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SpaceX’s Mr Steven spotted practicing Falcon 9 fairing catches with upgraded net
SpaceX’s fairing recovery vessel Mr Steven was spotted on Monday, August 13 conducting the first fairing recovery tests to involve actually craning a fairing half onto the huge, upgraded net, and doing so repeatedly in a short period of time. That practice will likely prove invaluable by allowing SpaceX to better understand the characteristics of Mr Steven’s fairing-catching net, rigging winches, and general operational behavior.
As SpaceX gradually approaches their next Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, the company is also preparing for Mr Steven’s next fairing recovery attempt, itself the second operational use of the vessel’s massively upgraded arms and net. Known as SAOCOM-1A, the Argentinian space agency’s Earth-imaging satellite is expected to launch no earlier than late September according to local South American media. Mr Steven’s late-July upgraded net debut was largely foiled by unpredictable winds in the region the fairing was parasailing, with that uncertainty preventing the fairing from getting close enough to its targeted landing position for Mr Steven to catch it out of the air.
It certainly appears that Mr Steven's net is capable of receiving a fairing half. Getting closer than ever. 8/13 #spaceX #mrsteven pic.twitter.com/Zqydum2FbB
— Pauline Acalin (@w00ki33) August 14, 2018
By all appearances, SpaceX is working hard to better understand how Mr Steven’s huge new net behaves when interacting with a Falcon fairing half, a reasonable goal in order to ensure that the first successful fairing catch is not foiled by something as simple as the half sliding down the net and cracking on Mr Steven’s deck. SpaceX’s fairings are incredibly fragile and are liable to irreparable crack at the slightest hint of off-nominal forces, meaning that all recovery efforts need to be extremely gentle if SpaceX ever hopes to recover and reuse those fairings halves multiples times, if at all.
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- SpaceX technicians convene while testing Mr Steven’s net with a Falcon fairing half, 08/13/18. (Pauline Acalin)
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- SpaceX used a crane to test Mr Steven’s net with a Falcon fairing half, 08/13/18. (Pauline Acalin)
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- Mr Steven’s net spied testing off-center recovery operations with a Falcon fairing half, 08/13/18. (Pauline Acalin)
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- Mr Steven’s net spied testing off-center recovery operations with a Falcon fairing half, 08/13/18. (Pauline Acalin)
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- Mr Steven’s net spied testing off-center recovery operations with a Falcon fairing half, 08/13/18. (Pauline Acalin)
Still, even managing to reuse just one fairing half once for several launches (say, all California launches) would make a huge difference to the bottlenecked production line in SpaceX’s Hawthorne rocket and spacecraft factory, which is working around the clock to ramp up production of the upgraded Fairing 2.0 while also winding down the old Fairing 1.0 manufacturing apparatus. Intriguingly, it appears that SpaceX’s launch activity is likely to drop precipitously over the next several months, with no launches currently scheduled from the company’s two Florida pads in September or October – apparently due to a lack of payload availability rather than anything SpaceX-related.
Vandenberg will thus be the focus of SpaceX’s launch activities in September and October, hopefully supporting at least two missions. The first, SAOCOM-1A, is an Argentinian Earth observation satellite targeting a launch window in late September, reportedly delayed from September 5 to give SpaceX additional time to prepare Falcon 9. According to NASASpaceflight.com, SpaceX intends to refly Falcon 9 B1048 for this mission, giving the company just 6-8 weeks to refurbish the rocket and prepare it for the usual preflight static fire several days before launch. SAOCOM-1A will also likely mark the debut of SpaceX’s West Coast rocket landing zone, known as LZ-2.
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Mr Steven lowering a fairing half into and out of the net today! Practice makes perfect.#spacex #mrsteven pic.twitter.com/oo4YAyWcuK
— Pauline Acalin (@w00ki33) August 14, 2018
While not yet solid, Iridium CEO Matt Desch acknowledged on August 13th that the company’s 8th and final SpaceX launch – Iridium NEXT-8 – would have its satellites ready no earlier than October, likely making it SpaceX’s subsequent payload after SAOCOM-1A. On the opposite coast, SpaceX’s next launch will be Telstar 18V – companion to 19V – on a new Falcon 9 Block 5 booster, currently scheduled for no earlier than 11:33 PM EDT, August 23. That Falcon 9 is already at Pad 40 preparing for a preflight static fire late this week or early next.
For prompt updates, on-the-ground perspectives, and unique glimpses of SpaceX’s rocket recovery fleet check out our brand new LaunchPad and LandingZone newsletters!
In a new note to investors on Tuesday, Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Percoco said that Tesla has one big financial question to answer for investors regarding its Robotaxi rollout, Full Self-Driving software, and Optimus.
Percoco said in the note that, for the most part, investors are still very positive about the direction the company is headed. However, there are some things the firm would like to see, and they have to do with financials.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla bulls are more than convinced that the company’s Full Self-Driving software is proof it can develop physical AI. Financially, however, there are still some questions, especially on elevated spending, which CEO Elon Musk said would occur as the company works to roll out Robotaxi faster and continue developing its Optimus robot.
The latter two are where Tesla will have to prove progress to investors, as Percoco writes that both projects “will require clearer evidence that Robotaxi is scaling and more tangible Optimus proof points to support the ROI on elevated capex.”
Percoco said the second quarter earnings call did not change his long-term thesis of where Tesla is positioned in the AI race, which is out in front. However, there are concerns that weaker gross margins and higher R&D spend will stress financials, and that has “sharpened our (and investors’) focus on measurable progress across Robotaxi and Optimus.”
Additionally, Robotaxi still needs to be proven with more operation in existing cities while maintaining safety but improving how many rides it gives in any given time, he said. For Optimus, Percoco wrote that he is “still looking for evidence beyond commentary around SOP.”
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Morgan Stanley put Percoco in charge of covering Tesla after long-time analyst Adam Jonas transitioned to the automotive side.
Currently, Morgan Stanley has a $415 price target on Tesla and a ‘Hold’ rating on the stock. It is trading at around $330 at the time of publication, which was 2:30 P.M. on the East Coast.
SpaceX’s massive investment in AI will make it a big winner, Argus Research said after the company’s successful earnings call last week.
The firm also upgraded shares to a Buy from Hold and set a $160 price target.
SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) is currently recovering from its heavy AI infrastructure investments, as it spent nearly $16 billion in Q2 alone. The company did this primarily by monetizing high-demand GPU compute capacity at a much faster pace than traditional data center economics would suggest.
Company CFO Bret Johnsen said that SpaceX would be able to pay back anything on new deployments within a year.
There are plenty of ways the company can do this:
Leasing excess compute capacity through contracts
SpaceX has already built Colossus and Colossus II, largely for its own model training. However, much of that capacity is already rented out to third parties. It already has major deals with Anthropic, Google, and Reflection AI. These partnerships are adding billions per month to SpaceX’s spreadsheet.
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High utilization driven by industry-wide scarcity
The demand for advanced AI training and inference capacity continues to exceed what is available for use. SpaceX can fill new racks quickly after they come online, so the capital deployed converts into revenue with minimal idle time.
Additionally, management and outside observers have described the new compute capital as behaving more like a cost-of-goods-sold than traditional multi-year capex, especially because of this rapid monetization pattern.
Capacity has already scaled from ~0.4 GW a year to 1.4 GW annually by the end of Q2. There are targets of more than 2 GW by year-end.
High incremental margins on the rental business once capacity is online
GPU cloud providers often operate at strong gross margins. SpaceX can monetize capacity that was already partially built or can be added efficiently. This means that incremental EBITDA margins on the rental revenue are usually high. This accelerates cash recovery relative to the gross capital outlay.
Parallel monetization of its own AI software and applications
Beyond pure infrastructure rental, SpaceX also generates revenue from Grok through subscriptions and usage, from X through ads, data, and other related services, enterprise APIs, and the planned integration of the Cursor coding tools acquisition.
These application layers ride on the same compute infrastructure and provide additional high-margin streams that could offset build-out costs. AI-segment revenue overall rose sharply to about $2.6 billion in Q2, according to Motley Fool. This was driven primarily by the infrastructure contracts, but the software side is also partially responsible.
Efficient, large-scale deployment and vertical integration advantages
SpaceX has emphasized the rapid construction of power and cooling infrastructure and favorable cost-per-megawatt economics relative to industry benchmarks in some disclosures.
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Combined with its ability to scale capacity aggressively and the fact that many contracts start generating revenue within months of capacity coming online, the effective payback compresses dramatically compared with more conventional multi-year data-center projects.
SpaceX’s dominant near-term recovery path will turn the AI clusters into a hyperscale-style compute rental business for other leading AI companies while still using a portion for internal models.
Tesla headlights have caused a recall of over 20,000 of the company’s two most popular vehicles, the Model 3 and Model Y, due to the low-beam bulb exceeding the maximum allowed intensity according to federal standards.
Tesla initiated the recall with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) this morning, stating that the low-beam output “exceeds the maximum allowed intensity in the outer upper-right and outer upper-left areas of the 10U and 90U zone, as prescribed in FMVSS No. 108.”
Tesla sourced the impacted headlights from Marelli Automotive Lighting, a Mexico-based company. The recall impacts 2020-2023 Model Y vehicles and 2017-2023 Model 3 vehicles. It is estimated that every VIN in this recall is impacted by the defect.
🚨 Tesla is recalling 20,349 2020-23 Model Y vehicles and 2017-23 Model 3 vehicles due to an excessively bright headlamp low beam.
Currently, there is no remedy plan in place, as it is still being developed. pic.twitter.com/y34cIO2U0B
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 11, 2026
Typically, Tesla would remedy recalls of this nature through an Over-the-Air software update, which has been a major focus of criticism by the company and its supporters because the NHTSA still refers to it as a “recall,” even though it requires no action by the vehicle owner. The fix is shipped over the internet and downloaded to the car.
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However, there appears to be a potentially different solution for this problem. Tesla has not developed a remedy for this issue, so it could potentially be on the way. The big issue appears to be the fact that these recalled lamps are out of production, and this is an old body style for both vehicles. The headlights and front-end designs are completely different.
Tesla switched to another supplier when the affected headlight design was discontinued. It plans to begin notifying owners of their remedy options by September 15.
Tesla filed a petition protesting the recall to fix the vehicles’ headlight issue, but the NHTSA denied it. Now, Tesla will come up with a solution to fix it.
Tesla has one big financial question to answer for investors: Morgan Stanley
SpaceX AI investment gamble will make it a big winner, firm says
