesla investor account Teslaconomics said he was weighing whether to give Grok Bot access to his bank accounts, Musk replied, “Try it out. If Grok Bot messes up, we will make you whole.” That promise goes beyond SpaceXAI’s consumer terms, which make users responsible for what their agents do and generally cap the company’s liability at the greater of fees paid or $100. SpaceXAI’s own documentation recommends requiring approval for purchases and financial transfers.
For Tesla owners, the update lands five days after Tesla brought Grok Bot into its vehicles, letting drivers hand off errands by voice while FSD (Supervised) handles the road. Bot access inside the car is currently limited to SuperGrok Heavy subscribers, though Connectors are open to anyone signed into Grok. With Finance linked, a driver could ask for a spending summary or a check on upcoming bills during the commute.
Grok’s role in the car has grown quickly since Tesla’s Summer Update let it control cabin features by voice. We have been using Grok Bot in our own Tesla for several weeks, and here’s how our latest test went.
Elon Musk
SpaceX just got the green light Starship has waited years for
The FAA has cleared Starship Flight 14, setting up SpaceX’s first orbital attempt on Monday.
SpaceX has cleared the last regulatory hurdle standing between Starship and its first trip to orbit. The Federal Aviation Administration issued the launch license for Starship Flight 14 late Saturday, keeping the mission on track for liftoff Monday, September 28, from Pad 2 at Starbase, Texas.
The 75 minute launch window opens at 7:15 a.m. Central, and Boca Chica Beach closures are also scheduled for September 29 and 30 as backup dates. This will be Starship’s first revenue generating mission.
The license was the missing piece after SpaceX completed a full wet dress rehearsal with Booster 21 and Ship 41 on September 24. At the time, the company said the flight remained on track pending regulatory approval. Because Flight 14 flies an orbital profile, the FAA had to sign off on a modified license that met its safety, payload and financial responsibility requirements.
Observers combing through the new FAA paperwork also noticed that lightning no longer appears among Starship’s listed launch hazards. If that holds, it matters more for where Starship is headed than for Monday’s attempt. Florida and Louisiana, home to LC-39A and the planned Starbase Louisiana site, see some of the most frequent lightning in the United States.
SpaceX tells the FCC that Starship Flight 14 is going to orbit
Flight 14 is the mission SpaceX has been building toward for months. Ship 41 will carry 26 Starlink V3 satellites, the first operational V3 units to be deployed, and attempt roughly six orbits at about 275 kilometers over a flight lasting just under 10 hours. SpaceX says the ship will only perform its orbital insertion burn after flight controllers confirm enough hardware redundancy remains for the deorbit burn at the end of the mission. Ship 41 is targeting a splashdown in the Pacific west of Chile, while Super Heavy will return to the Gulf of Mexico.
The date carries some symbolism as well. A Monday launch would come 10 years and one day after Elon Musk first presented the Interplanetary Transport System, the design that became Starship, at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico.
SpaceX has not announced what comes next, but air traffic planning slides reported this week, list Flight 15 no earlier than October 19 and a first Starship launch from LC-39A in Florida no earlier than October 30. Both dates depend on how Monday goes.
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SpaceX completes another secret Pentagon launch, adding to suspected Starshield buildout
SpaceX launched the classified USSF-385 mission from Vandenberg, landing its booster on a tenth flight.
SpaceX launched another classified mission for the U.S. Space Force from California early Saturday morning, and the Falcon 9 booster that carried it landed on a drone ship in the Pacific for the tenth time. The USSF-385 mission lifted off from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base at 7:00 a.m. PT.
Booster B1100 touched down on Of Course I Still Love You roughly eight and a half minutes after liftoff. It was the booster’s tenth flight and tenth successful landing, following the NROL-95 national security mission and eight Starlink launches. Its previous flight, a Starlink Group 15 mission on August 22, came just 35 days earlier. SpaceX ended its livestream shortly after the landing, which is standard for classified payloads, and neither the company nor the Space Force has said what the rocket carried.
Watch Falcon 9 launch the USSF-385 mission from pad 4E in California https://t.co/CAdbx85Ydy
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 26, 2026
USSF-385 is the fourth Space Force launch from the same Vandenberg pad in roughly six weeks, following USSF-366 on August 15, USSF-153 on September 10, and USSF-259 on September 17. When SpaceX flew USSF-366 in August, independent trackers noted that the rocket’s stage drop zones matched SpaceX’s Starlink Group 15 missions, pointing to Starshield, the government version of the Starlink satellite bus. The Space Force later cataloged 23 satellites after both USSF-366 and USSF-153, while USSF-259 placed 17 satellites into a different orbital plane, per KeepTrack. Launch databases describe USSF-385 the same way, though the payload remains officially unidentified.
The cadence lines up with the contracts, because in July, the Space Force awarded SpaceX $1.6 billion in task orders for 18 Falcon 9 missions from Vandenberg through the end of 2027. SpaceX also holds contracts to build pieces of that same network, which pushed its Pentagon contract total for 2026 past $8 billion.
Saturday’s flight was also the sixth and final Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg in September, according to Spaceflight Now, while only one Falcon 9 flew from the East Coast this month as SpaceX shifts its Florida infrastructure toward Starship. Launch trackers list it as SpaceX’s 112th mission of 2026 and the 108th Falcon 9 flight of the year, with SLC-4E turned around about six and a half days after its previous launch.
The West Coast pad will not stay quiet for long, considering SpaceX has another Starlink mission scheduled from SLC-4E on September 30. Meanwhile, in Texas, the company is two days away from Starship Flight 14, which is targeting Monday at 7:15 a.m. CT for the vehicle’s first attempt to reach orbit.
Elon Musk’s AI Grok Bot can now handle banking while your Tesla FSD handles the road
SpaceX just got the green light Starship has waited years for
