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SpaceX’s most important Falcon 9 booster yet returns to port with a lean
On November 19th, what is likely SpaceX’s most important Falcon 9 booster yet returned to Port Canaveral with a surprise – perhaps the most dramatic lean ever observed on one of the recovered rockets.
Tilted a solid 10+ degrees from vertical, the lean was immediately visible as soon as the top of the rocket crest the horizon, and it later became clear that one of Falcon 9 booster B1061’s four landing legs had no contact at all with drone ship Just Read The Instruction’s (JRTI) deck. Four days prior, Falcon 9 (and B1061) became the first commercially-developed rocket in history to be certified to launch NASA astronauts, a feat it pulled off flawlessly. Crew Dragon safely delivered four astronauts to the International Space Station on November 16th, marking the culmination of more than half a decade of (mostly) uninterrupted work.
Even before Crew Dragon and Falcon 9’s momentous Crew-1 launch, though, NASA had already revealed some details that would make parts of Crew-1 even more important and the follow-up Crew-2 launch – scheduled as early as March 2021 – perhaps the most significant mission in SpaceX’s history.
In short, less than a month after SpaceX’s equally flawless Crew Dragon Demo-2 astronaut launch debut, NASA contract modifications revealed that the agency had permitted SpaceX to reuse both Dragon capsules and Falcon 9 boosters on upcoming astronaut launches.
“In a wholly unexpected turn of events, a modification to SpaceX’s ~$3.1 billion NASA Commercial Crew Program (CCP) contract was spotted on June 3rd. Without leaving much room for interpretation, the contract tweak states that SpaceX is now “[allowed to reuse] the Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Crew Dragon spacecraft beginning with” its second operational astronaut launch, known as Post Certification Mission-2 (PCM-2) or Crew-2.”
Teslarati.com — June 9th, 2020
A few short months after that discovery, NASA itself specifically announced that it had given SpaceX the go-ahead to reuse Demo-2 Crew Dragon capsule C206 and Crew-1 Falcon 9 booster B1061 on Crew-2, the company’s second operational astronaut launch. Scheduled no earlier than March 31st, 2021, Crew-2 will most likely launch before the Crew-1 Crew Dragon departs the space station and returns its four crew members to Earth, a milestone expected sometime in April.
For almost anyone who has followed NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP) and its attitude towards SpaceX’s reusability efforts from the beginning, the space agency’s rapid willingness to trust its most important cargo – humans – to flight-proven Dragons and Falcon 9 boosters came as a huge surprise. If SpaceX is able to reuse both capsule C206 and booster B1061 as planned, Crew-2 will without a doubt be the most significant milestone in commercial spaceflight history, simultaneously proving that astronauts can be safely launched on commercial flight-proven rockets and spacecraft.
Of course, while Demo-2 Crew Dragon capsule C206 may have already been successfully recovered, SpaceX still had to land Falcon 9 booster B1061 and safely return it to port after Crew-1 before it could consider reusing it on Crew-2. Based on the rocket’s appearance upon its arrival at Port Canaveral, B1061 had an extremely close call. With what can be intuited from observation alone, it appears that sometime after B1061 landed and before the drone ship’s tank-like ‘Octagrabber’ robot could secure the booster, a stray swell or sudden burst of high seas must have bucked Just Read The Instructions about, causing B1061 to slide around on the slippery deck.
That would explain why the Falcon 9 first stage arrived in port on one of the far corners of drone ship JRTI – also sign that B1061 likely hit the yellow barrier included specifically to prevent boosters from sliding off drone ship decks. At the same time, B1061 must have had a moderately rough landing, causing at least one of its four legs to expend a large portion of a single-use shock absorber called a “crush core,” leaving the booster sitting at an angle. Based on photos of the arrival, that tilt likely left JRTI’s Octagrabber unable to latch onto all four of Falcon 9’s hold-down clamps, forcing recovery technicians to improvise and manually chain the rocket to the deck where the robotic solution fell short.
Thankfully, the SpaceX recovery team’s apparent heroics and luck proved to be enough and the sturdy Falcon 9 booster was returned to dry land without issue, lifted off of JRTI’s deck around 24 hours after arriving in port. Based on photos of the crush cores at the bottom tip of each leg, B1061’s rough landing and eventful journey was fairly mild as far as they come and, as CEO Elon Musk notes, crush core replacement is likely all that’s needed to make the rocket good as new.
Had B1061 been lost at sea, Crew-2 would have almost certainly been delayed to give SpaceX enough time to come up with an entirely new Falcon 9 first stage. Luckily for SpaceX, that didn’t happen and the company’s plans to launch astronauts on the flight-proven booster are still in play.
Elon Musk
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang commends Tesla’s Elon Musk for early belief
“And when I announced DGX-1, nobody in the world wanted it. I had no purchase orders, not one. Nobody wanted to buy it. Nobody wanted to be part of it, except for Elon.”
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast on Wednesday and commended Tesla CEO Elon Musk for his early belief in what is now the most valuable company in the world.
Huang and Musk are widely regarded as two of the greatest tech entrepreneurs of the modern era, with the two working in conjunction as NVIDIA’s chips are present in Tesla vehicles, particularly utilized for self-driving technology and data collection.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang regrets not investing more in Elon Musk’s xAI
Both CEOs defied all odds and created companies from virtually nothing. Musk joined Tesla in the early 2000s before the company had even established any plans to build a vehicle. Jensen created NVIDIA in the booth of a Denny’s restaurant, which has been memorialized with a plaque.
On the JRE episode, Rogan asked about Jensen’s relationship with Elon, to which the NVIDIA CEO said that Musk was there when nobody else was:
“I was lucky because I had known Elon Musk, and I helped him build the first computer for Model 3, the Model S, and when he wanted to start working on an autonomous vehicle. I helped him build the computer that went into the Model S AV system, his full self-driving system. We were basically the FSD computer version 1, and so we were already working together.
And when I announced DGX-1, nobody in the world wanted it. I had no purchase orders, not one. Nobody wanted to buy it. Nobody wanted to be part of it, except for Elon.
He goes ‘You know what, I have a company that could really use this.’ I said, Wow, my first customer. And he goes, it’s an AI company, and it’s a nonprofit and and we could really use one of these supercomputers. I boxed one up, I drove it up to San Francisco, and I delivered it to the Elon in 2016.”
The first DGX-1 AI supercomputer was delivered personally to Musk when he was with OpenAI, which provided crucial early compute power for AI research, accelerating breakthroughs in machine learning that underpin modern tools like ChatGPT.
Tesla’s Nvidia purchases could reach $4 billion this year: Musk
The long-term alliance between NVIDIA and Tesla has driven over $2 trillion in the company’s market value since 2016.
Elon Musk
GM CEO Mary Barra says she told Biden to give Tesla and Musk EV credit
“He was crediting me, and I said, ‘Actually, I think a lot of that credit goes to Elon and Tesla…You know me, Andrew. I don’t want to take credit for things.”
General Motors CEO Mary Barra said in a new interview on Wednesday that she told President Joe Biden to credit Tesla and its CEO, Elon Musk, for the widespread electric vehicle transition.
She said she told Biden this after the former President credited her and GM for leading EV efforts in the United States.
During an interview at the New York Times Dealbook Summit with Andrew Ross Sorkin, Barra said she told Biden that crediting her was essentially a mistake, and that Musk and Tesla should have been explicitly mentioned (via Business Insider):
“He was crediting me, and I said, ‘Actually, I think a lot of that credit goes to Elon and Tesla…You know me, Andrew. I don’t want to take credit for things.”
GM CEO Mary Barra said to Andrew Sorkin at the New York Times Dealbook Summit that she pulled President Biden aside and said Tesla CEO @elonmusk deserved the credit for EVs:
“He was crediting me, and I said, ‘Actually, I think a lot of that credit goes to Elon and Tesla,'” Barra… pic.twitter.com/OHBTG1QfbJ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) December 3, 2025
Back in 2021, President Biden visited GM’s “Factory Zero” plant in Detroit, which was the centerpiece of the company’s massive transition to EVs. The former President went on to discuss the EV industry, and claimed that GM and Barra were the true leaders who caused the change:
“In the auto industry, Detroit is leading the world in electric vehicles. You know how critical it is? Mary, I remember talking to you way back in January about the need for America to lead in electric vehicles. I can remember your dramatic announcement that by 2035, GM would be 100% electric. You changed the whole story, Mary. You did, Mary. You electrified the entire automotive industry. I’m serious. You led, and it matters.”
People were baffled by the President’s decision to highlight GM and Barra, and not Tesla and Musk, who truly started the transition to EVs. GM, Ford, and many other companies only followed in the footsteps of Tesla after it started to take market share from them.
Elon Musk and Tesla try to save legacy automakers from Déjà vu
Musk would eventually go on to talk about Biden’s words later on:
“They have so much power over the White House that they can exclude Tesla from an EV Summit. And, in case the first thing, in case that wasn’t enough, then you have President Biden with Mary Barra at a subsequent event, congratulating Mary for having led the EV revolution.”
In Q4 2021, which was shortly after Biden’s comments, Tesla delivered 300,000 EVs. GM delivered just 26.
News
Tesla Full Self-Driving shows confident navigation in heavy snow
So far, from what we’ve seen, snow has not been a huge issue for the most recent Full Self-Driving release. It seems to be acting confidently and handling even snow-covered roads with relative ease.
Tesla Full Self-Driving is getting its first taste of Winter weather for late 2025, as snow is starting to fall all across the United States.
The suite has been vastly improved after Tesla released v14 to many owners with capable hardware, and driving performance, along with overall behavior, has really been something to admire. This is by far the best version of FSD Tesla has ever released, and although there are a handful of regressions with each subsequent release, they are usually cleared up within a week or two.
Tesla is releasing a modified version of FSD v14 for Hardware 3 owners: here’s when
However, adverse weather conditions are something that Tesla will have to confront, as heavy rain, snow, and other interesting situations are bound to occur. In order for the vehicles to be fully autonomous, they will have to go through these scenarios safely and accurately.
One big issue I’ve had, especially in heavy rain, is that the camera vision might be obstructed, which will display messages that certain features’ performance might be degraded.
So far, from what we’ve seen, snow has not been a huge issue for the most recent Full Self-Driving release. It seems to be acting confidently and handling even snow-covered roads with relative ease:
FSD 14.1.4 snow storm Ontario Canada pic.twitter.com/jwK1dLYT0w
— Everything AI (@mrteslaspace) November 17, 2025
I found the steepest, unplowed hill in my area and tested the following:
• FSD 14.2.1 on summer tires
• FSD 14.2.1 on winter tires
• Manual drivingBut I think the most impressive part was how FSD went DOWN the hill. FSD in the snow is sublime $TSLA pic.twitter.com/YMcN7Br3PU
— Dillon Loomis (@DillonLoomis) December 2, 2025
Well.. I couldn’t let the boys have all the fun!
Threw the GoPro up and decided to FSD v14.2.1 in the snow. Roads were not compacted like the other day, a little slippery, but overall doable at lower speeds. Enjoy the video and holiday music 🎶
Liked:
Took turns super slow… pic.twitter.com/rIAIeh3Zu3— 🦋Diana🦋 (@99_Colorado) December 3, 2025
Moving into the winter months, it will be very interesting to see how FSD handles even more concerning conditions, especially with black ice, freezing rain and snow mix, and other things that happen during colder conditions.
We are excited to test it ourselves, but I am waiting for heavy snowfall to make it to Pennsylvania so I can truly push it to the limit.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang commends Tesla’s Elon Musk for early belief
GM CEO Mary Barra says she told Biden to give Tesla and Musk EV credit
