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SpaceX lifts soggy Falcon 9 Block 5 booster ashore after accidental splashdown
Independent group USLaunchReport has published a video capturing the entirety of SpaceX’s ad hoc East Coast Falcon 9 recovery operations, in which forlorn booster B1050 had to be carefully extracted out of the ocean after an unintentional soft-landing in the Atlantic following its successful Dec. 5 launch debut.
72 hours after B1050’s water landing and some painstaking preparation, the booster was towed to SpaceX’s dock space in Port Canaveral, where it spent just a brief few hours floating adjacent to drone ship Of Course I Still Love You and the rest of the company’s Florida fleet. Considerably less than twelve hours after arriving, technicians had already managed to lift the rocket out of the ocean and onto dry land, where another week or so was spent preparing Falcon 9 for transport.
Given the extent of the damage to the Block 5 booster’s interstage and the basic fact that SpaceX recovery technicians and engineers had never attempted anything quite like it before, it was fairly impressive that they took barely six hours to lift the booster out of the water, particularly considering that the rocket appeared to be filled with hundreds or even thousands of gallons of water. No visible damage was caused, although there was clearly some cause for extensive discussion and preparation per an unusually large and lengthy huddle of more than 30 employees prior to the beginning of the lift.
https://twitter.com/_TomCross_/status/1071886823721447424
Once on land, B1050 had an unusual sling placed exactly where the Falcon 9 booster’s liquid oxygen (LOx) and kerosene (RP-1) propellant tanks were welded together, apparently a location that is particularly sensitive to off-nominal X-axis stress. To give context, imagine bending a cardboard tube or straw in half instead of trying to push its ends together – Falcon 9’s structure is quite similar in concept. Built primarily 5mm-thick sheets of lithium-aluminum alloy, Falcon 9’s propellant tanks are extremely thin and light while also being aggressively optimized for vertical (up and down) loading, i.e. the forces experienced while accelerating (and eventually decelerating) through the atmosphere during launch and landing.
As a result, SpaceX almost always pressurizes the first stage propellant tanks of Falcon 9 with nitrogen whenever boosters are horizontal without physical support at their bendy centers. In the case of B1050, SpaceX almost certainly concluded that using its waterlogged umbilical ports to inject nitrogen into its tanks was too much of a risk without knowing the precise condition of the piping and the tanks themselves, opting instead to go with a simple sling to prevent damage from unintended bending. Thankfully, B1050 appears to have made it through its dry land ordeal even better than the time it spent in the Atlantic, suffering no visible damage whatsoever.
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- Sad interstage is sad. (Tom Cross)
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- An almost impossibly rare view. (Tom Cross)
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- That’s no boat… (Teslarati)
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- SpaceX technicians had to go through the normal process of Falcon 9 booster recovery at a decidedly abnormal 90 degree delta. (Tom Cross)
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- Falcon 9 B1050 was spotted at CCAFS near hangars SpaceX leases for refurbishment. (Instagram/anonymous)
Somewhere between December 14 and 15, the booster was at long last lifted onto SpaceX’s primary East Coast booster transporter and carefully drove the rocket to one of its 2-3 Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) refurbishment and storage hangars, avoiding detection by all but a few passersby. This could full well be the last we see (and even hear) of poor old Falcon 9 B1050, but there is still a decent chance that SpaceX hopes the entire rocket or major components can be easily salvaged.
Given the extreme care taken during the booster’s lift onto land and the week it spent having legs and grid fins removed, it can be definitively concluded that an effort will be made to save the entire vehicle (sans interstage). If it has managed to make it through the past two weeks largely unscathed, it may well become the first Falcon 9 to conduct a dedicated launch of multiple Starlink satellites sometime in the second half of 2019, at least according to CEO Elon Musk’s vague suggestion that it could fly on an “internal SpaceX mission”.
We may use it for an internal SpaceX mission
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 5, 2018
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Tesla has expanded its branded ‘For Business’ Supercharger program that it launched last year, as yet another company is using the platform to attract EV owners to its business and utilize a unique advertising opportunity.
Francis Energy of Oklahoma is launching four Superchargers in Norman, where the University of Oklahoma is located. The Superchargers, which are fitted with branding for Francis Energy, will officially open tomorrow.
It will not be the final Supercharger location that Francis Energy plans to open, the company confirmed to EVWire.
Back in early September, Tesla launched the new “Supercharger for Business” program in an effort to give businesses the ability to offer EV charging at custom rates. It would give their businesses visibility and would also cater to employees or customers.
“Purchase and install Superchargers at your business,” Tesla wrote on a page on its website for the new program. “Superchargers are compatible with all electric vehicles, bringing EV drivers to your business by offering convenient, reliable charging.”
The first site opened in Land O’ Lakes, Florida, which is Northeast of Tampa, as a company called Suncoast launched the Superchargers for local EV owners.
Tesla launches its new branded Supercharger for Business with first active station
The program also does a great job at expanding infrastructure for EV owners, which is something that needs to be done to encourage more people to purchase Teslas and other electric cars.
Francis Energy operates at least 14 EV charging locations in Oklahoma, spanning from Durant to Oklahoma City and nearly everywhere in between. Filings from the company, listed by Supercharge.info, show the company’s plans to convert some of them to Tesla Superchargers, potentially utilizing the new Supercharger for Business program to advertise.
Moving forward, more companies will likely utilize Tesla’s Supercharger for Business program as it presents major advantages in a variety of ways, especially with advertising and creating a place for EV drivers to gain range in their cars.
Tesla Cybercab is perhaps the most highly-anticipated project that the company plans to roll out this year, and as it is undergoing its testing phase in pre-production currently, there are some things to work through with it.
Over the weekend, an image of the Cybercab being loaded onto a tow truck started circulating on the internet, and people began to speculate as to what the issue could be.
Hmmmmmm… https://t.co/L5hWcOXQkb pic.twitter.com/OJBDyHNTMj
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) January 11, 2026
The Cybercab can clearly be seen with a Police Officer and perhaps the tow truck driver by its side, being loaded onto, or even potentially unloaded from, the truck.
However, it seems unlikely it was being offloaded, as its operation would get it to this point for testing to begin with.
It appears, at first glance, that it needs assistance getting back to wherever it came from; likely Gigafactory Texas or potentially a Bay Area facility.
The Cybercab was also spotted in Buffalo, New York, last week, potentially undergoing cold-weather testing, but it doesn’t appear that’s where this incident took place.
It is important to remember that the Cybercab is currently undergoing some rigorous testing scenarios, which include range tests and routine public road operation. These things help Tesla assess any potential issue the vehicle could run into after it starts routine production and heads to customers, or for the Robotaxi platform operation.
This is not a one-off issue, either. Tesla had some instances with the Semi where it was seen broken down on the side of a highway three years ago. The all-electric Semi has gone on to be successful in its early pilot program, as companies like Frito-Lay and PepsiCo. have had very positive remarks.
The Cybercab’s future is bright, and it is important to note that no vehicle model has ever gone its full life without a breakdown. It happens, it’s a car.
Nevertheless, it is important to note that there has been no official word on what happened with this particular Cybercab unit, but it is crucial to remember that this is the pre-production testing phase, and these things are more constructive than anything.
Tesla analyst Andrew Percoco of Morgan Stanley teased the company’s dominance in its self-driving initiative, stating that its lead over competitors is “not even close.”
Percoco recently overtook coverage of Tesla stock from Adam Jonas, who had covered the company at Morgan Stanley for years. Percoco is handling Tesla now that Jonas is covering embodied AI stocks and no longer automotive.
His first move after grabbing coverage was to adjust the price target from $410 to $425, as well as the rating from ‘Overweight’ to ‘Equal Weight.’
Percoco’s new note regarding Tesla highlights the company’s extensive lead in self-driving and autonomy projects, something that it has plenty of competition in, but has established its prowess over the past few years.
He writes:
“It’s not even close. Tesla continues to lead in autonomous driving, even as Nvidia rolls out new technology aimed at helping other automakers build driverless systems.”
Percoco’s main point regarding Tesla’s advantage is the company’s ability to collect large amounts of training data through its massive fleet, as millions of cars are driving throughout the world and gathering millions of miles of vehicle behavior on the road.
This is the main point that Percoco makes regarding Tesla’s lead in the entire autonomy sector: data is King, and Tesla has the most of it.
One big story that has hit the news over the past week is that of NVIDIA and its own self-driving suite, called Alpamayo. NVIDIA launched this open-source AI program last week, but it differs from Tesla’s in a significant fashion, especially from a hardware perspective, as it plans to use a combination of LiDAR, Radar, and Vision (Cameras) to operate.
Percoco said that NVIDIA’s announcement does not impact Morgan Stanley’s long-term opinions on Tesla and its strength or prowess in self-driving.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang commends Tesla’s Elon Musk for early belief
And, for what it’s worth, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang even said some remarkable things about Tesla following the launch of Alpamayo:
“I think the Tesla stack is the most advanced autonomous vehicle stack in the world. I’m fairly certain they were already using end-to-end AI. Whether their AI did reasoning or not is somewhat secondary to that first part.”
Percoco reiterated both the $425 price target and the ‘Equal Weight’ rating on Tesla shares.
Tesla expands its branded ‘For Business’ Superchargers
Tesla Cybercab ‘breakdown’ image likely is not what it seems
