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SpaceX’s month-long launch blitz adds Korean military satellite mission

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Preliminary schedules show that SpaceX – on top of plans for a record-breaking four-launch month – wants to add a Korean military satellite launch to the mix, meaning that the company could attempt five launches in five weeks.

SpaceX partially broke the news on June 9th when it opened media accreditation for the Korean military mission, scheduled to launch no earlier than (NET) July. LaunchPhotography.com was able to get even more specific, stating that South Korea’s ANASIS II communications satellite could lift off on a Falcon 9 rocket sometime in early July, while Teslarati has learned that the mission is tentatively scheduled to launch as soon as the second week of the month.

If SpaceX manages to launch Starlink-8, Starlink-9, and GPS III SV03 on time this month and can turn its Kennedy Space Center (KSC) LC-39A pad around in time for South Korea’s ANASIS II by July 8th, it’ll have sustained a weekly launch cadence for well over a month. The odds are heavily stacked against SpaceX’s favor but with Starlink V1 L8 on track for a June 12th launch and Starlink V1 L9 expedited from June 24th to June 22nd, the company actually has a shot at completing five launches in five weeks.

To achieve five launches in five weeks, SpaceX will have to dig deep into its rocket reusability expertise. (Richard Angle)

To achieve that feat, SpaceX will have to rely heavily on its small fleet of flight-proven Falcon 9 boosters and – barring a surprise – will need to smash its record for time between flights of the same rocket. On June 3rd, Falcon 9 booster B1049 successfully launched the 7th Starlink v1.0 mission while also becoming the first SpaceX rocket to complete five orbital-class launches and landings.

B1049 lifts off on SpaceX’s Starlink V1 L7 mission. (Richard Angle)

Up next, Falcon 9 B1059 is scheduled to launch the 8th batch of 60 upgraded Starlink satellites as early as 5:42 am EDT (09:42 UTC) on June 12th – hopefully the booster’s third successful launch and landing in six months.

A long-exposure of Falcon 9 B1059’s CRS-20 launch (left) and landing (right), less than six miles apart. (Richard Angle)
B1059 last touched down at LZ-1 on March 7th. (SpaceX)

Third in line for the month of June, Starlink V1 L9 is scheduled to launch no earlier than (NET) 6:20 pm EDT (22:20 UTC) on June 22nd. Falcon 9 B1051.4 is likely assigned to the mission, meaning that SpaceX could launch a second booster for the fifth time less than three weeks after B1049 became the first to do so.

(Richard Angle)
B1051 completed its fourth launch on April 22nd and returned to dry land three days later. (Richard Angle)

Rounding out a potentially record-breaking June, new Falcon 9 booster B1060 could launch the US Air/Space Force’s third upgraded GPS III navigation satellite at 3:55 pm EDT (19:55 UTC) on June 30th, the last day of the month. Like all of the missions that preceded it, B1060 needs a drone ship to land on in the Atlantic Ocean, meaning that Just Read The Instructions (JRTI) and Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY) will have to remain continually active throughout the month, taking turns on every other launch.

Pictured before leaving SpaceX’s Hawthorne, CA factory, this booster (likely B1060) is scheduled to launch an upgraded GPS III satellite late this month. (SpaceX)

This leaves South Korea’s ANASIS II military communications satellite, currently scheduled to launch in early July – about a week after SpaceX’s GPS III SV03 mission. Excluding a new booster assigned to Crew Dragon’s next astronaut mission and Falcon Heavy side boosters B1052 and B1053, AWOL since their second and most recent launches almost a year ago, the five launches prior to ANASIS II will have technically used SpaceX’s entire booster fleet.

Short of a miraculous few-week turnaround of B1049, B1059, or B1051, the likeliest candidate for the mission is the same booster that launched astronauts for the first time ever on May 30th – B1058. To launch ANASIS II in early July, B1058 would need to crush B1056’s previous record of 62 days by a third or more to perform two orbital-class missions in just 40 days or less. All things considered, if SpaceX can pull off such an ambitious string of launches while pushing several envelopes of rocket reusability, the company will have demonstrated the ability to sustain the near-weekly launch cadence it will need to efficiently complete its Starlink satellite constellation.

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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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Tesla FSD’s newest model is coming, and it sounds like ‘the last big piece of the puzzle’

“There’s a model that’s an order of magnitude larger that will be deployed in January or February 2026.”

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla Full Self-Driving’s newest model is coming very soon, and from what it sounds like, it could be “the last big piece of the puzzle,” as CEO Elon Musk said in late November.

During the xAI Hackathon on Tuesday, Musk was available for a Q&A session, where he revealed some details about Robotaxi and Tesla’s plans for removing Robotaxi Safety Monitors, and some information on a future FSD model.

While he said Full Self-Driving’s unsupervised capability is “pretty much solved,” and confirmed it will remove Safety Monitors in the next three weeks, questions about the company’s ability to give this FSD version to current owners came to mind.

Musk said a new FSD model is coming in about a month or two that will be an order-of-magnitude larger and will include more reasoning and reinforcement learning.

He said:

“There’s a model that’s an order of magnitude larger that will be deployed in January or February 2026. We’re gonna add a lot of reasoning and RL (reinforcement learning). To get to serious scale, Tesla will probably need to build a giant chip fab. To have a few hundred gigawatts of AI chips per year, I don’t see that capability coming online fast enough, so we will probably have to build a fab.”

It rings back to late November when Musk said that v14.3 “is where the last big piece of the puzzle finally lands.”

With the advancements made through Full Self-Driving v14 and v14.2, there seems to be a greater confidence in solving self-driving completely. Musk has also personally said that driver monitoring has been more relaxed, and looking at your phone won’t prompt as many alerts in the latest v14.2.1.

This is another indication that Tesla is getting closer to allowing people to take their eyes off the road completely.

Along with the Robotaxi program’s success, there is evidence that Tesla could be close to solving FSD. However, it is not perfect. We’ve had our own complaints with FSD, and although we feel it is the best ADAS on the market, it is not, in its current form, able to perform everything needed on roads.

But it is close.

That’s why there is some legitimate belief that Tesla could be releasing a version capable of no supervision in the coming months.

All we can say is, we’ll see.

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Investor's Corner

SpaceX IPO is coming, CEO Elon Musk confirms

However, it appears Musk is ready for SpaceX to go public, as Ars Technica Senior Space Editor Eric Berger wrote an op-ed that indicated he thought SpaceX would go public soon. Musk replied, basically confirming it.

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elon musk side profile
Joel Kowsky, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Elon Musk confirmed through a post on X that a SpaceX initial public offering (IPO) is on the way after hinting at it several times earlier this year.

It also comes one day after Bloomberg reported that SpaceX was aiming for a valuation of $1.5 trillion, adding that it wanted to raise $30 billion.

Musk has been transparent for most of the year that he wanted to try to figure out a way to get Tesla shareholders to invest in SpaceX, giving them access to the stock.

He has also recognized the issues of having a public stock, like litigation exposure, quarterly reporting pressures, and other inconveniences.

However, it appears Musk is ready for SpaceX to go public, as Ars Technica Senior Space Editor Eric Berger wrote an op-ed that indicated he thought SpaceX would go public soon.

Musk replied, basically confirming it:

Berger believes the IPO would help support the need for $30 billion or more in capital needed to fund AI integration projects, such as space-based data centers and lunar satellite factories. Musk confirmed recently that SpaceX “will be doing” data centers in orbit.

AI appears to be a “key part” of SpaceX getting to Musk, Berger also wrote. When writing about whether or not Optimus is a viable project and product for the company, he says that none of that matters. Musk thinks it is, and that’s all that matters.

It seems like Musk has certainly mulled something this big for a very long time, and the idea of taking SpaceX public is not just likely; it is necessary for the company to get to Mars.

The details of when SpaceX will finally hit that public status are not known. Many of the reports that came out over the past few days indicate it would happen in 2026, so sooner rather than later.

But there are a lot of things on Musk’s plate early next year, especially with Cybercab production, the potential launch of Unsupervised Full Self-Driving, and the Roadster unveiling, all planned for Q1.

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Tesla adds 15th automaker to Supercharger access in 2025

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tesla supercharger
Credit: Tesla

Tesla has added the 15th automaker to the growing list of companies whose EVs can utilize the Supercharger Network this year, as BMW is the latest company to gain access to the largest charging infrastructure in the world.

BMW became the 15th company in 2025 to gain Tesla Supercharger access, after the company confirmed to its EV owners that they could use any of the more than 25,000 Supercharging stalls in North America.

Newer BMW all-electric cars, like the i4, i5, i7, and iX, are able to utilize Tesla’s V3 and V4 Superchargers. These are the exact model years, via the BMW Blog:

  • i4: 2022-2026 model years
  • i5: 2024-2025 model years
    • 2026 i5 (eDrive40 and xDrive40) after software update in Spring 2026
  • i7: 2023-2026 model years
  • iX: 2022-2025 model years
    • 2026 iX (all versions) after software update in Spring 2026

With the expansion of the companies that gained access in 2025 to the Tesla Supercharger Network, a vast majority of non-Tesla EVs are able to use the charging stalls to gain range in their cars.

So far in 2025, Tesla has enabled Supercharger access to:

  • Audi
  • BMW
  • Genesis
  • Honda
  • Hyundai
  • Jaguar Land Rover
  • Kia
  • Lucid
  • Mercedes-Benz
  • Nissan
  • Polestar
  • Subaru
  • Toyota
  • Volkswagen
  • Volvo

Drivers with BMW EVs who wish to charge at Tesla Superchargers must use an NACS-to-CCS1 adapter. In Q2 2026, BMW plans to release its official adapter, but there are third-party options available in the meantime.

They will also have to use the Tesla App to enable Supercharging access to determine rates and availability. It is a relatively seamless process.

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