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SpaceX’s next Falcon Heavy launches delayed by military satellite issues
SpaceX’s next Falcon Heavy launches will have to wait several more months after issues unrelated to the rocket forced the US military to delay two upcoming missions.
In an official email sent to outlet Via Satellite on May 19th, the director of the US Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) revealed that the Space Force’s first SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch – known as USSF-44 – was pushed from July to October 2021 “to accommodate payload readiness.” Translated, the common military euphemism likely implies that the mission’s main geostationary satellite payload ran into significant delays in the last year or so and may have also been responsible for an earlier launch delay from April to July 2021.
Possibly connected to USSF-52’s delays, US SMC Colonel Robert Bongiovi indicated in a separate medium that SpaceX’s fifth Falcon Heavy launch and second mission for the US Space Force had also been hit by delays, originally slipping from June to October 2021 and now from October 2021 to sometime in January 2022.
That leaves just one Falcon Heavy launch now scheduled for 2021. Set to debut two new recoverable side boosters and the first intentionally expendable center core, all Falcon Heavy USSF-44 hardware was likely ready to go at SpaceX’s Florida launch facilities by April. Unfortunately, SpaceX – seemingly on time or only slightly behind schedule for Q2 2021 launch – will now have to sit on that Falcon Heavy hardware for the better part of half a year.
The latest of at least four new Falcon Heavy boosters, expendable Falcon Heavy center core B1066 wrapped up testing at SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas development facilities in March and likely shipped to Florida a few weeks later. B1066 followed Falcon Heavy side boosters B1064 and B1065, which completed their own static fire acceptance testing in Texas in late 2020 and early 2021. Given that B1066 will be intentionally expended after its first flight, at least one other Falcon Heavy center core (and probably two or more) is also in work to support SpaceX’s USSF-52 launch sometime next year.
That second new center core – likely B1068 or B1069 – has yet to ship from SpaceX’s Hawthorne, California factory to Texas. If the company was in any rush, significant USSF-44 and USSF-52 payload delays have removed practically all production schedule pressure, giving SpaceX at least 3-5 extra months to test and ship any incomplete boosters, upper stages, or fairings for both missions and prepare for several others.
Barring major delays, SpaceX now has as many as five Falcon Heavy launches scheduled in 2022. USSF-52 is likely up first early in the year, followed by ViaSat’s second ViaSat-3 launch as early as Q1. The rocket is then firmly scheduled to launch NASA’s Psyche asteroid exploration mission in August 2022 and the Space Force’s geostationary USSF-67 satellite(s) in Q4. Finally, one of Inmarsat’s two next-generation I-6 satellites could also launch on Falcon Heavy sometime in 2022, though a specific schedule has yet to be set.
All told, Falcon Heavy has an extremely busy future ahead despite what is now likely to be a more than 28-month gap between the rocket’s third and fourth launch.
News
Tesla ends Full Self-Driving purchase option in the U.S.
In January, Musk announced that Tesla would remove the ability to purchase the suite outright for $8,000. This would give the vehicle Full Self-Driving for its entire lifespan, but Tesla intended to move away from it, for several reasons, one being that a tranche in the CEO’s pay package requires 10 million active subscriptions of FSD.
Tesla has officially ended the option to purchase the Full Self-Driving suite outright, a move that was announced for the United States market in January by CEO Elon Musk.
The driver assistance suite is now exclusively available in the U.S. as a subscription, which is currently priced at $99 per month.
Tesla moved away from the outright purchase option in an effort to move more people to the subscription program, but there are concerns over its current price and the potential for it to rise.
In January, Musk announced that Tesla would remove the ability to purchase the suite outright for $8,000. This would give the vehicle Full Self-Driving for its entire lifespan, but Tesla intended to move away from it, for several reasons, one being that a tranche in the CEO’s pay package requires 10 million active subscriptions of FSD.
Although Tesla moved back the deadline in other countries, it has now taken effect in the U.S. on Sunday morning. Tesla updated its website to reflect this:
🚨 Tesla has officially moved the outright purchase option for FSD on its website pic.twitter.com/RZt1oIevB3
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) February 15, 2026
There are still some concerns regarding its price, as $99 per month is not where many consumers are hoping to see the subscription price stay.
Musk has said that as capabilities improve, the price will go up, but it seems unlikely that 10 million drivers will want to pay an extra $100 every month for the capability, even if it is extremely useful.
Instead, many owners and fans of the company are calling for Tesla to offer a different type of pricing platform. This includes a tiered-system that would let owners pick and choose the features they would want for varying prices, or even a daily, weekly, monthly, and annual pricing option, which would incentivize longer-term purchasing.
Although Musk and other Tesla are aware of FSD’s capabilities and state is is worth much more than its current price, there could be some merit in the idea of offering a price for Supervised FSD and another price for Unsupervised FSD when it becomes available.
Elon Musk
Musk bankers looking to trim xAI debt after SpaceX merger: report
xAI has built up $18 billion in debt over the past few years, with some of this being attributed to the purchase of social media platform Twitter (now X) and the creation of the AI development company. A new financing deal would help trim some of the financial burden that is currently present ahead of the plan to take SpaceX public sometime this year.
Elon Musk’s bankers are looking to trim the debt that xAI has taken on over the past few years, following the company’s merger with SpaceX, a new report from Bloomberg says.
xAI has built up $18 billion in debt over the past few years, with some of this being attributed to the purchase of social media platform Twitter (now X) and the creation of the AI development company. Bankers are trying to create some kind of financing plan that would trim “some of the heavy interest costs” that come with the debt.
The financing deal would help trim some of the financial burden that is currently present ahead of the plan to take SpaceX public sometime this year. Musk has essentially confirmed that SpaceX would be heading toward an IPO last month.
The report indicates that Morgan Stanley is expected to take the leading role in any financing plan, citing people familiar with the matter. Morgan Stanley, along with Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase & Co., are all expected to be in the lineup of banks leading SpaceX’s potential IPO.
Since Musk acquired X, he has also had what Bloomberg says is a “mixed track record with debt markets.” Since purchasing X a few years ago with a $12.5 billion financing package, X pays “tens of millions in interest payments every month.”
That debt is held by Bank of America, Barclays, Mitsubishi, UFJ Financial, BNP Paribas SA, Mizuho, and Société Générale SA.
X merged with xAI last March, which brought the valuation to $45 billion, including the debt.
SpaceX announced the merger with xAI earlier this month, a major move in Musk’s plan to alleviate Earth of necessary data centers and replace them with orbital options that will be lower cost:
“In the long term, space-based AI is obviously the only way to scale. To harness even a millionth of our Sun’s energy would require over a million times more energy than our civilization currently uses! The only logical solution, therefore, is to transport these resource-intensive efforts to a location with vast power and space. I mean, space is called “space” for a reason.”
The merger has many advantages, but one of the most crucial is that it positions the now-merged companies to fund broader goals, fueled by revenue from the Starlink expansion, potential IPO, and AI-driven applications that could accelerate the development of lunar bases.
News
Tesla pushes Full Self-Driving outright purchasing option back in one market
Tesla announced last month that it would eliminate the ability to purchase the Full Self-Driving software outright, instead opting for a subscription-only program, which will require users to pay monthly.
Tesla has pushed the opportunity to purchase the Full Self-Driving suite outright in one market: Australia.
The date remains February 14 in North America, but Tesla has pushed the date back to March 31, 2026, in Australia.
NEWS: Tesla is ending the option to buy FSD as a one-time outright purchase in Australia on March 31, 2026.
It still ends on Feb 14th in North America. https://t.co/qZBOztExVT pic.twitter.com/wmKRZPTf3r
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) February 13, 2026
Tesla announced last month that it would eliminate the ability to purchase the Full Self-Driving software outright, instead opting for a subscription-only program, which will require users to pay monthly.
If you have already purchased the suite outright, you will not be required to subscribe once again, but once the outright purchase option is gone, drivers will be required to pay the monthly fee.
The reason for the adjustment is likely due to the short period of time the Full Self-Driving suite has been available in the country. In North America, it has been available for years.
Tesla hits major milestone with Full Self-Driving subscriptions
However, Tesla just launched it just last year in Australia.
Full Self-Driving is currently available in seven countries: the United States, Canada, China, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea.
The company has worked extensively for the past few years to launch the suite in Europe. It has not made it quite yet, but Tesla hopes to get it launched by the end of this year.
In North America, Tesla is only giving customers one more day to buy the suite outright before they will be committed to the subscription-based option for good.
The price is expected to go up as the capabilities improve, but there are no indications as to when Tesla will be doing that, nor what type of offering it plans to roll out for owners.
Tesla ends Full Self-Driving purchase option in the U.S.
Musk bankers looking to trim xAI debt after SpaceX merger: report
