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SpaceX, Firefly Aerospace targeting three rocket launches in two days
Update: As is a common occurrence in spaceflight, two of the three planned missions have been delayed or scrubbed. Firefly’s second Alpha launch has slipped to no earlier than (NET) September 12th after an aborted attempt on the 11th, and SpaceX’s Starlink 4-34 mission was pushed from September 11th to September 13th.
SpaceX and Firefly Aerospace are on track to attempt three orbital launches this weekend as the former continues to relentlessly assemble a constellation of Starlink internet satellites and the latter works to secure its first success.
On the heels of 40 successful Falcon 9 launches this year, SpaceX is a few days away from two more Starlink missions that will likely leave the company with more than 3000 working satellites in orbit.
Founded in 2017, 15 years after SpaceX, Firefly Aerospace is almost entirely focused on one near-term goal: the first successful launch of its Alpha rocket.
Firefly’s Alpha rocket lifted off for the first time on September 2nd, 2021. Just moments after launch, a faulty cable caused one of the Alpha first stage’s four Reaver engines to shut down, immediately dooming the attempt. The rocket inexplicably persevered, though, and managed more than two minutes of powered flight before it lost control, became a range safety risk, and was terminated.
More than a year later, Firefly believes it has solved the problems that doomed Alpha Flight 1 and is on the cusp of the rocket’s second launch attempt, which has been scheduled no earlier than (NET) 3pm PST (22:00 UTC) on Sunday, September 11th.
Recently, the second fully stacked Alpha rocket completed a wet dress rehearsal and static fire while installed on Firefly’s Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB) SLC-2W pad, confirming its readiness for flight. Measuring 1.8 meters (6 ft) wide and 29.5 meters (~95 ft) tall, Alpha is about half the width and height of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 workhorse, and Firefly estimates that the expendable rocket will be able to launch up to 1.17 tons (~2560 lb) to Low Earth Orbit (LEO).
That’s several times more performance per launch than competitors like Rocket Lab, Astra Space, and Virgin Orbit, but 14 times less than a partially reusable Falcon 9. At $15 million apiece, however, the rocket’s list price will be 4.5 times less than Falcon 9’s, which could be enough to create a niche for customers that want to spend a bit more to send smaller satellites exactly where they want instead of getting dropped off in the general vicinity as a rideshare payload.
Demonstrating an impressive level of transparency, Firefly will offer a public livestream of Alpha’s second flight in full awareness that it could ultimately broadcast a launch failure for the second time in a row. There are very few instances in the history of spaceflight where a new group’s new rocket successfully reached orbit on its first launch, so it’s a credit to the startup to acknowledge the reality that launch failures are a common extension of the development process, rather than something to hide from the public.
SpaceX knows that reality well. Falcon 1, its first rocket, was about half the size of Firefly’s Alpha and suffered three launch failures in two and half years before finally succeeding on its fourth attempt. More than a magnitude larger, Falcon 9 likely benefitted from SpaceX’s Falcon 1 experience and had a much smoother start to life, though it did eventually experience its own share of failures years after its 2010 debut.
12 years later, Falcon 9 is one of the most successful launch vehicles of all time, and has simultaneously pioneered the commercially viable reuse of orbital-class rockets. Currently on a historic pace of one launch every ~6.2 days in 2022, Falcon 9 recently completed its 146th successful launch in a row and 173rd successful launch overall.
Hopefully continuing those trends, Next Spaceflight reports that Falcon 9 is scheduled to launch two more batches of Starlink satellites at 9:10 pm EDT on Saturday, September 10th, and 10:53 pm EDT on Sunday, September 11th. In addition to several dozen Starlink satellites, the first mission – Starlink 4-2 – is expected to carry a relatively large 1.5-ton (~3300 lb) satellite prototype for space-to-phone communications startup AST SpaceMobile. The second mission, known as Starlink 4-34, should be a dedicated launch of another 53 or 54 Starlink satellites.
The Tesla Roadster unveiling is getting hyped up by the company’s CEO Elon Musk, who has been a big reason the product has such high expectations due to delayed timelines and a constant need to make it even more insane than before.
Tesla announced on September 12 that it would officially unveil the Roadster in Waco, Texas, on October 1, ending years of patience for fans and reservation holders who have waited for the all-electric supercar to enter production since 2017.
Musk has said that this event will be well worth the wait on several occasions, and last year on the Joe Rogan Experience, he said that there should be a closing chapter to supercars- the end of cars that aren’t focused on safety.
He said:
“Whether it’s good or bad, it will be unforgettable. My friend Peter Thiel once reflected that the future was supposed to have flying cars, but we don’t have flying cars. I think if Peter wants a flying car, he should be able to buy one. I think it has a shot at being the most memorable product unveil ever. This is some crazy technology in this car. Let’s just put it this way: if you took all the James Bond cars and combined them, it’s crazier than that.”
Musk’s teases have continued, and now that the event is roughly two weeks away, it seems like Roadster is finally going to show up and blow some minds:
It’s out of this world
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 13, 2026
Excitement guaranteed
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 13, 2026
Tesla has definitely dragged out the development of the Roadster, but there is a good reason for it.
Tesla has been working on many other projects, most notably self-driving efforts to increase passenger safety, and those simply took priority over the Roadster, a low-volume, high-performance sports car that has a lightning-fast acceleration rate of 0-60 MPH in just 1.1 seconds, could potentially fly, and contributes very little to the company’s mission.
However, many people have the Roadster on pre-order through the referral program or with their own money, and it is time that Tesla delivers on that.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s Boring Company has big plans for Las Vegas by year’s end
Elon Musk’s Boring Company says Vegas Loop stations will double by year end once again.
The Boring Company says the Vegas Loop’s station count will double by the end of the year, tying the target to a hiring push for drivers and operations managers in Las Vegas. “Vegas Loop is getting bigger – the station count will double by end of year!” the company wrote in a post on X, attaching listings for a Loop driver and a senior Loop operations manager.
The number checks out against what’s already public, with the Vegas Loop currently running 14 operational stations, while the Boring Company’s own project page lists 28 as the target for the end of 2026.
Vegas Loop is getting bigger – the station count will double by end of year!
Urgently hiring exceptional and enthusiastic Drivers and Ops Managers.
Apply here!
Driverhttps://t.co/ZUPXBYTONb
Senior Loop Ops Managerhttps://t.co/mV6V22V8jH pic.twitter.com/IZ9FqIw8WY
— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) September 14, 2026
Much of that growth is tied to tunnels that are already built and waiting on an opening date. A roughly two-mile dual tunnel system under Paradise Road, connecting Westgate to a planned station at 4744 Paradise Road, is expected to open in stages over the coming weeks, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority chief executive Steve Hill told the Review-Journal last week. New stations at 4744 Paradise, Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, and the former Gordon Biersch site would come online with it, several of them built to speed up rides to Harry Reid International Airport ahead of Formula 1’s Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Clark County entitled Vegas Loop for 123 stations after approving 19 more in August, as Teslarati reported at the time. Entitlement and construction move at different speeds on this project, so county approval alone does not guarantee a station opens on any particular schedule.
Clark County approved 18 additional stations back in 2023, part of a plan that pushed the system’s target to 69 stations across 65 miles, doubling the network on paper for the first time. The target kept climbing after that, to roughly 93 stations by the end of that year and 104 by last year, before August’s vote pushed it to 123. This week’s announcement is the first time that doubling language has been attached to stations actually running rather than stations merely approved on a county map.
Ridership gives some sense of what a denser network could carry. Boring Company executive Mike Baier said in July that the Vegas Loop already moves around 40,000 passengers on busy convention days, a total that tops most light rail systems in the country despite the system running on a fraction of its planned tunnel mileage. Company leadership has projected ridership could triple or quadruple once the airport connector tunnels fully open.
Boring Company did not say which stations beyond those already under construction would open by year end, or whether the hiring push points to a fleet expansion alongside the new stops.
Tesla is looking to expand into a new Asian market, strengthening its presence in a region that has been bullish on electric vehicles as a whole.
Tesla officially filed to establish a subsidiary of its business in Vietnam, a report from Reuters suggests. Tesla named the entity “Tesla Motors Vietnam Limited Liability Company.”
The planned entrance into the Vietnamese market is a good sign and move for Tesla, as it has become one of the fastest-growing EV markets in Southeast Asia. It is already among the leaders in the region in both volume and electrification rate. In the first half of this year, Vietnam led Southeast Asia in battery-electric passenger car sales at about 116,000 units, up about 71 percent year over year.
Currently, Vietnamese EV drivers rely on VinFast’s V-Green network, which has about 150,000 ports, but these are primarily reserved for VinFast vehicles. Public third-party charging is fragmented and unreliable for those who do not own chargers that are dedicated to a certain manufacturer’s vehicles.
Tesla has had mixed results in Asia as a whole, and as China remains the core part of its story in Asia, the company is evidently working on expanding its footprint on the continent. Tesla’s domestic retail deliveries fell about 12 percent year over year through the first eight months of 2026.
Model Y remains a standout individual product, holding its position as one of, if not the, best-selling vehicles in the world. However, Model 3 has been weaker than it has been in past years.
Gigafactory Shanghai, the company’s Chinese production facility, still performs very well. Wholesale volumes in terms of exports have more than doubled and now exceed domestic retail sales; Giga Shanghai builds vehicles for Europe, South Korea, Japan, Australia, and other markets. South Korea has been an explicit bright spot, with registrations doubling year-to-date and Tesla frequently appearing as the top imported brand.
Tesla just did something in South Korea that no foreign carmaker has ever done
Tesla’s entrance into Vietnam signals a broader effort to take over the Asian market and grab more market share from rivals.
Tesla Roadster unveiling is getting hyped up by Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s Boring Company has big plans for Las Vegas by year’s end
