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Falcon Heavy Flight 2 has been completed successfully after marking SpaceX's first ever triple booster recovery. (SpaceX) Falcon Heavy Flight 2 has been completed successfully after marking SpaceX's first ever triple booster recovery. (SpaceX)

SpaceX

SpaceX Falcon Heavy just nailed a triple rocket landing for the first time

Falcon Heavy Flight 2 has been completed successfully after marking SpaceX's first ever triple booster recovery. (SpaceX)

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SpaceX has pulled off an incredible feat, successfully recovering all three of Falcon Heavy’s Block 5 boosters shortly after the rocket’s commercial launch debut. Followed about two minutes later by the center core’s bullseye drone ship landing, both side boosters once again performed a near-simultaneous recovery at SpaceX’s Cape Canaveral Landing Zones.

With this flawless triple recovery in hand, SpaceX now has plans to reuse both side boosters as early as June 2019, while the center core will likely support critical reusability analysis and may also launch again in the near future. Above all else, Falcon Heavy Flight 2 has demonstrated that SpaceX’s super heavy lift rocket is truly ready to offer routine commercial services for customers – both public and private – around the world. With a combination of reusability, affordability, and performance unlikely to be matched for a minimum of 2+ years, SpaceX and its Falcon Heavy rocket have the opportunity to create an entirely new market in the coming years.

Completed less than 35 minutes after launch, this mission included a wealth of major events and firsts, including the first launch of Falcon Heavy Block 5, the first successful triple booster recovery, and one of the highest orbital apogees yet seen during a SpaceX mission – >90,000 km (55,500 mi) above Earth.

The huge Arabsat 6A satellite – weighing around 6450 kg (14,200 lb) is not quite the heaviest individual spacecraft SpaceX has launched, but it is by far the highest energy orbit SpaceX has reached with a spacecraft anywhere close to its size. Known as a supersynchronous (perhaps ultrasynchronous?) transfer orbit, the extremely high apogee – almost three times higher than the nominal circular orbit Arabsat 6A is destined for – will help the satellite reach that orbit far sooner than it otherwise would. The sooner a spacecraft can begin nominal operations, the sooner it can begin making money for its owner/operator.

Falcon Heavy Block 5 lifts off for the first time, April 11th. (Tom Cross)

Around seven and a half minutes after launch, Falcon Heavy side boosters B1052 and B1053 nailed a flawless simultaneous landing at SpaceX’s Cape Canaveral-based Landing Zones (LZ-1 & LZ-2). Less than three minutes later, center core B1055 hit the bullseye on drone ship Of Course I Still Love You, wrapping up the first successful landing of the critical Falcon Heavy booster.

With three once-flown Block 5 boosters now in hand, SpaceX will attempt to turn around both side boosters – basically just Falcon 9 first stages with nose cones – for Falcon Heavy’s third launch, potentially as early as June 2019. Meanwhile, the center core will complete another 1000 km journey, this time back to the Florida coast before likely shipping to Hawthorne, California or a local hangar for analysis. Falcon Heavy’s center core, as is fairly visible, is dramatically different from the Falcon 9 boosters SpaceX is used to reusing, including a range of connection hardware that is absolutely flight-critical and protrudes rather aggressively into the rocket’s often-violent airstream.

In other words, Falcon Heavy center cores could get far more toasty than Falcon 9 or even their side booster companions, potentially damaging hardware that simply has to be perfect for Heavy launches to succeed and do so reliably. As such, SpaceX will likely be expecting to learn a fair bit of new information and gather critical data in the hopes of eventually optimizing Falcon Heavy center core refurbishment and reuse to Falcon 9’s current level of finesse.

SpaceX’s spectacular Arabsat 6A webcast can be watched in full below.

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Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

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Elon Musk shares updated Starship V3 maiden launch target date

The comment was posted on Musk’s official account on social media platform X.

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Credit: SpaceX/X

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shared a brief Starship V3 update in a post on social media platform X, stating the next launch attempt of the spacecraft could take place in about four weeks.

The comment was posted on Musk’s official account on social media platform X.

Musk’s update suggests that Starship Flight 12 could target a launch around early April, though the schedule will depend on several remaining milestones at SpaceX’s Starbase launch facility in Texas.

Among the key steps is testing and certification of the site’s new launch tower, launch mount, and tank farm systems. These upgrades will support the next generation of Starship vehicles.

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Booster 19 is expected to roll to the launch site and be placed on the launch mount before returning to the production facility to receive its 33 Raptor engines. The booster would then return for a static fire test, which could mark the first time a Super Heavy booster equipped with Raptor V3 engines is fired on the pad.

Ship 39 is expected to undergo a similar preparation process. The vehicle will likely return to the production site to receive its six engines before heading to Massey’s test site for static fire testing.

Once both stages are prepared, the booster and ship will roll out to the launch site for the first full stack of a V3 Super Heavy and V3 Starship. A full wet dress rehearsal is expected to follow before any launch attempt.

Elon Musk has previously shared how SpaceX plans to eventually recover Starship’s upper stage using the launch tower’s robotic arms. Musk noted that the company will only attempt to catch the Starship spacecraft after two successful soft landings in the ocean. The approach is intended to reduce risk before attempting a recovery over land.

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“Should note that SpaceX will only try to catch the ship with the tower after two perfect soft landings in the ocean. The risk of the ship breaking up over land needs to be very low,” Musk wrote in a post on X.

Such a milestone would represent a major step toward the full reuse of the Starship system, which remains a central goal for SpaceX’s long-term launch strategy.

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SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell details xAI power pledge at White House event

The commitment was announced during an event with United States President Donald Trump.

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Credit: xAI

SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell stated that xAI will develop 1.2 gigawatts of power at its Memphis-area AI supercomputer site as part of the White House’s new “Ratepayer Protection Pledge.” 

The commitment was announced during an event with United States President Donald Trump.

During the White House event, Shotwell stated that xAI’s AI data center near Memphis would include a major energy installation designed to support the facility’s power needs.

“As you know, xAI builds huge supercomputers and data centers and we build them fast. Currently, we’re building one on the Tennessee-Mississippi state line. As part of today’s commitment, we will take extensive additional steps to continue to reduce the costs of electricity for our neighbors… 

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“xAI will therefore commit to develop 1.2 GW of power as our supercomputer’s primary power source. That will be for every additional data center as well. We will expand what is already the largest global Megapack power installation in the world,” Shotwell said.

She added that the system would provide significant backup power capacity.

“The installation will provide enough backup power to power the city of Memphis, and more than sufficient energy to power the town of Southaven, Mississippi where the data center resides. We will build new substations and invest in electrical infrastructure to provide stability to the area’s grid.”

Shotwell also noted that xAI will be supporting the area’s water supply as well. 

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“We haven’t talked about it yet, but this is actually quite important. We will build state-of-the-art water recycling plants that will protect approximately 4.7 billion gallons of water from the Memphis aquifer each year. And we will employ thousands of American workers from around the city of Memphis on both sides of the TN-MS border,” she noted. 

The Ratepayer Protection Pledge was introduced as part of the federal government’s effort to address concerns about rising electricity costs tied to large AI data centers, as noted in an Insider report. Under the agreement, companies developing major AI infrastructure projects committed to covering their own power generation needs and avoiding additional costs for local ratepayers.

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SpaceX to launch Starlink V2 satellites on Starship starting 2027

The update was shared by SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell and Starlink Vice President Mike Nicolls.

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Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX is looking to start launching its next-generation Starlink V2 satellites in mid-2027 using Starship.

The update was shared by SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell and Starlink Vice President Mike Nicolls during remarks at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain.

“With Starship, we’ll be able to deploy the constellation very quickly,” Nicolls stated. “Our goal is to deploy a constellation capable of providing global and contiguous coverage within six months, and that’s roughly 1,200 satellites.”

Nicolls added that once Starship is operational, it will be capable of launching approximately 50 of the larger, more powerful Starlink satellites at a time, as noted in a Bloomberg News report.

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The initial deployment of roughly 1,200 next-generation satellites is intended to establish global and contiguous coverage. After that phase, SpaceX plans to continue expanding the system to reach “truly global coverage, including the polar regions,” Nicolls said.

Currently, all Starlink satellites are launched on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. The next-generation fleet will rely on Starship, which remains in development following a series of test flights in 2025. SpaceX is targeting its next Starship test flight, featuring an upgraded version of the rocket, as soon as this month.

Starlink is currently the largest satellite network in orbit, with nearly 10,000 satellites deployed. Bloomberg Intelligence estimates the business could generate approximately $9 billion in revenue for SpaceX in 2026.

Nicolls also confirmed that SpaceX is rebranding its direct-to-cell service as Starlink Mobile.

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The service currently operates with 650 satellites capable of connecting directly to smartphones and has approximately 10 million monthly active users. SpaceX expects that figure to exceed 25 million monthly active users by the end of 2026.

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