News
SpaceX launches Japanese lander, NASA cubesat to the Moon
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has successfully launched a privately-developed Japanese Moon lander and a NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory cubesat on their way to lunar orbit.
Following five back-to-back delays that pushed the launch from November to mid-December, Falcon 9 lifted off with Japanese startup ispace’s first HAKUTO-R Moon lander on December 11th, kicking off a multi-month journey that will take the spacecraft more than 700,000 miles (1.1M km) away from Earth. It’s not the first time SpaceX has launched a mostly commercial Moon lander, and it won’t be the last. SpaceX’s first Moon lander launch happened in February 2019, when Falcon 9 launched Israeli company SpaceIL’s Beresheet Moon lander as a rideshare payload on Indonesia’s PSN-6 geostationary communications satellite. Beresheet failed just a minute or two before touchdown, but the attempt was still a historic step for commercial spaceflight.
Just shy of three years later, SpaceX has launched another private Moon lander. Unlike Beresheet, which made its way to the Moon from geostationary transfer orbit (GTO), HAKUTO-R was Falcon 9’s main payload, allowing the rocket to launch it directly into deep space. A Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) cubesat that missed a long-planned ride on NASA’s first Space Launch System (SLS) rocket also joined the Moon lander as a Falcon 9 rideshare payload.
The update that's rolling out to the fleet makes full use of the front and rear steering travel to minimize turning circle. In this case a reduction of 1.6 feet just over the air— Wes (@wmorrill3) April 16, 2024
Approximately four months from now, both spacecraft will reach the end of similar low-energy ballistic transfer trajectories, at which point they will have limited opportunities to enter lunar orbit and continue their missions. Reaching that checkpoint will require several successful orbital correction maneuvers and enough longevity to survive months in deep space, unprotected by Earth’s magnetic fields.
If they make it that far, HAKUTO-R will conduct several more burns to reach low lunar orbit (LLO), where ispace will verify the spacecraft’s health and eventually attempt a soft landing on the Moon. A privately-developed spacecraft has never landed on an extraterrestrial body, so the prestige at stake is about as high as it can get. If JPL’s Lunar Flashlight spacecraft [PDF] survives its journey, it will enter a near-rectilinear halo orbit around a point of gravitational equilibrium (Lagrange point) between the Earth and Moon. Once on station, it will spend most of its time 9000 kilometers (~5600 mi) away from the Moon but occasionally fly within 15 kilometers (~9 mi) of the surface. Under JPL’s nominal mission plan, Lunar Flashlight will complete at least ten week-long orbits and use an infrared laser instrument to search for water ice in permanently-shadowed Moon craters during each close approach.
Without context, both missions seem to complement each other well, and it’s not hard to imagine an alternative scenario where a cubesat like Lunar Flashlight was intentionally included to prospect for ice that a lander could then target. But the JPL cubesat’s presence on ispace’s HAKUTO-R was purely by accident. Because of certain design decisions made by NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft contractors, the giant rocket is intended to launch cubesat rideshare payloads to the Moon, but those satellites are barely accessible for the entire time the rocket is configured for its unprecedentedly slow launch campaigns.
As a result, even though SLS lifted off for the first time in November 2022, its cubesat payloads had to be ready for launch and installed on the rocket in October 2021. Out of 14 planned payloads, four – including Lunar Flashlight – weren’t ready in time, forcing them to find other ways to deep space. Ironically, that may have been an unexpected blessing, as the ten payloads that did make the deadline wound up sitting inside SLS for 13 months, much of which was spent at the launch pad. Half of those satellites appear to have partially or completely failed shortly after launch.
Because of the extremely circuitous path the NASA rocket ultimately took to reach launch readiness, JPL was able to find a new ride to the Moon and launch less than one month after SLS and its co-passengers. Unlike those copassengers, Lunar Flashlight likely spent just a few weeks installed on Falcon 9 before launching to the Moon. Additionally, the SLS launch trajectory took it more or less directly to the Moon, giving its rideshare payloads just a handful of days to troubleshoot any problems discovered. Thanks to the slower, more efficient transfer orbit SpaceX used to launch HAKUTO-R, JPL should still have opportunities to enter a nominal orbit even if Lunar Flashlight requires weeks of in-space troubleshooting – far more margin for error than most SLS copassengers received.
Lunar Flashlight weighs about 14 kilograms (~31 lb) at liftoff, features two sets of solar arrays, and packs a first-of-its-kind chemical propulsion system designed to deliver up to 290 m/s of delta-V – a ton of performance for such a small satellite. HAKUTO-R weighs closer to 1.1 tons (~2400 lb) and is a far more capable spacecraft, in theory – a necessity to land softly on the Moon. At ispace’s request, Falcon 9’s low-energy ballistic transfer orbit reduced the lander’s performance requirements, but it will need roughly 2000-2500 m/s of delta-V to enter lunar orbit and land on the lunar surface.
On December 12th, ispace confirmed that HAKUTO-R is in excellent shape around 24 hours after liftoff. ispace says the lander has secured stable communications, a stable orientation in space, and positive power generation from its solar arrays. An ispace infographic indicates that the spacecraft will enter lunar orbit around mid-April if all goes to plan. With HAKUTO-R in a stable state, the next most important near-term milestone will be the successful use of its propulsion and navigation systems. The startup hopes to demonstrate smooth deep space operations, including routine trajectory correction maneuvers, within one month of launch.
HAKUTO-R was SpaceX’s 56th successful launch of 2022 and the company’s second direct Moon launch this year after sending South Korea’s KPLO orbiter to the Moon in August.
News
NASA taps SpaceX for more astronaut missions as Boeing Starliner remains grounded
NASA just gave SpaceX a $946 million contract for three more astronaut missions through 2030.
NASA has awarded SpaceX a $946 million contract modification covering three more astronaut missions to the International Space Station, according to an announcement the agency published Friday. The award adds Crew-15, Crew-16, and Crew-17 to SpaceX’s existing Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contract, bringing the agreement’s total value to $5.92 billion across 17 flights.
SpaceX confirmed the award on X, writing that it was excited for Falcon 9 and Dragon to launch NASA’s Crew-15, 16, and 17 missions to the Space Station from Florida. The new missions cover ground, launch, in orbit, and return operations, along with cargo transport and a lifeboat capability while docked at the station, and the period of performance runs through 2030.
We’re excited for Falcon 9 and Dragon to launch @NASA’s Crew-15, 16, and 17 missions to the @Space_Station from Florida https://t.co/Qm16vVK9F3 pic.twitter.com/drg3s7GtuM
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 18, 2026
The award follows a notice of intent NASA issued in May, when the agency first signaled it would purchase up to six additional post certification missions from SpaceX. Teslarati covered that filing at the time, noting NASA cited technical issues and schedule delays encountered by Boeing as a driving factor. Friday’s contract modification locks in three of those six missions, with the remaining three left open for NASA to award later, potentially to Boeing if Starliner clears certification.
Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner has still not flown an operational crew rotation mission for NASA. The spacecraft’s most recent crewed test flight in 2024 ended without the astronauts returning aboard Starliner, and the company has spent the time since working through thruster problems. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said this week that SpaceX is not retiring Crew Dragon today, for sure, while stopping short of committing to fly it past 2030.
Crew-12 is currently docked at the space station, and NASA has said Crew-13 is targeting a launch in the coming weeks. The newly awarded Crew-15 through Crew-17 missions extend SpaceX’s role as NASA’s primary way of getting astronauts to and from orbit well into the back half of the decade, regardless of what happens with Starliner or Starship in the meantime.
Investor's Corner
New drone video shows Tesla’s Optimus Factory reaching a turning point
New drone footage shows Tesla’s dedicated Optimus factory steel frame nearing completion at Giga Texas.
Tesla’s dedicated Optimus factory at Gigafactory Texas is closing in on a finished steel frame, according to drone footage posted Thursday afternoon by longtime site observer Joe Tegtmeyer. In the video, Tegtmeyer said structural steel assembly is now about five column grids away from reaching the building’s north perimeter beam, putting the primary skeleton in its final stretch roughly six months after Tesla broke ground on the North Campus site in late March.
The Giga Texas Optimus Factory latest update … construction keeps moving fast!
Steel assembly is now only about 5 column grids from the north perimeter beam. Concrete is going in on the three upper floors, rebar is still being laid for more pours, and footing / grade-beam work… pic.twitter.com/qvFPvwnYzW
— Joe Tegtmeyer 🚀 🤠🛸😎 (@JoeTegtmeyer) September 17, 2026
Tegtmeyer’s footage shows concrete already going in on three upper floors while crews continue laying rebar and pouring grade beam footings at ground level. That kind of parallel work, steel rising at one end of the site while concrete sets at the other, is a scheduling approach Tesla used at the original Giga Texas building and appears to be repeating here to save time before the plant’s targeted 2027 production start.
Teslarati has tracked the building’s progress since Tesla confirmed construction was officially underway in May, when the first steel structure went up on what was then bare, reclaimed land. The facility is part of a more than 5.2 million square foot expansion of Giga Texas’s North Campus that Tesla has said will eventually run nearly the length of the existing vehicle factory, over 4,000 feet, while sitting somewhat narrower. Musk has pegged the long term output target at 10 million Optimus units a year once the line is running at full capacity, a volume that would dwarf the one million unit pilot line Tesla is standing up separately at its Fremont, California factory.
Tesla Giga Texas to feature massive Optimus V4 production line
The Texas facility sits alongside another major buildout on the same campus. Terafab, the joint Tesla and SpaceX chip fabrication plant that will eventually supply the silicon running Optimus units in the field. Housing robot assembly and chip production on the same grounds is a deliberate supply chain decision, cutting down on the shipping and lead time that would otherwise sit between the two.
Tesla has not given an updated timeline beyond its previously stated goal of bringing high volume Optimus production online at the site in the summer of 2027. Fremont’s smaller pilot line began mass producing the current Gen 3 robot in January, with that plant expected to build tens of thousands of units this year primarily to generate the real world data Tesla needs to refine the robot’s software before Giga Texas ramps up. Six months of visible construction progress, tracked almost entirely through Tegtmeyer’s recurring drone flights, gives the clearest outside look yet at how seriously Tesla is treating that 2027 deadline.
Investor's Corner
Tesla and SpaceX take “Terafab” Trademark fight to Federal Court
Tesla and SpaceX sue a small Illinois firm after cease and desist letters over Terafab.
Tesla and SpaceX are asking a federal judge to rule that their planned Terafab chip factory does not infringe a small Illinois company’s trademark, a request that arrives only after months of quiet negotiation broke down this summer.
The dispute traces to May 18, when Tesla filed three U.S. trademark applications for “Terafab” and “Tesla Terafab,” covering semiconductor chips and related chip making services. TERA-print LLC, a nanotechnology company that has held a federal trademark for “Tera-Fab” since 2021, responded five days later with a cease and desist letter. According to the lawsuit, first reported by Reuters, TERA-print argued that Tesla and SpaceX’s use of “Terafab” would confuse consumers familiar with its own trademark, which covers a desktop photolithography printer sold to researchers for sensor and bioengineering work.
What stands out in the filing is the timing of TERA-print’s own paperwork. One day before sending that cease and desist letter, on May 22, TERA-print applied to expand its existing registration to cover semiconductor materials, silicon chips, nanoelectronic devices and AI design services, categories it had not previously claimed. Tesla and SpaceX call that filing opportunistic in their complaint, noting it arrived two months after Tesla’s public Terafab announcement and just days after Tesla’s own trademark applications went in.
Elon Musk launches TERAFAB: The $25B Tesla-SpaceXAI chip factory that will rewire the AI industry
By June 10, TERA-print was threatening to sue for federal trademark infringement, false designation of origin and unfair competition, the complaint states. Rather than wait to be sued, Tesla, SpaceX and SpaceXAI met with TERA-print six separate times between June and August trying to resolve the dispute directly. Those talks collapsed, and the companies filed for declaratory judgment this week in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, asking a judge to find that “Terafab” does not infringe TERA-print’s mark before TERA-print can file a claim of its own.
TERA-print isn’t backing down. The company told PCMag it discussed a settlement with Tesla as recently as September 2 and feels misled by what it called Tesla’s professed interest in settling. Its CTO, Andrey Ivankin, said TERA-print holds a Defense Department contract to fabricate semiconductors and partially owns Mattiq Inc., an AI company built on TERA-print’s products, and that the company will vigorously defend its rights.
Tesla and SpaceX argue the overlap is superficial. Terafab is planned as a $16.8 billion complex spanning roughly 100 million square feet at the Grimes County site SpaceX confirmed last month, built to produce chips for Optimus robots, Tesla’s AI computing needs and SpaceX’s orbital data center ambitions, a scale and purpose the companies say no reasonable consumer would confuse with a tabletop lab printer. TERA-print’s product line has stayed focused on lithography tools for biological and sensor research since it registered its mark in 2021.
The trademark fight is the second legal dispute tied to the Terafab project in the past week, following a separate SpaceX suit aimed at keeping company records about the facility out of public view, as KBTX reported. Whether construction proceeds under the Terafab name now depends on a federal judge in Austin.
NASA taps SpaceX for more astronaut missions as Boeing Starliner remains grounded
New drone video shows Tesla’s Optimus Factory reaching a turning point
