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SpaceX Inspiration4 astronaut shares behind-the-scenes look at largest space window’s ‘first light’
SpaceX Inspiration4 astronaut Sian Proctor has shared the first behind-the-scenes look at what it was like for the world’s first all-private astronaut crew to witness the largest window ever flown in space for the first time.
In front of the camera: Hayley Arceneaux, now the youngest American astronaut in history and the first person ever to fly in space (or orbit) with an internal prosthetic. The mission: Inspiration4, a philanthropic creation of billionaire and CEO Jared Isaacman heavily focused on raising money (and awareness) for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital and the fight against childhood cancer. While, as many an internet-goer will be more than eager to point out, Isaacman could have technically donated ~10% – not ~5% – of his net worth and been done with it, he instead decided to commit $100M to St. Jude’s and shepherd the world’s first all-private crewed orbital spaceflight into existence.
Private orbital spaceflight is not unique – seven other paying customers have flown to orbit and back in the 21st century. What Jared conceived of, however, is. Instead of a rather less inspirational mishmash of anyone rich enough to pay ~$20-40M for a seat, Isaacman chose to invite three relatively ordinary people along for the ride and even raffled one of the three ‘tickets’ to any American willing to donate $10 or more to the fight against childhood cancer. A step further, thanks to an excellent and transparent social media presence, millions of people from around the world got to follow the mission’s progress, watch a large portion of it live, and generally be awed by an important step forward for spaceflight and inspired by one of the most simultaneously eclectic and ordinary astronaut crew of all time.
More to the point, millions of people (or at least hundreds of thousands, for now) wouldn’t have gotten to vicariously experience the sheer joy of the first orbital cancer survivor experiencing the largest, most uninterrupted window ever flown in space for the first time. Officially known as the ‘cupola,’ SpaceX conceived of, designed, built, qualified, and flew the massive dome window in less than a year from start to finish.
Measuring around 1.2m (3.9 ft) wide and around 0.8-1m (2.5-3.2 ft) wide on the inside, Inspiration4’s cupola might offer less internal volume than NASA’s decade-old International Space Station cupola, but it makes up for the tighter space with the largest seamless window ever flown in space. Likely made out of several layers of acrylic domes not dissimilar to the ‘bubbles’ one might come across at aquariums, the innermost ‘layer’ of Dragon’s cupola carries an odd brownish hue but the glass (technically plastic) is still almost completely transparent and has no ‘frame’ or interruptions save for where it attaches to the spacecraft itself.
Thankfully, by all appearances, that brownish hue – perhaps some kind of optical coating or a tint to reduce glare – isn’t easily discernable from the inside looking out. Instead, the uninterrupted window practically melts away into a crystal-clear nothing, offering what has to be one of the best views available in space.
Given that SpaceX reportedly turned Dragon’s cupola from idea to reality in the matter of a single year and for a single customer, it’s difficult to imagine what additional upgrades could be realized on future Dragon spacecraft. Already, a senior SpaceX director says that the company is seriously considering building one or several new Dragons solely for private astronaut launches after receiving a massive uptick in demand for tickets to orbit. Even before Inspiration4 had splashed down, CEO Elon Musk promised that future flights would offer in-flight internet and hot food with the addition of a small oven/heater and a connection to the company’s own Starlink satellite constellation.
If SpaceX were to build an entirely new Dragon just for private free-flyer launches, it could potentially implement significant design changes as long as they didn’t appreciably lower safety. Given that an exclusively free-flying Dragon would never need to worry about docking in orbit, SpaceX might even be able to tweak the nosecone and make the cupola wider and taller. The possibilities may be far from endless but the fact that SpaceX would consider a modification as extreme as the cupola that flew on Inspiration4 in the first place suggests that the company is quite a lot more confident – and more willing to make big changes – than one might have previously guessed.
For years, there have been images and videos across social media platforms that have reminded me of when I was a 15-year-old kid teased by “Xbox 720” videos on YouTube. These videos are of the supposed “Tesla Phone” that Elon Musk was secretly developing in between leading Tesla with its electric cars and SpaceX with its reusable rockets.
Would you buy a Tesla phone ? pic.twitter.com/aaTwvvIJit
— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) October 6, 2023
Although Musk has put those rumors to bed several times, it was never completely out of the realm that he could get involved in cell phones in some capacity. Think outside the box and more macro-level, though. Instead of reinventing the computer, Musk reinvented connectivity by developing Starlink with SpaceX.
It could be something similar, TD Cowen analyst Gregory Williams said in a note last week, where he hinted SpaceX could be gathering some steam to acquire T-Mobile.
Williams said it would be the “clear choice” for SpaceX if it decided to go through with a network acquisition. He also suggested AT&T.
The move would be possible through selling more of its own stock, which would help SpaceX raise the money to purchase T-Mobile, which would cost roughly $300 billion. It could be one of the moves SpaceX makes post-IPO in terms of an acquisition: it already acquired Cursor AI for $60 billion.
Other analysts, like Dan Ives of Wedbush, believe SpaceX and Tesla will eventually merge into one anyway, and that conglomeration could come as soon as this year, some have said.
The implications of SpaceX purchasing T-Mobile are massive. A combined entity would create a truly ubiquitous network: T-Mobile’s terrestrial 5G towers and Starlink’s growing constellation of Direct-to-Cell satellites. This would essentially eliminate dead zones across the U.S. and potentially globally.
SpaceX would instantly become a full-scale facilities-based carrier with satellite differentiation; a huge advantage. This would pressure AT&T and Verizon heavily.
There are also concerns like a potential reduction in long-term competition, and of course, a deal of that size would face intense scrutiny from government agencies.
The strategic fit is compelling due to the existing Starlink–T-Mobile partnership and complementary technologies (space + terrestrial). It could create a dominant integrated communications player. However, the regulatory, financial, and execution hurdles are enormous — this remains highly speculative with no indication SpaceX is actively pursuing it right now.
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 Phone? Not quite, but close: analyst
Tesla reveals huge Cybercab detail in new guide for First Responders
