News
SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket rolls to pad for Tuesday launch, dual booster landing
A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket has rolled out to Kennedy Space Center Pad 39A for its first launch (and dual booster landing) in almost three and a half years.
Missing its payload fairing and the US Space Force’s classified USSF-44 payload, SpaceX’s fourth Falcon Heavy rocket rolled out to Pad 39A for the first time on October 25th. On the 27th, the rocket successfully fired up all 27 of its first-stage Merlin 1D engines, reasserting its status as the most powerful operational rocket in the world. On October 30th, SpaceX finally brought Falcon Heavy horizontal and rolled the rocket back to Pad 39A’s integration hangar, where the USSF-44 mission’s several payloads – safely stowed inside a payload fairing – were installed on the rocket.
24 hours later, Falcon Heavy – now fully assembled – departed the hangar again. According to the US Space Systems Command (SSC), despite the exceptionally late rollout on October 31st, SpaceX is on track to launch Falcon Heavy no earlier than (NET) 9:41 am EDT (13:41 UTC) on Tuesday, November 1st.
As previously discussed on Teslarati, USSF-44 will be SpaceX’s first attempt at a direct launch to a geostationary orbit (GEO) some ~36,000 kilometers (~22,400 mi) above Earth’s surface, where spacecraft can hover motionless over their region of choice. To accomplish that feat, Falcon Heavy’s upper stage will need to survive a roughly six-hour coast in the harsh vacuum of space, likely making USSF-44 one of the most challenging missions SpaceX has ever attempted.
“Long orbital coasts of six or so hours are necessary for some of the most challenging launch trajectories. Direct-to-geostationary launches are the most common mission requiring long coast capabilities and are often demanded by the US military. When Falcon’s upper stage gets too cold, its kerosene fuel – which freezes at a much higher temperature than Falcon’s liquid oxygen oxidizer – becomes viscous and slush-like before it becomes solid. If ingested in Falcon’s Merlin Vacuum engine, slushy fuel would likely prevent ignition or outright destroy it.“
Teslarati.com – October 10th, 2022
Simultaneously, while worrying about kerosene fuel getting too cold, SpaceX must also ensure that the Falcon upper stage’s cryogenic liquid oxygen (LOx) oxidizer doesn’t boil into gas. If too much LOx warms up and has to be vented out as it turns to gas, the Falcon upper stage could find itself without enough propellant to complete its geostationary orbit circularization burn.
LOx is far less stable, which makes it a bit ironic that the upper stage’s fuel tank bares the only visible sign of the tweaks needed to survive a long coast. To keep the RP1 fuel warmer in orbit, SpaceX has added a layer of grey paint to the RP1 tank, increasing the amount of heat that can be absorbed through unfiltered sunlight. The uninsulated LOx tank, meanwhile, benefits from the unintuitive fact that a cryogenic liquid can stay liquid for a surprisingly long time because some of it warms up and boils off as a gas, sacrificing a small quantity to keep the rest cool.
According to the US Space Force, USSF-44 will carry several “various payloads” attached to the second Northrop Grumman “Long Duration Propulsive EELV (Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle) Secondary Payload Adapter” or LDPE-2 – essentially a long-duration kick stage. Cataloged on EverydayAstronaut.com, the payloads include two Lockheed Martin LINUSS-A cubesats that will demonstrate a handful of new technologies and capabilities; TETRA-1, a microsat built by Millenium Space Systems to test on-orbit maneuverability; and a communications satellite prototype called USUVL. Spaceflight Now reports that LPDE-2 will carry three hosted payloads and deploy three satellites.
Finally, a recent Space Systems Command press release [PDF] mentioned a mysterious “Shepard demonstration” – likely a second propulsive kick stage – for the first time, which almost nothing is known about. It’s unclear if there is a main classified satellite the mission revolves around or if USSF-44 is simply a collection of various rideshare payloads headed to GEO.
Regardless, to launch them directly into geostationary orbit, USSF-44 will mark the first time SpaceX intentionally expends a Falcon Heavy booster. Over three previous launches, SpaceX only managed to land a Falcon Heavy center core once, but that core then tipped over and was destroyed at sea. Two other attempts resulted in failed landings. USSF-44 will continue that trend. Falcon Heavy’s twin side boosters will attempt to continue a more positive trend of simultaneous side-by-side landings and boost back to Florida to touch down at SpaceX’s LZ-1 and LZ-2 pads. SpaceX will also attempt to recover both halves of Falcon Heavy’s payload fairing a record-breaking 1410 kilometers (876 mi) off the Florida coast.
SpaceX says weather is 90% favorable for Falcon Heavy’s November 1st launch attempt. Stay tuned for a link to the company’s official webcast.
News
Tesla pulls back the curtain on Cybercab mass production
Tesla’s Cybercab drives itself off the Gigafactory Texas line in a striking new production video.
Tesla has provided a first look from inside a production Cybercab as it drove itself off the assembly line at Gigafactory Texas. The video footage, posted on X, opens on the factory floor with robotic arms and assembly equipment visible through the Cybercab windshield, and follows the car through a branded tunnel marked “Cybercab”, before autonomously navigating itself to a holding lot.
The first Cybercab rolled off the Giga Texas production line on February 17, 2026, with Musk writing on X, “Congratulations to the Tesla team on making the first production Cybercab.” April marked the official shift to volume production. The Giga Texas line is being prepared to produce hundreds of units per week, with 60 units already spotted on the Gigafactory campus earlier this month.
Purpose-built for autonomy
Cybercab in production now at Giga Texas pic.twitter.com/Y9qG3KyWBa
— Tesla (@Tesla) April 23, 2026
The Cybercab was first revealed publicly at Tesla’s “We, Robot” event in October 2024 at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California, where 20 pre-production units gave attendees rides around the studio lot. Musk said he believed the average operating cost would be around $0.20 per mile, and that buyers would be able to purchase one for under $30,000. The two-seat design is deliberate. Musk noted that 90 percent of miles driven involve one or two people, making a compact two-passenger vehicle the most efficient configuration for a fleet-scale robotaxi. Eliminating rear seats also removes complexity and cost, supporting that sub-$30,000 target.
Tesla’s annual production goal is 2 million Cybercabs per year once several factories reach full design capacity. The Cybercab has no steering wheel, no pedals, and relies entirely on Tesla’s vision-based FSD system. What the video shows is the first evidence of that system working not as a demo, but as a production reality, driving itself off the line and into the world.
🚗 Our first ride in Tesla Cybercab last October: pic.twitter.com/kGqIqgJPRn https://t.co/BITCXFhbVd
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2025
Elon Musk
Elon Musk talks Tesla Roadster’s future
Elon Musk confirmed the Roadster as Tesla’s last manually driven car, with a debut coming soon.
During Tesla’s Q1 2026 earnings call on April 22, Elon Musk made a brief but notable comment about the long-awaited next generation Roadster while describing Tesla’s future vehicle lineup. “Long term, the only manually driven car will be the new Tesla Roadster,” he said. “Speaking of which, we may be able to debut that in a month or so. It requires a lot of testing and validation before we can actually have a demo and not have something go wrong with the demo.”
That single statement is the entire Roadster update from yesterday’s call, and while it represents another timeline shift, it comes as no surprise with Tesla heads-down-at-work on the mass rollout of its Robotaxi service across US cities, and the industrial scale production of the humanoid Optimus.
The fact that Musk specifically framed the Roadster as the last manually driven Tesla is significant on its own. As the rest of the lineup moves toward full autonomy, the Roadster becomes something rare in the Tesla-sphere by keeping the driver in control. Driving enthusiasts who buy a $200,000 supercar are not doing so to be passengers. They want the physical connection to the road, the feel of acceleration under their own input, and the experience of controlling something with that level of performance. FSD, however capable it becomes, removes that entirely. The Roadster signals that Tesla understands this distinction and is building a car specifically for the people who consider driving itself the point.
Tesla isn’t joking about building Optimus at an industrial scale: Here we go
The specs for the Roadster Musk has teased over the years are genuinely unlike anything in production. The base model targets 0 to 60 mph in 1.9 seconds, a top speed above 250 mph, and up to 620 miles of range from a 200 kWh battery. The optional SpaceX package takes it further, rumored to add roughly ten cold gas thrusters operating at 10,000 psi, borrowed directly from Falcon 9 rocket technology. With thrusters, Musk has claimed 0 to 60 mph in as little as 1.1 seconds. In a 2021 Joe Rogan interview he went further, stating “I want it to hover. We got to figure out how to make it hover without killing people.” Tesla filed a patent for ground effect technology in August 2025, suggesting the hover concept has not been abandoned. The starting price remains $200,000, with the Founders Series requiring a $250,000 full deposit. Some reservation holders placed those deposits in 2017 and are approaching a full decade of waiting.
With production now targeted for 2027 or 2028 at the earliest, the Roadster remains Tesla’s most audacious promise and its longest-running delay. But if what Musk is testing lives up to even half of what he has described, the demo alone should be worth waiting for.
Elon Musk says the Tesla Roadster unveiling could be done “maybe in a month or so.”
He said it should be an extraordinary unveiling event. pic.twitter.com/6V9P7zmvEm
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2026
Elon Musk
Tesla confirmed HW3 can’t do Unsupervised FSD but there’s more to the story
Tesla confirmed HW3 vehicles cannot run unsupervised FSD, replacing its free upgrade promise with a discounted trade-in.
Tesla has officially confirmed that early vehicles with its Autopilot Hardware 3 (HW3) will not be capable of unsupervised Full Self-Driving, while extending a path forward for legacy owners through a discounted trade-in program. The announcement came by way of Elon Musk in today’s Tesla Q1 2026 earnings call.
🚨 Our LIVE updates on the Tesla Earnings Call will take place here in a thread 🧵
Follow along below: pic.twitter.com/hzJeBitzJU
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2026
The history here matters. HW3 launched in April 2019, and Tesla sold Full Self-Driving packages to owners on the understanding that the hardware was sufficient for full autonomy. Some owners paid between $8,000 and $15,000 for FSD during that period. For years, as FSD’s AI models grew more demanding, HW3 vehicles fell progressively further behind, eventually landing on FSD v12.6 in January 2025 while AI4 vehicles moved to v13 and then v14. When Musk acknowledged in January 2025 that HW3 simply could not reach unsupervised operation, and alluded to a difficult hardware retrofit.
The near-term offering is more concrete. Tesla’s head of Autopilot Ashok Elluswamy confirmed on today’s call that a V14-lite will be coming to HW3 vehicles in late June, bringing all the V14 features currently running on AI4 hardware. That is a meaningful software update for owners who have been frozen at v12.6 for over a year, and it represents genuine effort to keep older hardware relevant. Unsupervised FSD for vehicles is now targeted for Q4 2026 at the earliest, with Musk describing it as a gradual, geography-limited rollout.
For HW3 owners, the over-the-air V14-lite update is welcomed, and the discounted trade-in path at least acknowledges an old obligation. What happens next with the trade-in pricing will define how this chapter ultimately gets written. If Tesla prices the hardware path fairly, acknowledges what early adopters are owed, and delivers V14-lite on the June timeline it committed to today, it has a real opportunity to convert one of the longest-running sore subjects among early adopters into a loyalty story.
Tesla pulls back the curtain on Cybercab mass production
Elon Musk talks Tesla Roadster’s future
