News
SpaceX might launch first Starlink Gen2 satellites next week
Update: It no longer appears that SpaceX’s last Starlink launch of the year will carry true V2 or V2 Mini satellite prototypes for its next-generation Starlink constellation. That has only deepened the layers of mystery surrounding the mission.
SpaceX has told the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that it plans to begin launching its first next-generation Starlink Gen2 satellites before the end of 2022.
The FCC only just granted SpaceX partial approval of its Starlink Gen2 constellation, which has been under review since May 2020, in late November 2022. Just a week or two later, in several filings asking the FCC to expedite Special Temporary Authority (STA) requests that would allow it to fully test and communicate with its first next-generation satellite prototypes, SpaceX said [PDF] that it “anticipates that it will begin launching Gen2 satellites before the end of December 2022.”
The update that's rolling out to the fleet makes full use of the front and rear steering travel to minimize turning circle. In this case a reduction of 1.6 feet just over the air— Wes (@wmorrill3) April 16, 2024
In most of the main STA requests filed in early December, SpaceX appears to be asking the FCC to add Starlink Gen2 satellites as approved points of communication for user terminals and ground stations that are already licensed. Those include its new high-performance dishes, newer base-model dishes (both fixed and in motion), and first-generation (round) dishes. While the FCC’s recent actions on Starlink do not raise confidence in its consistency, objectivity, and rationality, these requests should be shoe-ins.
SpaceX also wants permission to activate Very High Frequency (VHF) beacons that are meant to be installed on all Starlink Gen2 satellites. Those beacons would serve as a backup to existing telemetry, tracking, and command (TT&C) antennas and decrease the odds of a total loss of control by ensuring that SpaceX can remain in contact with Gen2 satellites regardless of their orientation – an ability that would obviously improve the safety of Starlink orbital operations.
Given how unusually long it took the FCC to review SpaceX’s Starlink Gen2 applications and how arbitrarily strict it was with its partial Gen2 license grant, it’s hard to say if the FCC will grant these STA requests or how long it will take if it does. SpaceX finds itself in a strange position where the FCC has given it permission to begin launching up to 7500 Starlink Gen2 satellites, but has not granted SpaceX permission to use those satellites to communicate with user terminals.
To the FCC’s credit, a constellation operator has never been ready to launch satellites less than one month after launches were approved, and it’s likely that the processes to ensure those satellites can be properly used after launch are ongoing. Additionally, because of the FCC’s arbitrary license restrictions, SpaceX is not allowed to launch or operate any Starlink Gen2 satellites outside of a narrow range of altitudes (475-580 km). After launch, Starlink Gen2 satellites will likely take around two or three months to reach those operational orbits, only after which can SpaceX begin using them in earnest. As long as the FCC approves most of SpaceX’s December 2022 STA requests, the disruption to Starlink Gen2 deployment and on-orbit testing should thus be limited.
Next week?
While SpaceX’s schedule targets can often be easily dismissed for future projects, there is evidence that SpaceX will actually attempt to launch the first Starlink Gen2 satellites before the end of the year. Earlier this month, SpaceX received permission to communicate with a Falcon 9 rocket for a mission called Starlink 5-1. One of five orbital ‘shells’ that make up SpaceX’s first-generation Starlink constellation does technically have zero satellites and is awaiting its first launch. But that shell (Group 5) is polar, meaning that its satellites will orbit around Earth’s poles, and the STA license the FCC granted indicates that this launch will be to a more equatorial inclination, which would not make sense for a Group 5 launch.
It’s thus possible that SpaceX decided to repurpose the STA for its first Starlink Gen2 launch, which the company cannot currently launch to an inclination other than 53 degrees – roughly the same trajectory indicated by the document. Starlink Gen1 has two 53-degree shells, Group 1 and Group 4, and both are nearly complete and would likely be called Starlink 1-XX or 4-XX in FCC filings. Combined with SpaceX stating in its VHF beacon STA request that initial Starlink Gen2 launches will start in “late December 2022,” and unofficial manifests indicating that SpaceX has a Starlink launch scheduled as early as December 28th, it certainly appears that first Gen2 satellites will reach orbit later this year.
More likely than not, they will be Starlink “V2 Mini” satellites – a downsized variant created to maximize the efficiency of Falcon 9 Starlink Gen2/V2 launches while SpaceX’s next-generation Starship rocket remains stuck on the ground. The Starship-optimized Starlink V2 satellites SpaceX initially hoped would be the only version reportedly weigh about 1.25 tons (~2750 lb) and measure roughly 6.5 by 2.7 meters (21 x 9 ft). According to an October 2022 FCC filing, Starlink V2 Mini satellites will still be several times larger than today’s Starlink V1.5 satellites, weighing up to 800 kilograms (~1750 lb) and measuring 4.1 by 2.7 meters (13.5 x 9 ft).
SpaceX says Starlink V2 Mini satellites will also have a pair of massive solar arrays with a total array of 120 square meters (~1300 sq ft). Assuming V2 Mini satellites are roughly as power-efficient as V1.5 satellites and use similarly efficient solar arrays, that indicates that could offer around 3-4 times more usable bandwidth per satellite. Assuming SpaceX has again found a way to use all of Falcon 9’s available performance, each rocket should be able to carry up to 21 Starlink V2 Mini satellites to low Earth orbit.
Elon Musk
SpaceX just combined Grok, Cursor, and X into one mega plan
SpaceXSI merges Grok, Cursor, and X Premium into one plan, raising questions for Tesla owners.
SpaceX Super Intelligence has rolled out The X Subscription, a single plan that combines Grok, Grok Bot, Cursor, and X Premium.
There are five levels, including a free plan that includes daily Grok access and a starter allowance for Cursor’s coding agents. Plus is $8 per month, Premium is $30, Super is $100, and Ultra is $200. Usage scales as you move up, with Premium offering four times the Plus allowance, Super 15 times, and Ultra 50 times. Annual billing brings the prices down a bit further, with Premium at $300 per year.
We’ve unified plans across Grok, Cursor, and X Premium.
Introducing The X Subscription. https://t.co/SvkrVvBa0p
— SpaceX Super Intelligence (@SpaceXSI) October 12, 2026
The $30 Premium tier is where SpaceXSI says it packs the benefits of SuperGrok, Cursor Pro, and X Premium+, which previously added up to $90 per month. Grok Bot, the agent that handles tasks like ordering food or managing a calendar, is included from Premium upward but not on Plus. Paid plans share one weekly usage pool across Grok and Cursor, and each plan includes at least twice the coding usage of the comparable Cursor plan. Third party models in Cursor remain available on Premium and above, but they are billed separately at API list prices.
That last detail matters because of what has happened around Cursor this year. SpaceX exercised its option to buy the company for $60 billion in June, and the deal closed in August. Weeks later, OpenAI said it will cut Cursor’s access to its models on November 12. Bundling Cursor with Grok usage gives SpaceXSI a reason to steer developers toward its own models.
Tesla integrates Grok Bot into its vehicles for the ultimate personal assistant
For Tesla owners, the connection is Grok Bot. Tesla brought it into its vehicles last month, and at that point access inside the car was limited to SuperGrok Heavy subscribers. Grok Bot is now enabled across every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y Robotaxi fleet. Neither SpaceXSI nor Tesla has said how the new plans change inside the car access for owners, or whether a $30 Premium subscription now covers Grok Bot in a personal Tesla. That is the question owners will want answered first.
The company is also changing its name along the way. The rollout follows the rebrand Musk announced on October 4, when he said SpaceXAI would become SpaceXSI, and the plan page now carries that branding.
The X Subscription is available to new customers starting now, and SpaceXSI says it will reach everyone globally over the next few days. Existing SuperGrok, Cursor, and X Premium subscribers do not have to switch. The option to move will appear gradually in billing settings, with a prorated refund for the unused time on the old plan. Switching is permanent once the accounts are unified, and old plans are closed to new sign ups.
Energy
Taiwan power firm bets big on Tesla Megapacks as AI data center thirst grows
Taiwan’s Apollo Power orders 260 Tesla Megapacks, betting AI data centers will need more electricity.
A Taiwanese power company has ordered 260 Tesla Megapack 2XL units, roughly 1GWh of storage, betting that electricity rather than chips will decide how fast AI data centers come online. Apollo Power signed the contract with Tesla’s Taiwan energy arm on October 8, according to the company’s filing with the Taiwan stock exchange.
The filing says the units are meant for behind the meter storage and resilient grid projects, with delivery in batches from the end of 2027 and sites operating in 2028. Apollo and Tesla did not disclose a price, citing a confidentiality agreement. Apollo plans to pay for the equipment through a cash capital increase and bank financing, and it noted the purchase is not revenue and does not mean it holds firm orders from its partners.
Biggo reported that only about 33 units are under signed customer contracts, with roughly 150 more in negotiation. The same report put total project investment near NT$130 billion, but that figure includes installation work, with the equipment itself making up about 40 to 50 percent. In other words, a large share of this order is Apollo reserving supply ahead of demand. Apollo’s chairman told local media global large storage supply is tight, which is why the company locked in the units early, according to Yahoo Taiwan Finance.
Apollo also launched an AI data center and grid resilience alliance with Phison, Gigabyte and Shihlin Electric. The pitch rests on a pilot at Phison’s Zhunan plant, where Apollo and Tesla Energy Taiwan installed grid forming Megapack 2XLs in June. Tesla Energy Taiwan general manager Sun Hsiao-Han said the project went from demo to 1GWh in four months, and that Tesla Energy has deployed more than 50GWh worldwide.
Taiwan’s cabinet has approved amendments that would require large energy users to install their own generation and storage, which gives enterprise storage a regulatory tailwind.
The deal fits a pattern Teslarati has tracked. Tesla’s Megablock targets 1GWh commissioned in 20 business days, a pitch aimed squarely at fast moving data center builds. Megapacks already back xAI’s Colossus in Memphis and a 400MW AI campus in Brazil. Sun Media adds that Megapack 2XL was named among the first products in Nvidia’s DSX Ready qualification for battery storage in AI factories.
Deliveries are more than a year away, so the real test is how much of that 260 unit order turns into signed customer contracts.
For a century, the car has asked the same thing of its owner, which is basically to pay attention. Even the best ride-hailing app like Uber or Lyft only moved the problem into someone else’s hands. You stopped driving, but you still sat in a stranger’s car, while half listening, and wondering whether to take a phone call in the car without being rude. The Cybercab has no wheel, no pedals and no driver. With Grok @bot now live inside it, it becomes something else entirely, and I think that matters more than the fleet count that everyone is tracking.
Grok @bot is an agent, not a voice assistant. A rider signs in once, and from then on can say what they need and watch it happen. Order dinner from a favorite restaurant. Fill the grocery cart. Move money, answer email, adjust a calendar, push a work project forward. Tesla engineer Yun-Ta Tsai confirmed it is enabled across every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y fleet, and Tesla’s own pitch is that Full Self-Driving handles the commute while Grok handles the errands.
Think about what that does to a thirty minute ride. Uber sells you a trip, while Waymo sells you the same trip in a more private setting. Tesla is selling the thirty minutes themselves, returned to you with an assistant attached. Errands that used to eat a Saturday get done between pickup and drop off. The ride stops being dead time between two places and becomes a place of its own.
Tesla integrates Grok Bot into its vehicles for the ultimate personal assistant
Best of all, your Bots follow you into any Cybercab, and presumably your own Tesla, then logs you out automatically when you step out. Anyone can bolt a chatbot onto a screen, but much harder to own the vehicle, the autonomy stack and the assistant at once. It also quietly ties SpaceX’s Super Intelligence business to Tesla’s fleet, after Tesla converted its xAI stake into SpaceX equity. The relationship between those two companies is getting harder to describe as separate.
This is also where the hard questions start, because an agent that can spend your money in a vehicle other people also ride in needs some answers. How does it handle a voice it shouldn’t trust? What gets recorded, who can see it, and for how long? What happens when a rider leaves halfway through a task?
If Tesla gets those answers right, the scoreboard changes. We have been counting Cybercabs and wait times. The more telling number may be what riders accomplish per trip. That is data almost no one else will ever have, and it is the real reason to watch Grok @bot.
What do you think? Leave me a comment.
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