News
SpaceX’s first Falcon 9 launch in months gets a launch date
SpaceX’s first Falcon 9 launch in more than three months finally has a launch date and it looks like the company’s growing fleet is going to attempt to catch (or land) almost every piece of the rocket, a big first for Falcon 9 reusability if SpaceX can pull it off.
After an exceedingly long wait, SpaceX’s next launch – Starlink’s first “v1.0” mission – is finally on the Eastern range and is scheduled to launch no earlier than ~10 am ET (15:00 UTC) on November 11th, recently confirmed by SpaceFlightNow.com and LaunchPhotography. Although similar lulls in US orbital launch activity have occurred in the past, they are extremely rare: the last time a lull more than three months long occurred was in 2010.
For SpaceX, this is the longest the company has gone without a launch since Falcon 9’s last catastrophic failure, which grounded the rocket for ~4.5 months after a massive explosion in September 2016. By all appearances, the likely 14-week gap between orbital SpaceX launches is little more than the product of bad luck, with customer payloads and SpaceX payloads both coincidentally requiring more time than expected to prepare for flight.
Although the extreme delay between launches is unfortunate, it also happens to have given SpaceX’s recovery engineers a lot more time to prepare the latest member of the rocket recovery fleet for its first attempted fairing catch. Known as GO Ms. Chief, she joins fairing recovery vessel GO Ms. Tree (formerly Mr. Steven) and has spent the last two or so months being outfitted with a brand new net and arms – slightly different but nearly identical to Ms. Tree’s.
Pictured in Stephen Marr’s tweet at the top of this article, Ms. Tree and Ms. Chief appear to be more or less complete, and Ms. Chief took to the Atlantic Ocean with her net installed for the first time just over a week ago. If the ships are as prepared as they look, there’s a strong chance that Ms. Tree and Ms. Chief will be able to team up to attempt the first simultaneous catch of both halves of a Falcon payload fairing. At the moment, SpaceX has caught a single parasailing fairing half twice during its last two consecutive attempts, a strong sign that the company has solved what proved to be an extremely challenging problem.
Falcon 9’s next reusability milestone
As always, prior to launch, SpaceX will fuel and static fire the Falcon 9 rocket to verify that all systems are performing nominally. According to NASASpaceflight.com, that static fire test is scheduled no earlier than Tuesday, November 5th, approximately six days before launch.
Speaking last month, VP of Flight and Build Reliability Hans Koenigsmann stated that Starlink-1 would fly on a thrice-flown Falcon 9 booster, meaning that the mission will likely mark the first time SpaceX flies the same Falcon 9 booster four times. At this point, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Block 5 nth-reuse milestones are becoming less and less surprising as it becomes clearer than ever that the rocket upgrade – designed to support “at least” 10 launches per booster – is well on its way to reaching that goal.
At the moment, the most likely candidates for that fourth-flight milestone are Falcon 9 boosters B1048 and B1049, the former of which flew its third orbital mission in February 2019, while the latter supported SpaceX’s dedicated Starlink v0.9 launch debut in May 2019. Falcon 9 B1046 – also with three launches under its belt – is scheduled to fly for the fourth (and probably final) time as early as mid-December for Crew Dragon’s critical In-Flight Abort Test, while Falcon 9 B1047 flew its third and final mission in August 2019.
All things considered, SpaceX’s quasi return-to-flight after three months without a launch is set to be an exceptionally important mission for Falcon 9 and should be well worth the wait.
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Elon Musk
Tesla CEO Elon Musk trolls budget airline after it refuses Starlink on its planes
“I really want to put a Ryan in charge of Ryan Air. It is your destiny,” Musk said.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk trolled budget airline Ryanair on his social media platform X this week following the company’s refusal to adopt Starlink internet on its planes.
Earlier this week, it was reported that Ryanair did not plan to install Starlink internet services on its planes due to its budgetary nature and short flight spans, which are commonly only an hour or so in total duration.
Initially, Musk said installing Starlink on the company’s planes would not impact cost or aerodynamics, but Ryanair responded on its X account, which is comical in nature, by stating that a propaganda it would not fall for was “Wi-Fi on planes.”
Musk responded by asking, “How much would it cost to buy you?” Then followed up with the idea of buying the company and replacing the CEO with someone named Ryan:
I really want to put a Ryan in charge of Ryan Air. It is your destiny.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 19, 2026
Polymarket now states that there is an 8 percent chance that Musk will purchase Ryanair, which would cost Musk roughly $36 billion, based on recent financial data of the public company.
Although the banter has certainly crossed a line, it does not seem as if there is any true reason to believe Musk would purchase the airline. More than anything, it seems like an exercise of who will go further.
Starlink passes 9 million active customers just weeks after hitting 8 million
However, it is worth noting that if something is important enough, Musk will get involved. He bought Twitter a few years ago and then turned it into X, but that issue was much larger than simple banter with a company that does not want to utilize one of the CEO’s products.
The insufferable, special needs chimp currently running Ryan Air is an accountant. Has no idea how airplanes even fly.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 20, 2026
In a poll posted yesterday by Musk, asking whether he should buy Ryanair and “restore Ryan as their rightful ruler.” 76.5 percent of respondents said he should, but others believe that the whole idea is just playful dialogue for now.
But it is not ideal to count Musk out, especially if things continue to move in the direction they have been.
News
Tesla Robotaxi’s biggest rival sends latest statement with big expansion
The new expanded geofence now covers a broader region of Austin and its metropolitan areas, extended south to Manchaca and north beyond US-183.
Tesla Robotaxi’s biggest rival sent its latest statement earlier this month by making a big expansion to its geofence, pushing the limits up by over 50 percent and nearing Tesla’s size.
Waymo announced earlier this month that it was expanding its geofence in Austin by slightly over 50 percent, now servicing an area of 140 square miles, over the previous 90 square miles that it has been operating in since July 2025.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk shades Waymo: ‘Never really had a chance’
The new expanded geofence now covers a broader region of Austin and its metropolitan areas, extended south to Manchaca and north beyond US-183.
These rides are fully driverless, which sets them apart from Tesla slightly. Tesla operates its Robotaxi program in Austin with a Safety Monitor in the passenger’s seat on local roads and in the driver’s seat for highway routes.
It has also tested fully driverless Robotaxi services internally in recent weeks, hoping to remove Safety Monitors in the near future, after hoping to do so by the end of 2025.
Tesla Robotaxi service area vs. Waymo’s new expansion in Austin, TX. pic.twitter.com/7cnaeiduKY
— Nic Cruz Patane (@niccruzpatane) January 13, 2026
Although Waymo’s geofence has expanded considerably, it still falls short of Tesla’s by roughly 31 square miles, as the company’s expansion back in late 2025 put it up to roughly 171 square miles.
There are several differences between the two operations apart from the size of the geofence and the fact that Waymo is able to operate autonomously.
Waymo emphasizes mature, fully autonomous operations in a denser but smaller area, while Tesla focuses on more extensive coverage and fleet scaling potential, especially with the potential release of Cybercab and a recently reached milestone of 200 Robotaxis in its fleet across Austin and the Bay Area.
However, the two companies are striving to achieve the same goal, which is expanding the availability of driverless ride-sharing options across the United States, starting with large cities like Austin and the San Francisco Bay Area. Waymo also operates in other cities, like Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Orlando, Phoenix, and Atlanta, among others.
Tesla is working to expand to more cities as well, and is hoping to launch in Miami, Houston, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Dallas.
Elon Musk
Tesla automotive will be forgotten, but not in a bad way: investor
It’s no secret that Tesla’s automotive division has been its shining star for some time. For years, analysts and investors have focused on the next big project or vehicle release, quarterly delivery frames, and progress in self-driving cars. These have been the big categories of focus, but that will all change soon.
Entrepreneur and Angel investor Jason Calacanis believes that Tesla will one day be only a shade of how it is recognized now, as its automotive side will essentially be forgotten, but not in a bad way.
It’s no secret that Tesla’s automotive division has been its shining star for some time. For years, analysts and investors have focused on the next big project or vehicle release, quarterly delivery frames, and progress in self-driving cars. These have been the big categories of focus, but that will all change soon.
I subscribed to Tesla Full Self-Driving after four free months: here’s why
Eventually, and even now, the focus has been on real-world AI and Robotics, both through the Full Self-Driving and autonomy projects that Tesla has been working on, as well as the Optimus program, which is what Calacanis believes will be the big disruptor of the company’s automotive division.
On the All-In podcast, Calcanis revealed he had visited Tesla’s Optimus lab earlier this month, where he was able to review the Optimus Gen 3 prototype and watch teams of engineers chip away at developing what CEO Elon Musk has said will be the big product that will drive the company even further into the next few decades.
Calacanis said:
“Nobody will remember that Tesla ever made a car. They will only remember the Optimus.”
He added that Musk “is going to make a billion of those.”
Musk has stated this point himself, too. He at one point said that he predicted that “Optimus will be the biggest product of all-time by far. Nothing will even be close. I think it’ll be 10 times bigger than the next biggest product ever made.”
He has also indicated that he believes 80 percent of Tesla’s value will be Optimus.
Optimus aims to totally revolutionize the way people live, and Musk has said that working will be optional due to its presence. Tesla’s hopes for Optimus truly show a crystal clear image of the future and what could be possible with humanoid robots and AI.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk trolls budget airline after it refuses Starlink on its planes
Tesla Robotaxi’s biggest rival sends latest statement with big expansion
