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SpaceX’s Mr Steven spotted in high-speed test at sea with upgraded net
SpaceX’s newly-outfitted recovery vessel Mr Steven was recently captured conducting aggressive maneuvers off the coast of Port of Los Angeles, just days after the vessel’s massive new arms and net were installed for the first time. The intense pace of upgrades and acceptance testing confirm beyond any reasonable doubt that SpaceX does not intend to waste its next Falcon 9 fairing recovery attempt, set to accompany the July 25th launch of Iridium-7.
The iconic fairing recovery vessel has – for the past three or four weeks – been undergoing major upgrades to its arms or claws, as well as a massive, new net spanning nearly 0.9 acres (3700 m²). With what appears to be a genuine fourfold increase in usable area for fairing recoveries, SpaceX likely has a very strong chance of actually pulling off its first successful catches and reuses of Falcon 9 payload farings, valued at roughly 5% of the rocket’s cost ($3 million per a $60 million base price) per half. Manufacturing cost and price to the customer are difficult to compare, but it at least offers a hint of the full cost of each ~800 kg segment of carbon fiber and aluminum honeycomb.
Mr Steven seen just after a day spent conducting sea-trials a few miles offshore, July 14. (Pauline Acalin)
Based on photos and video captured between July 12 and 15, Mr Steven’s crew and recovery technicians appeared to waste no time at all leaping from arm and net installation to sea-trials of the new hardware at least as extreme as anything previously observed from the SpaceX-leased vessel. Less than half an hour after leaving the harbor for the first time since his massive new arms arrived, Marinetraffic tracking data showed that Mr Steven was already performing aggressive turns and sprints at speeds up to 20 knots (~25 mph), fairly impressive given the vessel’s 200 foot (62 meter) length and gross weight of nearly 200,000 pounds (82,000 kg).
While this may seem impressive, Mr Steven is a class of ship known as a Fast Supply Vessel (FSV) designed to routinely transport a full 400 metric tons of cargo on its deck at cruising speeds of 23 knots (27 mph), which means that the only thing Mr Steven’s wildly expansive arms likely challenge is the vessel’s center of gravity (balance), hence the follow-up tests with hard turns at high speed.
Also of interest, an extraordinary video of some of that testing – unofficially captured, somehow, by drone – showed the ship aggressively maneuvering in reverse, an ability that could come in useful during recovery attempts if the expanded net’s coincidental protection of Mr Steven’s cockpit means that it can become a less fixed element, actively seeking out falling fairings to help close the gap on each parasailing half’s 50 meter error margin.
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- Mr Steven makes some serious waves, using his pod thrusters to strafe backwards at 5-10 knots. (anonymous)
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- It’s subtle, but a small plus sign appears to ‘mark the spot’ on Mr Steven’s new net, stretching roughly 60×60 meters. (anonymous)
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- Mr Steven shows off the fancy new rigging of that upgraded net. (Pauline Acalin)
Another opportunity fast approaches
Previously scheduled for July 20, Iridium’s NEXT 7 multi-satellite launch was pushed back a handful of days to July 25 to give SpaceX engineers and technicians additional time to prepare what is the company’s third Block 5 Falcon 9 to roll off its Hawthorne, CA assembly line. While suboptimal for the customer and for SpaceX’s manifest, that slight delay very likely padded slim schedule margins for Mr Steven’s major arm upgrades, meaning that the vessel will now be able to participate in the imminent launch’s recovery operations. After the first flightworthy vehicle’s debut in May 2018, SpaceX’s rocket production has ramped up in quite an extreme fashion, jumping from four first stages produced in six months to another three or four boosters completed and tested in Texas in just two months.
While the transportation of Falcon fairings and upper stages is far harder to keep track of, production of those critical components of the rocket have also reached throughput levels that are new territory for SpaceX, including an impressive statistic of an average of one full Merlin 1D rocket engine manufactured daily according to an individual with experience on the factory floor.
The Block 5 iteration of the workhorse SpaceX vehicle is in many ways a wholly new rocket, featuring an array of upgrades that include new heat shielding at the rocket’s base, interstage, and legs; retractable landing legs, upgraded Merlin 1D engines, and a clean-sweep refresh of the vehicle’s avionics, to name just a handful of the major changes included.
SpaceX technicians wrench on a trio of varied Merlin 1Ds in McGregor, Texas, where every single engine is test-fired before being attached to a Falcon 9. (SpaceX)
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Tesla has expanded its branded ‘For Business’ Supercharger program that it launched last year, as yet another company is using the platform to attract EV owners to its business and utilize a unique advertising opportunity.
Francis Energy of Oklahoma is launching four Superchargers in Norman, where the University of Oklahoma is located. The Superchargers, which are fitted with branding for Francis Energy, will officially open tomorrow.
It will not be the final Supercharger location that Francis Energy plans to open, the company confirmed to EVWire.
Back in early September, Tesla launched the new “Supercharger for Business” program in an effort to give businesses the ability to offer EV charging at custom rates. It would give their businesses visibility and would also cater to employees or customers.
“Purchase and install Superchargers at your business,” Tesla wrote on a page on its website for the new program. “Superchargers are compatible with all electric vehicles, bringing EV drivers to your business by offering convenient, reliable charging.”
The first site opened in Land O’ Lakes, Florida, which is Northeast of Tampa, as a company called Suncoast launched the Superchargers for local EV owners.
Tesla launches its new branded Supercharger for Business with first active station
The program also does a great job at expanding infrastructure for EV owners, which is something that needs to be done to encourage more people to purchase Teslas and other electric cars.
Francis Energy operates at least 14 EV charging locations in Oklahoma, spanning from Durant to Oklahoma City and nearly everywhere in between. Filings from the company, listed by Supercharge.info, show the company’s plans to convert some of them to Tesla Superchargers, potentially utilizing the new Supercharger for Business program to advertise.
Moving forward, more companies will likely utilize Tesla’s Supercharger for Business program as it presents major advantages in a variety of ways, especially with advertising and creating a place for EV drivers to gain range in their cars.
Tesla Cybercab is perhaps the most highly-anticipated project that the company plans to roll out this year, and as it is undergoing its testing phase in pre-production currently, there are some things to work through with it.
Over the weekend, an image of the Cybercab being loaded onto a tow truck started circulating on the internet, and people began to speculate as to what the issue could be.
Hmmmmmm… https://t.co/L5hWcOXQkb pic.twitter.com/OJBDyHNTMj
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) January 11, 2026
The Cybercab can clearly be seen with a Police Officer and perhaps the tow truck driver by its side, being loaded onto, or even potentially unloaded from, the truck.
However, it seems unlikely it was being offloaded, as its operation would get it to this point for testing to begin with.
It appears, at first glance, that it needs assistance getting back to wherever it came from; likely Gigafactory Texas or potentially a Bay Area facility.
The Cybercab was also spotted in Buffalo, New York, last week, potentially undergoing cold-weather testing, but it doesn’t appear that’s where this incident took place.
It is important to remember that the Cybercab is currently undergoing some rigorous testing scenarios, which include range tests and routine public road operation. These things help Tesla assess any potential issue the vehicle could run into after it starts routine production and heads to customers, or for the Robotaxi platform operation.
This is not a one-off issue, either. Tesla had some instances with the Semi where it was seen broken down on the side of a highway three years ago. The all-electric Semi has gone on to be successful in its early pilot program, as companies like Frito-Lay and PepsiCo. have had very positive remarks.
The Cybercab’s future is bright, and it is important to note that no vehicle model has ever gone its full life without a breakdown. It happens, it’s a car.
Nevertheless, it is important to note that there has been no official word on what happened with this particular Cybercab unit, but it is crucial to remember that this is the pre-production testing phase, and these things are more constructive than anything.
Tesla analyst Andrew Percoco of Morgan Stanley teased the company’s dominance in its self-driving initiative, stating that its lead over competitors is “not even close.”
Percoco recently overtook coverage of Tesla stock from Adam Jonas, who had covered the company at Morgan Stanley for years. Percoco is handling Tesla now that Jonas is covering embodied AI stocks and no longer automotive.
His first move after grabbing coverage was to adjust the price target from $410 to $425, as well as the rating from ‘Overweight’ to ‘Equal Weight.’
Percoco’s new note regarding Tesla highlights the company’s extensive lead in self-driving and autonomy projects, something that it has plenty of competition in, but has established its prowess over the past few years.
He writes:
“It’s not even close. Tesla continues to lead in autonomous driving, even as Nvidia rolls out new technology aimed at helping other automakers build driverless systems.”
Percoco’s main point regarding Tesla’s advantage is the company’s ability to collect large amounts of training data through its massive fleet, as millions of cars are driving throughout the world and gathering millions of miles of vehicle behavior on the road.
This is the main point that Percoco makes regarding Tesla’s lead in the entire autonomy sector: data is King, and Tesla has the most of it.
One big story that has hit the news over the past week is that of NVIDIA and its own self-driving suite, called Alpamayo. NVIDIA launched this open-source AI program last week, but it differs from Tesla’s in a significant fashion, especially from a hardware perspective, as it plans to use a combination of LiDAR, Radar, and Vision (Cameras) to operate.
Percoco said that NVIDIA’s announcement does not impact Morgan Stanley’s long-term opinions on Tesla and its strength or prowess in self-driving.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang commends Tesla’s Elon Musk for early belief
And, for what it’s worth, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang even said some remarkable things about Tesla following the launch of Alpamayo:
“I think the Tesla stack is the most advanced autonomous vehicle stack in the world. I’m fairly certain they were already using end-to-end AI. Whether their AI did reasoning or not is somewhat secondary to that first part.”
Percoco reiterated both the $425 price target and the ‘Equal Weight’ rating on Tesla shares.
Tesla expands its branded ‘For Business’ Superchargers
Tesla Cybercab ‘breakdown’ image likely is not what it seems
