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SpaceX’s astronaut launch debut Crew Dragon capsule shown off in first public photos
As part of a last-second media event at SpaceX’s Hawthorne, CA rocket factory and headquarters, members of the media were allowed to take the first public photos of the Crew Dragon spacecraft expected to support the company’s astronaut launch debut.
According to NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, that inaugural Crew Dragon astronaut launch (known as Demo-2) could come as early as the first quarter of 2020. A great amount of work remains before NASA is likely to give SpaceX permission to launch, but both leaders were fairly confident that Crew Dragon’s first crewed launch is likely to come sooner than later.
Photographer Pauline Acalin attended the SpaceX event for Teslarati and was able to take a number of excellent photos of the company’s Crew Dragon cleanroom, in which workers swarmed around the spacecraft that will soon carry NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). Despite the large media event going on just a few feet away, several dozen SpaceX Dragon technicians ignored the hubbub and kept working, a quiet sign of their dedication and urgency.
Striking an impressive contrast with similar photos taken roughly 14 months prior, far more hardware was present in SpaceX’s Dragon’s Lair. In August 2018, SpaceX held a similar media event in which COO/President Gwynne Shotwell and NASA astronauts spoke about Crew Dragon and their progress towards launch. Coincidentally, the capsule in the background of that event (C203) shipped to Florida perhaps just a week before today’s October 10th gathering and will support Dragon’s In-Flight Abort test instead of Demo-2.
Beyond the capsule itself, not a lot else was visible and activity was fairly subdued in the cleanroom. During the October 2019 event, dozens of workers swarmed around the spacecraft and a number of crucial components, all appearing to be nearly finished. To the left of Crew Dragon capsule C204, assigned to Demo-2, the spacecraft’s expendable trunk section (a glossy black thanks to its curved solar array) and silvery heat shield were clearly in similar states of assembly. Combined, they account for the vast majority of the hardware needed to support SpaceX’s first astronaut launch.
According to comments made on September 28th, CEO Elon Musk believes that the Crew Dragon hardware above could be ready to ship to Florida to begin pre-launch preparations as early as November 2019. SpaceX has already successfully static fired the Falcon 9 Block 5 booster – B1058 – that will support Crew Dragon’s astronaut launch debut and both the booster and upper stage will likely arrive in Florida even before their Crew Dragon payload.
Meanwhile, SpaceX is perhaps just two months (give or take) away from Crew Dragon’s crucial In-Flight Abort (IFA) test. The dramatic high-altitude, high-velocity test will likely destroy the Falcon 9 booster and upper stage assigned to support it while hopefully demonstrating that Dragon can whisk its astronauts away from danger at any point during launch. All Dragon and Falcon hardware for the IFA test arrived at SpaceX’s Florida launch and processing facilities just days ago.
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Tesla revealed a major new Cybercab detail in a guide it released for First Responders, showing new territory in its beliefs and intentions for the ride-hailing-focused vehicle that entered production in April.
The First Responders Guide is released to give fire departments, paramedics, and other emergency personnel the proper guidance on what to do in the event of an accident, entrapment, or other situation that would require immediate attention.
On one of the pages of the First Responders Guide, Tesla revealed a stark detail about the Cybercab, which could help personnel enter the vehicle more easily in case of an emergency.
Tesla Cybercab has one important piece that AI4 cars might need for FSD
It shows Tesla has no intention of releasing any Cybercab units that were initially proposed for ride-hailing services for the general public with any manual controls, meaning a steering wheel or pedals:
“A Cybercab equipped with steering wheel, brake pedal, and an acceleration pedal is typically an engineering or test vehicle, and operates at SAE Level 2 autonomy. Cybercab is not typically equipped with a steering wheel or acceleration and brake pedals.”
New official Cybercab documentation from Tesla:
“A Cybercab equipped with steering wheel, brake pedal, and an acceleration pedal is typically an engineering or test vehicle, and operates at SAE Level 2 autonomy. Cybercab is not typically equipped with a steering wheel or… https://t.co/P6ut1mZyzr pic.twitter.com/yq6skl9s2J
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) June 27, 2026
This is a major development for those who continue to believe Tesla planned to release the Cybercab with any sort of manual controls so that passengers could take over if needed. However, when Tesla started manufacturing production versions of the Cybercab in Giga Texas earlier this year, they were spotted without a steering wheel or pedals.
It essentially confirms the company has no intentions of bringing manual controls to the car’s production versions. Some have argued that the likelihood of Tesla having something
There still are some Cybercab units out there with a steering wheel and pedals, and as Tesla said, these cars are engineering or test vehicles, which have Safety Monitors on board to help the car out of a precarious situation or emergency.
Tesla released the Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ suite to owners of Hardware 3 or AI3 vehicles today, adding several new features to the vehicles that were once believed to be capable of unsupervised self-driving.
Now, Tesla has released this modified suite to older Tesla vehicles, adding plenty of new features and capabilities.
Here are the full release notes for the suite:
- Distilled the intelligence from HW4 V14 into HW3. This allows HW3 to directly learn how to handle scenarios using HW4 V14 as a guide. This process unlocks the improvements that have been made to HW4 including Reinforcement Learning (RL) and offline models for HW3.
- Improved both proactive and reactive responsiveness across a wide variety of categories including navigation handling, merges and forks, pedestrian interactions, traffic lights, and vehicle cut-in scenarios.
- Improved general comfort in nominal scenarios through fewer false slowdowns, smoother steering and more consistent lane centering.
- Introduced parking, unparking, and reversing capabilities.
- Added Arrival Options for you to select where FSD should park: in a Parking Lot, on the Street, in a Driveway, or at the Curbside.
- Speed Profiles are now available at all times, to further customize driving style preference.
These improvements, according to Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, help distill the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute configurations of AI3.
Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ for older cars finally gets released
He added:
“It includes destination options and speed profiles on city roads, but more importantly significantly improved safety. We hope you’ll enjoy it, once the build ships wide.”
FSD v14 Lite is now rolling out to AI3 early-access customers. Based on the feedback, will rollout to more customers over the next few weeks.
This build distills the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute config of AI3. It includes destination…
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) June 29, 2026
Tesla will continue to roll out the v14 Lite suite more widely in the coming weeks, the company said.
Tesla has finally released its Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ suite for older cars that equip the Hardware 3 or AI 3 chip, which have not been able to handle the newest versions of the company’s driver assistance software.
Tesla officially started releasing the v14 Lite suite to owners in the Early Access Program last night. The company’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, said that the rollout will continue over the next few weeks. The build distills the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute configurations of an AI3 car.
🚨 Tesla is releasing v14 Lite for AI3 owners who are in early-access
This will give AI3 cars the ability to experience new FSD features like parking preferences. https://t.co/pp6Q5FOKoz pic.twitter.com/tqexMB8SVy
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 29, 2026
It also includes a variety of new features that were available to AI4 cars running v14, including:
- Start Self-Driving from Park
- Arrival and Parking Options
- Speed Profiles
The release is highly anticipated because those owners with AI3 vehicles were early adopters into the FSD platform and were promised that their cars would be capable of achieving Full Self-Driving.
However, Tesla CEO Elon Musk admitted during the company’s recent Q1 Earnings Call that these vehicles would not be capable of achieving unsupervised Full Self-Driving, which is what Tesla had originally said.
Owners were not pleased with this answer, or the idea that their commitment to buying the suite outright for thousands of dollars would not yield the ability to drive without operating the car. Tesla gave some solutions for this, including a discount on a new car, or an upgrade to an AI4 or AI5 self-driving computer and new, upgraded cameras.
Tesla owners do not seem pleased with these options, as they require giving the company more money.
Nevertheless, it is important to note that Tesla came through for owners here by releasing v14 Lite before the end of Q2, something it had promised owners during the previous Earnings Call. Tesla has had trouble keeping up with timelines, but this is a big achievement for the team.
Tesla reveals huge Cybercab detail in new guide for First Responders
Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ Release Notes: new capabilities and features
