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SpaceX may have missed a rocket booster landing but it snagged both nosecone halves
Although SpaceX sadly lost a record-breaking rocket booster and suffered a significant in-flight anomaly during its sixth Starlink launch, the company later revealed that it successfully recovered both of Falcon 9’s nosecone halves.
Starlink V1 L5 is now the second time ever that SpaceX – or anyone, for that matter – has successfully reused an orbital-class launch vehicle payload fairing, while the mission also marked the first time that SpaceX managed to recover a reused Falcon fairing. The burn from booster issues certainly isn’t fully salved, as twin fairing catchers Ms. Tree and Ms. Chief both missed their fairing catch attempts, but both twice-flown fairing halves were still successfully scooped out of the Atlantic Ocean before they were torn apart.
This is perhaps the most important milestone for SpaceX’s fairing recovery and reuse program since the first successful catch (June 2019) and first successful reuse (November 2019). With a twice-flown fairing now safely in hand for the first time, SpaceX will hopefully be able to dramatically expand its understanding of how flight-proven fairings – especially those that were fished out of the sea – stand up to launch conditions. If these flight-proven halves appear to be in great condition, it could be a boon for the near-term future of fairing recovery and reuse.
Catching fairings = hard
SpaceX has now been attempting to catch Falcon payload fairings for more than two years, beginning back in February 2018 after many months of additional development prior. The first successful catch came on the sixth post-launch attempt, followed immediately by a second successful catch two months later (August 2019). That back-to-back recovery appears to have been a bit of a fluke, however, with only one additional partial success (one of two ships caught a half) out of the five subsequent attempts.
By all appearances, accurately and reliably catching parasailing Falcon fairings is a spectacularly unforgiving challenge. That shouldn’t come as a huge surprise: each Falcon fairing will typically reach top speeds of 2.5+ km/s (1.5+ mi/s), technically reach space (100+ km or 63+ mi), and travel 500-1000+ km (300-600 mi) downrange before even remotely entering the vicinity of the ships designed to catch them out of the air.
Likely weighing just ~1000 kg (2200 lb) apiece, the lightweight, sail-like nature of SpaceX’s carbon fiber-aluminum honeycomb payload fairings is both a blessing and a curse. While it means they can effectively reenter Earth’s atmosphere at hypersonic velocities with next to no heat shield, it also means that free-falling and parasailing fairing halves are at the full mercy of said atmosphere after reentry, bowing to winds and air currents like dandelions in a breeze.
Fairing halves ultimately spend something like 30-40 minutes parasailing through the atmosphere after parafoil deployment, creating vast uncertainties when it comes to local weather and the general behavior of the atmosphere. Even excluding weather, the average fairing catch attempt is roughly akin to throwing an average marble into a kitchen sink from more than a kilometer (0.8 mi) away.
Soft ocean landings: quite a bit easier
What SpaceX has effectively discovered is that while catching fairing halves may be almost comically difficult, recovering the same halves intact is easily doable if the goal instead is to gently pick them up off the ocean surface. Of the eleven catch attempts SpaceX has made, all but two were followed by recovery vessels extracting one or both fairing halves -intact – from the ocean.
Most notably, though, SpaceX has yet to reuse any of the three Falcon fairing halves that were caught with Ms. Tree. Instead, both the first and second reuses used fairing halves that had been fished onto recovery ships after gentle Atlantic Ocean landings.
SpaceX has ultimately chosen to tackle the much harder reusability challenge – reusing fairings that have been partially immersed in saltwater – first, and done so quite successfully. Critically, the first reused fairing was unable to be recovered – even by sea – due to bad weather in the area, meaning that Wednesday’s recovery was a first for rare flight-proven fairing hardware. Given all the challenges Falcon fairings face with water sealing, corrosion, and contamination after water landings, it would be little surprise to learn that the second reused fairing is not exactly in pristine condition.
However, if it looks as good or better than SpaceX’s less-informed expectations, there’s a chance that it could open the floodgates for the full-scale pursuit of routine waterlogged fairing reuse. Even better, if the Starlink v0.9 and V1 L5 fairing halves have been recovered in great condition, there might be a chance to reuse Falcon fairings multiple times, following in the footsteps of the rocket boosters they launch on top of.
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Elon Musk
SpaceX nails “Lucky 13” astronaut launch, leaning into Tesla tradition and superstition
SpaceX launched Crew-13 astronauts to the ISS Thursday, setting up a record fast Dragon docking.
SpaceX launched NASA’s Crew-13 mission to the International Space Station on Thursday morning, getting four astronauts to orbit despite a forecast of thunderstorms and gusty winds that had threatened to push the flight to Friday.
Falcon 9 lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 11:10 a.m. ET carrying Dragon Grace, NASA confirmed. On board are NASA commander Jessica Watkins, NASA pilot Luke Delaney, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov. The first stage booster, B1101, landed at Landing Zone 40 beside the pad on its third flight after previously supporting Crew-12 and a Starlink mission.
Liftoff of Crew-13! pic.twitter.com/vteT0DXMTh
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 1, 2026
It was the first spaceflight for Delaney, Kutryk and Teteryatnikov. Watkins, who flew on Crew-4 in 2022, became the first NASA astronaut to launch aboard a Crew Dragon twice.
Before launch, the crew rode to the pad in Teslas, a tradition on NASA’s SpaceX crew flights since 2020. This time the cars carried specialty plates reading “Lucky 13.” Watkins said the mission patch leans into the number on purpose, as a nod to Apollo 13 and the resilience of that crew.
Grace is now on a short trip to the station. Docking at the forward port of the Harmony module is scheduled for about 7 p.m. ET, roughly 7 hours and 50 minutes after liftoff, which Space.com notes would be the fastest Crew Dragon transit to the ISS yet. Most Dragon flights take around 15 to 24 hours to catch the station. Hatch opening is planned for 8:25 p.m. ET.
The launch came more than two weeks later than originally planned. An oxidizer leak was found in Grace’s propulsion system in August, and NASA and SpaceX added time for tests. That pushed back the return of Crew-12, which has been aboard the station since February and is now set to splash down off Southern California next week. Crew-13 is expected to stay about six months.
SpaceX rescue mission for stranded ISS astronauts nears end — Here’s when they’ll return home
SpaceX already holds NASA orders for crew rotations through Crew-17, while Boeing is preparing an uncrewed Starliner flight to the station as early as December.
Crew-13 was only the first of three SpaceX launches planned for Thursday, as Teslarati previewed on Wednesday. A Falcon 9 launched its Transporter-18 mission from California today, where Google will be launching its first orbital artificial intelligence (AI) test satellite. Meanwhile, Falcon Heavy is set to launch the classified NROL-97 mission for the National Reconnaissance Office from Launch Complex 39A at 11:53 p.m. ET. Its two side boosters will return to Landing Zones 1 and 2, which means Central Florida could hear up to three sonic booms in a single day. The busy stretch follows Starship’s Flight 14 on Monday, which reached orbit for the first time.
Tesla has moved its Wireless Charging efforts for its electric vehicles forward, as it had a new patent published today, one that it submitted back in March.
The patent describes a system for detecting foreign objects on the wireless charging pad under varying temperatures, aiming to mitigate any undesired results that could come from something being on top of the charging pad.
🚨 Tesla has a new patent application published today, which was submitted back in March, for a Wireless Charging Pad:
“The present disclosure relates to methods and systems that can reliably detect foreign objects on a wireless charging pad under varying temperatures. In some… pic.twitter.com/LIeLfZAuDJ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 1, 2026
The abstract of the patent states:
“The present disclosure relates to methods and systems that can reliably detect foreign objects on a wireless charging pad under varying temperatures. In some examples, an object detector can utilize a set of inductive coils included in resonant tanks, and excite the resonant tanks using signals in a range of frequencies including or near a nominal resonant frequency of the resonant tanks. The object detector can detect a metal object based on resistance of a coil increasing and inductance of the coil decreasing. By analyzing the shifts and/or distributions in resonant frequencies and output magnitudes (e.g., output voltage peaks), the object detector can distinguish between changes of frequencies and magnitudes caused by temperature and those caused by foreign objects to accurately detect the foreign objects.”
The object detection system will utilize a set of inductive coils included in resonant tanks, and “excite the resonant tank using signals in a range of frequencies including or near a nominal resonant frequency of the tanks.” Metal can be detected by an increase in the coil’s resistance and a decrease in the coil’s inductance.
By analyzing shifts or disruptions in resonant frequencies and output magnitudes, the system can detect foreign objects. These types of safeguards need to be implemented through the normal operation of the charging pads.
Tesla says its Cybercab wireless charging efficiency is ‘well above 90%’
Tesla plans to utilize wireless charging with Cybercab and Robotaxi-enabled units to help streamline the fully autonomous experience from A to Z. The last thing the company wants to do is have any sort of small obstruction preventing the rider from experiencing Robotaxi as intended.
Tesla has launched its newest iteration of the Model 3 in China with a slew of new features, including the highly requested V2L (vehicle-to-load) feature and a new interior option.
The Model 3 now has a 16″ front touchscreen with improved resolution, a black headliner, V2L capabilities, Zen Grey interior in the Premium and Performance trims, as the White option has officially been discontinued, and 19″ Dark Nova Wheels, which are standard on the Model 3 Premium only.
🚨 Tesla has launched the Model 3 in China with a variety of new features and specs:
✅ 16” front touchscreen
✅ Black Headliner
✅ V2L Capability
✅ Zen Grey interior (Premium & Performance only)
✅ 19” Dark Nova wheels (Model 3 Premium only)
✅ Zen Grey Interior option… pic.twitter.com/ltTAEIYi2Z— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 1, 2026
The touchscreen in the U.S. version of the Model 3 is just 15.4″, so the newly upgraded screen is .6″ larger. Additionally, the Black Headliner, now standard on Model Y vehicles in the U.S., is coming to China.
Additionally, Tesla’s decision to end the white interior option has also made its way to the Asian market, as Zen Grey is the lighter color consumers can now go with. It is slightly different from the previously offered White option:
These options are available in China, Australia, and New Zealand as well, as Giga Shanghai serves those markets, bringing its mass-market vehicles to those countries in the South Pacific.
The Model 3 trims are now priced at:
- Rear-Wheel-Drive – 235,500 yuan (~$35,000)
- Long Range Rear-Wheel-Drive – 259,500 yuan ($38,700)
- Long Range All-Wheel-Drive – 285,500 yuan (~$42,600)
- Performance – 339,500 yuan (~$50,600)
These features have yet to make their way to the U.S., which might upset some buyers, but it is probably a good sign that Tesla will bring these changes to U.S. trims sometime next year. Potentially, these could come even sooner, as they could be used to stimulate demand for the year-end sales push.
Nevertheless, when things start at Giga Shanghai, they usually end up in the U.S. market. Tesla has also already started to install things like the Black Headliner and larger touchscreen in certain U.S.-built vehicles, so these things will be easy to implement across other vehicles in the lineup.
SpaceX nails “Lucky 13” astronaut launch, leaning into Tesla tradition and superstition
Tesla moves forward on Wireless Charging for vehicles
