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SpaceX preparing for surge of geostationary satellite launches

Scheduled to launch as early as February 5th, Amazonus Nexus will be SpaceX's first commercial geostationary commsat launch of 2023. (Thales Alenia)

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SpaceX is preparing for a surge of geostationary communications satellite launches after several slow years.

In the late 2010s, orders of large geostationary commsats plummeted. Formerly a mainstay of the commercial launch industry, western geostationary satellite launches became much rarer in 2019 and the early 2020s. That downturn was especially noticeable for SpaceX, where geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) launches were one of the most common missions performed by its Falcon 9 rockets from 2014 through 2018.

In its first five years, SpaceX completed 28 GTO launches for commercial customers. That period culminated in 2018, when Falcon 9 conducted nine commercial GTO launches in one year. The sector then fell off a cliff as years of scarce satellite orders came to roost. From November 2018 to October 2022, SpaceX completed just 11 GTO launches. Only in late 2022 did its GTO launch activity begin to pick back up.

In the space of two months, SpaceX completed five commercial GTO launches, bringing its 2022 total to seven. SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket also completed a pair of direct geosynchronous launches for the US military in November 2022 and January 2023. That resurgence of high Earth orbit launches is set to continue in 2023.

SpaceX has up to 11 commercial GTO or direct-to-GEO satellite launches scheduled in 2023. Including Space Norway’s Arctic Broadband Satellite Mission satellites, which are headed to an exotic high Earth orbit (GEO) instead of GTO, SpaceX has a dozen GEO/HEO satellite launches planned this year. A Falcon Heavy rocket launched the US military’s USSF-67 directly to geosynchronous orbit last month, and another Falcon Heavy is expected to launch the USSF-52 mission to GTO in the middle of the year.

Even if a few missions slip into 2024, 2023 could be the most prolific year of SpaceX geostationary satellite launches ever. Unofficial manifests indicate that SpaceX has another ten GTO launches scheduled in 2024, 2025, and beyond.

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MissionRocketLaunch Target
Amazonas NexusFalcon 9Feb 5, 2023
Inmarsat-6 F2Falcon 9Feb 18, 2023
SES-18/SES-19Falcon 9March 2023
Nusantara LimaFalcon 9March 2023
ViaSat-3 AmericasFalcon HeavyMarch 2023
Intelsat 40e + NASA TEMPOFalcon 9April 2023
Jupiter-3 (EchoStar 24)Falcon HeavyMay 2023
USSF-52Falcon HeavyJune 2023
Intelsat Galaxy 37Falcon 9Q2 2023
SatriaFalcon 9Q4 2023
ASBM 1&2Falcon 9Late 2023
BADR-8Falcon 92023
Türksat 6AFalcon 92023

Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

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Why automakers keep turning down Elon Musk’s Tesla Full Self-Driving offer

Elon Musk confirms no automaker has ever accepted Tesla’s offer to license Full Self-Driving software.

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Elon Musk gave a brief answer on X Monday that confirmed that Tesla’s standing offer to license Full Self-Driving to other automakers still has zero takers. Sawyer Merritt wrote that “Tesla has for years openly invited other automakers to license FSD. None of them have accepted,” responding to a prediction from Boom Supersonic founder Blake Scholl that Tesla would eventually open FSD the way it opened its Supercharger network to rival brands. Musk’s reply to Merritt was one word: “Exactly.”

It is not the first time Musk has made this point. He said something similar in November, when he called legacy automakers reluctance to adopt FSD “crazy,” and Tesla has floated the offer publicly since at least 2021. Scholl’s prediction touches on something real. Once NACS became the de facto charging standard, adoption from Ford, GM, Rivian and others followed within about a year. FSD licensing was supposed to work the same way once Tesla built enough of a lead that switching made sense for everyone.

The case for licensing now is stronger than it was two years ago. Waymo and Zoox are logging hundreds of thousands of unsupervised autonomous miles, along with Tesla’s own Robotaxi fleet. Every automaker still selling driver assist systems that lag FSD has given the robotaxi conversation to Tesla, Waymo and Zoox by default. Licensing FSD would let a GM or a Ford compete on the same field without spending a decade and billions of dollars building a stack from scratch, the same argument Tesla made when it opened the Supercharger network to bring more EVs onto its chargers.

But FSD is not a connector standard. As one reply to Musk’s post pointed out, licensing FSD is not a software license the way NACS was a plug spec. It requires adopting Tesla’s eight camera layout and its onboard compute architecture, meaning a licensee’s cars would effectively become Tesla hardware wearing someone else’s badge. That is the visible obstacle. The less visible one is data. A licensed FSD stack would report back the same telemetry Tesla collects from its own fleet, giving Tesla a continuous read on how a competitor’s cars are actually driven, where they struggle, and how often drivers intervene. For an automaker trying to build its own autonomy program, or simply trying to keep its build quality and safety record private, handing Tesla that visibility could be a bigger cost than the hardware bill. It is the reason the Supercharger comparison only goes so far. Opening a charging plug cost Tesla very little. Opening FSD would cost a rival something it cannot get back.

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Tesla Roadster is available for order once again following brief hold

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(Credit: luxunsheep/Instagram)

Tesla has reopened reservations for its long-delayed next-generation Roadster, asking buyers for a $50,000 deposit just days before an October 1 reveal event in Waco, Texas. The move revives a reservation process first launched in 2017 and later paused when Tesla pulled pricing from its website in 2021.

The reservation page requires an immediate $5,000 credit-card payment, described as fully refundable, followed by a $45,000 wire transfer due within 10 days, which is identical to what was expected previously. Reservations are not considered final until the wire clears.

The structure matches the 2017 terms Tesla used when it first collected deposits after unveiling a prototype. Tesla has not published a confirmed retail price or production start date on the order page.

The October 1 event is scheduled in Waco, about 90 minutes north of Tesla’s Austin headquarters and near SpaceX’s McGregor rocket test site. Tesla sent invitations to existing reservation holders and posted a “Go for launch” teaser on September 12.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) established a temporary flight restriction over the McGregor area from September 18 through October 2, consistent with plans for a demonstration involving SpaceX-designed cold-gas thrusters. Elon Musk has previously described the optional package as enabling extreme acceleration or brief hovering. Tesla has said the event will include pricing, specifications, and production targets.

The second-generation Roadster was first shown in November 2017 during Tesla’s Semi launch. Musk promised production in 2020, with claimed performance of 0-60 mph in 1.9 seconds, more than 250 mph top speed, and roughly 620 miles of range.

Those targets have slipped repeatedly.

Tesla later pointed to 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025-2026 before indicating production would not begin until 2027 or 2028 at Gigafactory Texas. Design work has continued, with reports of a sharper, Cybertruck-influenced look replacing the original curvy prototype.

Original reservation holders who paid $50,000 in 2017, or $250,000 for the Founders Series, have waited nearly nine years without a production car. Some high-profile customers canceled. Tesla’s decision to reopen orders now, after previously shutting them down, tests whether new buyers will commit substantial funds before seeing a finalized production vehicle. The October 1 event is intended to answer remaining questions about what those buyers will actually receive and when.

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Tesla Full Self-Driving expands to another European country

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is heading to Czechia after the Czech Ministry of Transport recognised the Dutch RDW’s provisional type approval, making the country the seventh EU member state to clear the system for public roads. Tesla Europe announced on 21 September 2026 that “FSD Supervised is now approved in Czechia” and that rollout “will begin soon.”

The decision marks a notable reversal. Earlier in 2026, Prague had declined to automatically recognise the Netherlands’ April approval, citing concerns over speed-limit compliance, traffic-sign recognition and driver-attention monitoring, and arguing that a coordinated EU approach was preferable. Officials said months of expert review, talks with Tesla and other member states, and real-world data from countries already using the system resolved those issues.

“Safety remains the top priority,” the ministry stated.

FSD Supervised remains a Level 2 driver-assistance system: the driver must stay engaged and is legally responsible. Eligible vehicles need AI4, the company’s most up-to-date hardware version. Tesla is expected to push the feature over the air in the coming days, following the pattern seen after earlier national approvals.

Europe’s rollout began when Dutch regulator RDW issued a provisional EU type approval on 10 April 2026 after extensive testing. Mutual recognition then produced a rapid cascade: Lithuania (20 May), Estonia (29 May), Denmark (9 June), Belgium (10 June) and Slovenia (7 September). Czechia now completes that list of seven.

The approvals cover only a modest share of the EU population, but they add political weight ahead of a 6 October vote by the Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles. A qualified majority, at least 15 of 27 member states representing 65 percent of the EU population, could open the remaining markets, including large ones such as Germany, France, Italy and Spain that have so far preferred to wait for a bloc-wide decision.

For Czech Tesla owners, the immediate prize is access to the same supervised highway and city driving already available in the other six countries. For Tesla, each new market generates additional European driving data and strengthens the case that FSD Supervised can operate safely under the continent’s varied road rules. The Czech approval is therefore both a local milestone and another incremental step toward a wider European launch.

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