News
DeepSpace: SpaceX takes huge step towards Mars with flawless Crew Dragon performance
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While the mission is not done just yet, SpaceX is days away from (hopefully) wrapping up an extraordinarily smooth debut of its newest spacecraft, a human-rated vehicle known as Crew Dragon. Assuming no anomalous behavior during reentry, descent, and landing this Friday, SpaceX will likely be less than six months away from launching its first astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), the most important step yet towards offering reliable and routine transport to Earth orbit and ultimately between Earth and Mars.
Founded by Elon Musk to kickstart a stagnant space industry and drive humanity to become an interplanetary species, SpaceX is in the process of building the first full-scale prototype(s) of the launch vehicle (Super Heavy) and spacecraft (Starship) it believes will deliver on those promises. Along with countless programmatic and technical lessons learned, every conceivable aspect of Crew Dragon’s development will feed directly into SpaceX’s development of Starship, meant to one day safely transport and land as many as 100 passengers on the surface of Mars.
A spacefaring civilization, one step at a time
In the process of building Crew Dragon, SpaceX has been forced to become rising experts in fields like human-rated environmental control and life support systems (ECLSS), as well as ensuring an even more extreme level of redundancy and reliability compared with SpaceX’s already high standards for their uncrewed Falcon rockets and Cargo Dragon spacecraft.
- More so than any particular piece of technology present on Crew Dragon, the process of both cooperating and grappling with NASA to build the spacecraft to high standards and ‘certify’ it has hopefully had an extremely positive impact on SpaceX’s own engineers and company-wide standards, albeit potentially at the cost of some of the willingness to take risks and move quickly.
“I’m personally convinced that this has made, certainly, SpaceX better, to have NASA guide us, and to look at requirements, and to try to question requirements, and what’s the true reason behind those requirements, and then basically comply with the overall safety culture that NASA taught us, I would say, to some extent. And so I feel like it certainly made a better SpaceX and made better engineers out of the SpaceX engineers. And I really appreciate that very much.”
-Hans Koenigsman, Vice President of Mission Assurance, SpaceX
Feet in Earth orbit, head in the Martian clouds
- Regardless, the end result will ultimately be a reliable spacecraft capable of transporting an average of 4-7 astronauts to and from the ISS, whether that end result is the result of near-perfect execution the first time around or discovering and fixing problems during flight tests.
- Compared to NASA, SpaceX prefers a radically agile approach to development, meaning that the company will rapidly build, test, and fly iterations of the same hardware of software, beginning with the minimum viable product and ending (although improvement never really ends) with an advanced solution optimized by extensive lessons learned.
- Through the process of building Crew Dragon, SpaceX has hopefully absorbed most of the valuable lessons and practices NASA can often be rich with while rejecting the unhealthy and unsuccessful tendencies that contribute to NASA’s distinctly unimpressive modern efforts to build human-rated rockets (SLS) and spacecraft (Orion, Space Shuttle).
- With that knowledge and technical experience, SpaceX may already have an extremely strong foundation upon which it can build its next-gen spacecraft, Starship. In theory, Crew Dragon’s life support system – meant to support up to 7 astronauts with extreme reliability and safety – should be able to scale up to ECLSS fit for dozens or hundreds of passengers.
- In a worst-case scenario relative to mass efficiency, SpaceX could quite literally package Crew Dragon’s ECLSS system into a module and duplicate it as many times as needed for a given Starship crew. Identical modules could then be transported in a cargo bay for any structures built on the surface of Mars or the Moon.
- Understandably, Crew Dragon does not need a significant number of systems critical for longer stays in space, as it is only designed to support humans for approximately one week in free-flight. SpaceX will still need to develop extremely efficient recycling systems, used to recycle water, oxygen, and other consumables to extend the amount of time the ISS (or Starship/Mars colonies) can operate without external supply deliveries.
- In essence, recycling technology is roughly (or sometimes exactly) equivalent to something known as in-situ resource utilization (ISRU), basically prioritizing local resources over shipped goods. A small subset of SpaceX’s future projects team has been working on ISRU – particularly Sabatier reactors for Starship refueling on Mars – for several years.
- In late 2017, Elon Musk stated that the design and development of SpaceX’s own ISRU hardware were “pretty far along.”
Mission Updates:
- SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft will attempt its first orbital-velocity reentry and Atlantic Ocean splashdown on the morning of Friday, March 8th.
- The second launch of Falcon Heavy could occur as early as late March
- Aside from DM-1 and Falcon Heavy Flight 2, it’s unclear what SpaceX mission will happen next. DM-1 may be the only SpaceX launch in March, while several missions are tentatively scheduled for April and May.
Photos of the week:
B1051 returned to Port Canaveral three days after successfully sending Crew Dragon on its first orbital mission. Thanks to the relatively low-energy trajectory and gentle reentry, SpaceX should be able to refurbish the booster extremely quickly.(c. Tom Cross, Pauline Acalin)
Elon Musk
Tesla launches 200mph Model S “Gold” Signature in invite-only purchase
Tesla’s final 350-unit Signature Edition closes the book on two cars that changed everything.
Tesla has announced a super limited Signature Edition run of 250 Model S Plaid and 100 Model X Plaid units as an invite only purchase in a bid to give its original flagship vehicles a proper send-off.
When the Model S first launched in 2012, the first 1,000 units sold were “Signature” editions that required a $40,000 deposit and cost nearly $100,000 each. Those early buyers were Tesla’s first real believers. This new Signature Edition deliberately echoes that moment, bookending a 14-year run with numbered collector hardware.
Both models are finished in an exclusive Garnet Red paint not available on any current Tesla production vehicle, with gold Tesla T badges up front, a gold Plaid badge and Signature badge at the rear, and a white Alcantara interior featuring gold Plaid seat badges, gold piping, Signature-marked door sills, and a numbered dash plate. The Model S adds carbon ceramic brakes with gold calipers. Every unit ships with Tesla’s Luxe Package, bundling Full Self-Driving (Supervised), four years of Premium Service, free lifetime Supercharging, and a Signature Edition key fob. Both are priced at $159,420, a roughly $35,000 premium over standard Plaid inventory.
The discontinuation is part of a broader strategic shift. At Tesla’s Q4 2025 earnings call, Musk described the decision as “slightly sad” but necessary, saying: “It’s time to basically bring the Model S and X programs to an end with an honorable discharge, because we’re really moving into a future that is based on autonomy.”
The Fremont factory floor that built these cars is being converted to manufacture Optimus humanoid robots, with a target of one million units annually.
Elon Musk
Tesla FSD in Europe vs. US: It’s not what you think
Tesla FSD is approved in the Netherlands, but the European version differs from what US drivers use.
On April 10, 2026, the Dutch vehicle authority RDW granted Tesla the first European type approval for Full Self-Driving Supervised, making the Netherlands the first country on the continent to authorize Tesla’s semi-autonomous system for customer use on public roads.
As Teslarati reported, the RDW approval followed 18 months of testing, more than 1.6 million kilometers driven on EU roads, 13,000 customer ride-alongs, and documentation covering over 400 compliance requirements. Tesla Europe had been running public demo drives through cities like Amsterdam and Eindhoven since early 2026, giving passengers their first experience of the system on European streets.
The European version of FSD is not the same software US drivers use. The RDW’s own statement is direct, noting that the software versions and functionalities in the US and Europe “are therefore not comparable one-to-one.” We’ve compile a table below that captures the most significant differences between US-based Tesla FSD vs. European Tesla FSD that’s based on what regulators and Tesla have publicly confirmed.
| Feature | FSD US | FSD Europe (Netherlands) |
| Regulatory framework | Self-certification, post-market oversight | Pre-market type approval required (UN R-171 + Article 39) |
| Hands requirement | Hands-off permitted on highway | Hands must be available to take over immediately |
| Auto turning from stop lights | Available — navigates intersections, turns, and traffic signals autonomously | Available in EU build — confirmed in Amsterdam demo footage handling unprotected turns and signalized intersections |
| Driving modes | Multiple profiles including a more aggressive “Mad Max” mode | EU build is more conservative by default and errs on the side of restraint when it cannot confirm the limit |
| Summon | Available — Smart Summon navigates parking lots to driver | Status unclear — not confirmed as part of the RDW-approved feature set; urban FSD approval targeted separately for 2027 |
| Driver monitoring | Camera-based eye tracking | Stricter continuous monitoring with more frequent intervention alerts |
| Software version | FSD v14.3 | EU-specific builds that must be separately validated by RDW |
| Geographic restriction | US, Canada, China, Mexico, Australia, NZ, South Korea | Netherlands only; EU-wide vote pending summer 2026 |
| Subscription price | $99/month | €99/month |
| Full urban FSD scope | Available | Partial — separate urban application planned for 2027 |
The approval comes as Tesla is under real pressure to grow FSD subscriptions globally. Musk’s 2025 CEO compensation package, approved by shareholders, includes a milestone requiring 10 million active FSD subscriptions as one condition for his stock awards to vest. Tesla hit one million subscriptions during its Q4 2025 earnings call, which is a meaningful start, but still a long way from the target. Opening Europe as a market for subscriptions, rather than just hardware sales, directly accelerates that number.
Tesla has said it anticipates EU-wide recognition of the Dutch approval during summer 2026, which would extend FSD access to Germany, France, and other major markets through a mutual recognition process without each country repeating the full 18-month review. That timeline is Tesla’s projection, not a confirmed regulatory outcome. As Musk acknowledged at Davos in January 2026, “We hope to get Supervised Full Self-Driving approval in Europe, hopefully next month.”
News
Tesla’s troublesome Auto Wipers get a major upgrade
Tesla has quietly deployed a major over-the-air (OTA) update across its entire fleet, implementing a new patent that could finally solve one of the most complained-about features in its vehicles: the Auto Wipers.
One of Tesla’s most complained-about features is that of the Auto Wipers, but they have recently received a major upgrade that impacts every vehicle in the company’s fleet, a company executive confirmed.
Tesla has quietly deployed a major over-the-air (OTA) update across its entire fleet, implementing a new patent that could finally solve one of the most complained-about features in its vehicles: the Auto Wipers.
Confirmed by senior Tesla AI engineer Yun-Ta Tsai on April 10, the improvement is based on patent US 20260097742 A1. It introduces an “energy balance model” that adds a tactile, physics-driven layer to the existing camera-based system—without requiring any new hardware.
🚨 Tesla has already implemented a new patent that improves the accuracy of the Auto Wiper system https://t.co/QjjKHKxSNv pic.twitter.com/mEbd04oJAu
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 10, 2026
Tesla drivers have griped about auto wipers since the company ditched traditional rain sensors in favor of Tesla Vision around 2018.
Owners routinely report the wipers failing to activate in light drizzle or mist, leaving windshields streaked and visibility dangerously reduced. Just as often, they formerly blasted into high-speed mode on dry, sunny days, screeching across glass and risking scratches or premature blade wear.
This is a rare occurrence anymore, but many owners still report the feature having the wipers perform at the incorrect speed or frequency when precipitation is falling.
Tesla has tried repeatedly to fix the problem through software alone.
Early “Deep Rain” initiatives and the 2023 Autowiper v4 update used multi-camera video and refined neural networks, with Elon Musk promising “super good” performance. The 2024.14 update added manual sensitivity boosts, and later FSD versions claimed further gains. Yet complaints persisted.
Elon Musk apologizes for Tesla’s quirky auto wipers, hints at improvements
Vision systems struggle with edge cases—glare, bugs, reflections, or faint mist—because they rely purely on visual inference rather than physical detection
The new patent takes a different approach. The car’s computer constantly measures electrical power delivered to the wiper motor. It subtracts predictable losses—internal motor friction, linkage drag, and aerodynamic resistance—leaving only the friction force between the rubber blade and windshield glass.
Water lubricates the glass, sharply reducing friction; dry or icy surfaces increase it dramatically. This real-time “tactile” data acts as an independent check on the camera’s visual cues, instantly shutting down false triggers on dry glass and fine-tuning speed for actual rain.
The system can also detect ice and auto-activate defrost heaters, while long-term friction trends alert drivers when blades need replacing.
By fusing vision with precise motor-load physics, Tesla has created a hybrid sensor that is both elegant and cost-free. Owners have waited years for reliable auto wipers; this OTA rollout may finally deliver them.
Tesla launches 200mph Model S “Gold” Signature in invite-only purchase
Tesla FSD in Europe vs. US: It’s not what you think
