Connect with us

News

SpaceX launches 47 Starlink satellites, provides unique views on Twitter

B1075 lands on 'Of Course I Still Love You' following a successful launch (Credit SpaceX)

Published

on

47 more Starlink satellites are now in orbit after a successful launch atop a Falcon 9 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The 47 Version 1.5 satellites launched at 12:19 a.m. PT (07:19 UTC) on a 43-degree orbital inclination. Following stage separation, the Falcon 9, Booster 1075, landed on the droneship ‘Of Course I Still Love You.’

This time, a bit of a different launch for SpaceX as the second stage performed a dog-leg maneuver and flew over the Baja Peninsula of Mexico, making it the lowest orbital inclination launch from the West Coast of the United States.

Advertisement

This is not the first time SpaceX has had the second stage fly over land as they have flown over Cuba during roughly the same stage of flight after launching from Florida on a polar orbit launch.

During this part of the flight, the second stage is high enough in altitude and moving fast enough, to where, if there would be an anomaly, a vast majority of the vehicle would burn up in the atmosphere and not pose any risk to anyone on the ground.

With this launch, SpaceX has now launched 4,642 Starlink satellites, and of those, 3,688 are in their operational orbits, according to Jonathan McDowell’s Starlink tracker.

Completing this launch was Booster 1075 on its 4th flight, previously launching two Starlink missions and the Transport & Tracking Layer flight 1. This launch marked the 40th Falcon 9 mission of the year and the 42nd orbital launch for SpaceX. Overall that is now 206 consecutive successful Falcon 9 missions.

A new way to view the launch was announced by SpaceX shortly before launch where you could switch between camera views on Twitter. It offered a unique way to follow the mission as it progressed.

Advertisement

This feature gave you the option to switch between the main webcast, a view from droneship, a view from B1075 looking down towards the base of the rocket, and a view from the second stage. There were also additional views of the launch pad itself, but it appears the replays of those views have been removed. Hopefully, we can see more of this for launches going forward.

Next up for SpaceX is another batch of Starlink satellites, this time from Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, no earlier than Friday morning, pending confirmation from SpaceX.

Questions or comments? Shoot me an email at rangle@teslarati.com, or Tweet me @RDAnglePhoto.

Advertisement
Advertisement
Comments

Elon Musk

Tesla schedules Roadster unveiling event, and you won’t believe when it is

Published

on

Tesla has tentatively scheduled its unveiling event for the Roadster’s next-generation iteration, and you will not believe the date the company picked for it.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said during the 2025 Annual Shareholders Meeting that the company is aiming for an April 1 demo event.

Yes, April Fools’ Day.

Tesla originally aimed for its “most epic demo” to take place at the end of this year. However, the writing on the wall as 2025 winds down seemed to indicate the company was not quite ready to show off everything it plans to implement into the Roadster.

Its capabilities have been teased quite heavily throughout most of the year, but the biggest hints came last week when Musk appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience Podcast.

He said:

“Whether it’s good or bad, it will be unforgettable. My friend Peter Thiel once reflected that the future was supposed to have flying cars, but we don’t have flying cars. I think if Peter wants a flying car, he should be able to buy one…I think it has a shot at being the most memorable product unveil ever. [It will be unveiled] hopefully before the end of the year. You know, we need to make sure that it works. This is some crazy technology in this car. Let’s just put it this way: if you took all the James Bond cars and combined them, it’s crazier than that.”

Advertisement

The Roadster has been somewhat of a letdown, at least in its newest version, thus far. Tesla has routinely delayed the project, putting those who put lofty down payments on the car in a weird limbo, lost at what to do.

One notable pre-orderer cancelled his reservation last week and got in a spat with Musk about it.

Now that there is a definitive date for the Roadster unveiling, Musk and Co. should have a more definitive cutoff date for features and capabilities. Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen said earlier this year that when they showed Musk what they had done with the Roadster, the CEO encouraged them to do even more with it.

This delayed things further.

Musk also said he believes production would begin between 12 and 18 months after the unveiling, putting it out sometime in 2027.

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Elon Musk

Tesla (TSLA) shareholders officially approve Elon Musk’s 2025 performance award

To earn his landmark pay package, Musk would be required to lift Tesla’s market capitalization from about $1.1 trillion today to $8.5 trillion over the next decade.

Published

on

Justin Pacheco, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk has officially approved his 2025 Performance Award, a landmark pay package that could make him the world’s first trillionaire and make Tesla the most valuable company in the world by a mile. 

The 2025 CEO Performance Award was officially approved by Tesla shareholders at the 2025 Annual Shareholder Meeting.

Elon Musk‘s landmark pay package

As per Tesla, more than 75% of the shareholders approved Elon Musk’s 2025 CEO Performance Award. It was then unsurprising that the approval of Elon Musk’s pay plan received overwhelming applause from the event’s attendees.

The CEO took to the stage with much enthusiasm, welcoming every shareholder to the event and dancing briefly on stage. Optimus also danced on stage smoothly, demonstrating its improved movements to much appause.

Elon Musk’s 10-year targets

To earn his 2025 CEO Performance Award, Musk would be required to grow Tesla’s market capitalization from about $1.1 trillion today to $8.5 trillion over the next decade. At that level, Tesla would surpass every major public company in existence. The compensation plan also requires Tesla’s operating profit to grow from $17 billion last year to $400 billion annually. 

Advertisement

Apart from leading Tesla to become the world’s biggest company in history, Musk is also required to hit several product targets for the electric vehicle maker. These include the delivery of 20 million Tesla vehicles cumulatively, 10 million active FSD subscriptions, 1 million Tesla bots delivered, and 1 million Robotaxis in operation.

Continue Reading

Elon Musk

Tesla 2025 Annual Shareholder Meeting: How to watch

Published

on

Credit: @YunTaTsai1 | X

The 2025 Tesla Annual Shareholder Meeting from Gigafactory Texas is set to kick off at 4 p.m. EDT, 3 p.m. CDT.

The company will be having its typical presentation for the event, where CEO Elon Musk, along with other executives will discuss things like future products, the outlook of its self-driving development, potential releases for next year, and some current events within the company.

However, this year’s Shareholder Meeting has slightly more implications than others, as Investors and Shareholders have spent the last several months petitioning and supporting one of the proposals on the docket that could be the deciding factor in Musk staying or leaving Tesla.

Elon Musk’s new pay plan ties trillionaire status to Tesla’s $8.5 trillion valuation

Proposal four outlines a new compensation package for Musk that could give him $1 trillion in shares if he is able to complete a variety of lofty goals related to production, self-driving, and other important company projects.

Musk has said that he is truly after more influence on company decisions, especially as the Tesla Optimus program is ramping up and becoming a more relevant part of the company’s story.

The CEO said during the Q3 Earnings Call that he would not feel comfortable developing an “army of robots” if he did not have a comfortable amount of influence in some of the decisions. He could be voted our or out-influenced by what he calls “activist shareholders.”

One of those investors came after his past pay package, which was approved by shareholders not once, but twice. Musk still was not able to obtain the pay because of a Delaware Chancery Court ruling.

Nevertheless, this is one of the last ditch efforts Tesla is making to get Musk the compensation that he wants.

The meeting is set to kick off at 3 p.m. local time in Austin. You can watch it via the livestream on X:

Continue Reading

Trending