News
SpaceX on track for last Cargo Dragon launch, first Falcon 9 land landing in months
SpaceX is hours away from its Cargo Dragon (Dragon 1) spacecraft’s last space station resupply mission, a historic launch that will also include a Falcon 9 booster’s first land landing attempt in more than half a year.
Scheduled to lift off no earlier than 11:50 pm EST (04:50 UTC) on March 6th (March 7th UTC), flight-proven Falcon 9 booster B1059 rolled out to SpaceX Launch Complex 40 (LC-40) – part of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) – on Thursday afternoon. Carrying twice-flown Dragon capsule C112, set to smash SpaceX’s orbital spacecraft turnaround record, tonight’s launch will mark SpaceX’s last International Space Station (ISS) mission under its first NASA Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract – awarded in 2008.
Aside from Cargo Dragon’s historic final launch and record spacecraft turnaround time, CRS-20 will also mark SpaceX’s first attempted land landing – meaning a Falcon 9 booster landing at LZ-1 or LZ-2 – since July 2019. Thanks in part to SpaceX’s Starlink launch priorities and Falcon Heavy’s intermittent launch cadence, the sonic booms of Falcon booster reentries have been a relative rarity at Landing Zones for the last half-year. CRS-20 will thankfully end that faux-drought and may even be followed just weeks later by a second Falcon booster return to LZ-1.
A decade of success in orbit
Over Dragon 1’s decade of service, the spacecraft has successfully delivered more than 40 metric tons (90,000 lb) of cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) and returned almost as much from the station to Earth – still the only operational spacecraft capable of doing so since the Space Shuttle’s 2011 retirement.
If CRS-20 goes as planned, NASA will have awarded SpaceX a total of $3.1B for its finished CRS Phase 1 contract, translating to an average of $147M apiece for 21 missions (including the CRS-7 failure and Dragon’s first space station demo mission) to the ISS.
In other words, each kilogram of cargo Falcon 9 and Dragon delivered to the space station wound up costing NASA a bit less than $80,000, admittedly eye-watering but quite favorable compared to the Space Shuttle’s ~$340,000/kg (assuming program cost of $240B (c. 2020) and STS-135’s ~5300 kg of cargo).
Small steps towards full reusability
SpaceX’s CRS Phase 1 successes have also helped NASA cautiously accept flight-proven commercial rockets and spacecraft as the company has gradually introduced Falcon 9 booster and Cargo Dragon capsule reusability. Now, more than two years since SpaceX’s first capsule (June 2017) and booster reuses (December 2017) on NASA CRS missions, the company has launched two Dragon capsules to the space station for the third time and flown Dragons on flight-proven boosters four times.
CRS-20 will mark the third time a Cargo Dragon capsule (C112) flies a third orbital resupply mission, as well as the fifth time a CRS mission will launch on a flight-proven booster (B1059). Compared to the sheer scale and ambition of SpaceX’s next-generation, fully-reusable Starship and Super Heavy launch system, Dragon and Falcon 9 may seem rather diminutive. However, it’s hard to exaggerate just how much reusability expertise SpaceX has gained through their development.
Set to take over resupply missions and ferry astronauts to and from the space station, SpaceX and CEO Elon Musk already considered Dragon 2 (Crew Dragon) to be dramatically simpler, faster, and cheaper to reuse. Starship will ultimately build off those significant improvements, enabling another leap (or several) forward. Perhaps just as importantly, Falcon and Dragon reuse will likely continue to make profound political and bureaucratic inroads over the next 5-10 years, gradually eroding and reshaping the status quo. Their progress will thus hopefully set both the technical and societal stages for widespread success and acceptance by the time Starship can be declared operational.
Weather is currently 60% GO for CRS-20, and the rocket and spacecraft are likely just hours from going vertical at the LC-40 launch pad. As always, tune into SpaceX’s official webcast approximately 15 minutes before liftoff to catch the Falcon 9 launch and landing live.
Check out Teslarati’s Marketplace! We offer Tesla accessories, including for the Tesla Cybertruck and Tesla Model 3.
Lifestyle
Tesla Semi hauls fresh Cybercab batch as Robotaxi era takes hold
A Tesla Semi was filmed hauling Cybercab units out of Giga Texas for the first time.
A Tesla Semi loaded with Cybercab units was recently filmed leaving Gigafactory Texas, marking what appears to be the first documented delivery run of Tesla’s autonomous two-seater. The footage shows multiple Cybercabs secured on a flatbed trailer being hauled by a production Tesla Semi, a truck rated for a gross combination weight of 82,000 lbs. The location is consistent with Giga Texas in Austin, where Cybercab production has been ramping since February 2026.
The sighting follows a wave of Cybercab activity at the Austin facility. In late April, drone operator Joe Tegtmeyer spotted approximately 60 Cybercabs parked in two organized groups in the factory’s outbound lot, the largest concentration observed to date. Units being staged in an outbound lot is a standard pre-delivery step, and the Semi footage is the logical next frame in that sequence.
En route with @tesla_semi pic.twitter.com/ZfuOjaeLH1
— Tesla Robotaxi (@robotaxi) May 7, 2026
This is not the first time Tesla has used its own Semi to move Tesla products. When the Semi was unveiled in 2017, Musk noted it would be used for Tesla’s own operations, and over the years Semi prototypes were spotted carrying cargo ranging from concrete weights to Tesla vehicles being delivered to consumers. In 2023, a Semi was photographed transporting a Cybertruck on a trailer ahead of that vehicle’s delivery launch.
The Cybercab itself was first revealed publicly at Tesla’s “We, Robot” event on October 10, 2024, at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, where 20 pre-production units gave attendees rides around the studio lot. Musk stated at the event that Tesla intends to produce the Cybercab before 2027. The first production unit rolled off the Giga Texas line on February 17, 2026, with Musk posting on X: “Congratulations to the Tesla team on making the first production Cybercab.”
Tesla’s annual production goal is 2 million Cybercabs per year once multiple factories reach full design capacity, with the company targeting a price under $30,000 per unit. Tesla has confirmed plans to expand its robotaxi service to seven cities in the first half of 2026, including Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Las Vegas, building on the unsupervised service already running in Austin. Musk has said he expects robotaxis to cover between a quarter and half of the United States by end of year.
Cybertruck
Tesla Cybertruck too safe for even Musk’s biggest critics to ignore
Krassenstein’s decision reveals that superior safety isn’t a partisan issue. For parents prioritizing family protection over personal or political grudges, the Cybertruck has become too safe to ignore.
The Tesla Cybertruck is an extremely polarizing vehicle because of its potential symbolism as a political stance instead of just a pickup truck — or at least that is what many would want you to believe.
Of course, the Cybertruck is an icon of Tesla culture, and it is one of those things that never has a middle ground: you love it, or you don’t.
But maybe there is an establishment of that “grey area” happening.
In a striking illustration of engineering triumph over political tribalism, prominent Elon Musk critic Brian Krassenstein has purchased a Tesla Cybertruck, openly citing its exceptional safety as the deciding factor for his family.
The announcement on X triggered predictable backlash, yet it underscores a growing reality: the Cybertruck’s safety credentials are proving impossible for even Musk’s fiercest detractors to dismiss.
I might get hate for this too but I bought a Cybertruck.
With a young family, safety was important and so is not polluting the atmosphere with $5 a gallon gasoline. pic.twitter.com/XJqFqR6O9r
— Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) May 6, 2026
Krassenstein, who has repeatedly clashed with Musk over issues ranging from content moderation and “wokeness” to public health figures, made no attempt to hide his reservations. In his May 6 post, he acknowledged the coming criticism: “I might get hate for this too but I bought a Cybertruck.”
He stressed that the decision had “nothing to do with Elon or politics,” pointing instead to practical advantages—his existing Tesla charger, eligibility for Full Self-Driving upgrades, a returning-owner discount, and crucially, the vehicle’s strong safety profile.
With gasoline prices hovering near $5 a gallon in some areas, he also highlighted the environmental benefit of switching from a polluting combustion engine.
The numbers, data, and awards validate Krassenstein’s choice.
The 2025 Cybertruck earned the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s (IIHS) elite Top Safety Pick+ award—the only pickup truck to achieve this highest rating. It delivered “Good” scores across every crashworthiness category, including the challenging updated moderate overlap front crash test, while excelling in crash avoidance and mitigation systems.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) awarded it a perfect 5-star overall rating, with top marks in frontal, side, and rollover categories. No other pickup truck holds both distinctions simultaneously.
Tesla Cybertruck crash test rating situation revealed by NHTSA, IIHS
Beyond lab results, the Cybertruck’s stainless-steel exoskeleton and ultra-rigid structure have demonstrated remarkable real-world resilience. Owners have reported surviving high-speed collisions with minimal cabin intrusion.
In one widely discussed incident, a Cybertruck endured a 70 mph sideswipe on the interstate; the driver reported barely feeling the impact while the other vehicle was heavily damaged.
Tesla’s crash demonstrations and independent analyses consistently show how the vehicle’s design prioritizes occupant protection through a fortified passenger cell rather than traditional crumple zones, giving families superior safeguarding in many common crash scenarios.
The online pile-on following Krassenstein’s post focused on aesthetics, politics, and perceived hypocrisy rather than the data. Critics called the angular truck “ugly” or accused him of selling out.
Yet his purchase highlights an inconvenient truth for polarized discourse: when objective safety metrics—IIHS awards, NHTSA ratings, and documented crash performance—point decisively toward one vehicle, even Musk’s biggest critics are forced to confront its merits.
Krassenstein’s decision reveals that superior safety isn’t a partisan issue. For parents prioritizing family protection over personal or political grudges, the Cybertruck has become too safe to ignore.
SpaceXAI announced today that it had signed an agreement with Anthropic to give the company access to its Colossus 1 data center in Memphis, Tennessee.
It is a monumental deal as Anthropic will gain access to all of the compute at the plant, delivering more than 300 megawatts of power and over 220,000 NVIDIA GPUs within the month.
Anthropic’s Claude AI account on X announced the partnership:
“We’ve agreed to a partnership with SpaceX that will substantially increase our compute capacity. This, along with our other recent compute deals, means that we’ve been able to increase our usage limits for Claude Code and the Claude API.”
The company is also:
- Doubling Claude Code’s 5-hour rate limits for Pro, Max, and Team plans;
- Removing the peak hours limit reduction on Claude Code for Pro and Max plans; and
- Substantially raising its API rate limits for Opus models.
We’ve agreed to a partnership with @SpaceX that will substantially increase our compute capacity.
This, along with our other recent compute deals, means that we’ve been able to increase our usage limits for Claude Code and the Claude API.
— Claude (@claudeai) May 6, 2026
SpaceX also published its own release on the new agreement, noting that it is “the only organization with the launch cadence, mass-to-orbit economics, and constellation operations experience to make orbital compute a near-term engineering program rather than a research concept.”
CEO Elon Musk also commented on the partnership and shed light on intense meetings he had with senior members of Anthropic last week, stating, “nobody set on my evil detector.”
Same here.
By way of background for those who care, I spent a lot of time last week with senior members of the Anthropic team to understand what they do to ensure Claude is good for humanity and was impressed.
Everyone I met was highly competent and cared a great deal about…
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 6, 2026
This has turned the argument that SpaceX is as much an AI company as a space exploration company into a very valid argument:
SpaceX is following in Tesla’s footsteps in a way nobody expected
Nevertheless, this is an incredibly valuable and important move in the grand scheme of things. AI scaling is fundamentally bottlenecked by compute, and demand for Claude has surged, bringing terrestrial power grids, land, and cooling operations hitting limits everywhere.
Anthropic has been aggressively signing multiple large-scale deals to be competitive in the space, including:
- Up to 5GW with Amazon
- 5GW with Google and Broadcom
- Strategic $30b Azure deal with Microsoft/NVIDIA
- $50b U.S. infrastructure investment with Fluidstack
Access to Colossus 1 gives Anthropic immediate relief on NVIDIA GPU capacity. For SpaceXAI, it turns its rapid buildout into revenue. It also showcases its ability to deliver at world-leading speed and scale.
Most importantly, it plants the seed that its much larger vision, orbital AI compute, is totally viable.
Starlink V3 satellites could enable SpaceX’s orbital computing plans: Musk
Within the month, Anthropic will begin using 100 percent of Colossus 1’s compute, directly expanding capacity for Claude Pro and Max subscribers and the API. This means fewer limits, faster responses, and support for heavier workloads.
In the long term, meaning 2026 and beyond, there will be a continued rollout of other multi-GW deals Anthropic has signed, and an early exploration of orbital compute with SpaceXAI.
Tesla Semi hauls fresh Cybercab batch as Robotaxi era takes hold
Tesla Cybertruck too safe for even Musk’s biggest critics to ignore
