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SpaceX nails reused booster launch, Falcon Heavy’s maiden flight days away

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Despite a brief 24-hour delay due to weather and minor mechanical issues, SpaceX recycled the launch opportunity and completed the mission on Wednesday afternoon, January 31. Tasked with carrying GovSat-1 to orbit, the reused Falcon 9 rocket (Booster 1032) performed flawlessly and as expected, although the stage was expended. Launch directors confirmed just before the end of the live webcast that the communications satellite, a public-private partnership between SES and Luxembourg, was placed into a good orbit a few minutes before it separated from Falcon 9’s second stage. The mission marks SpaceX’s second successful launch of 2018, its first reused flight of the year, and the last launch before Falcon Heavy’s inaugural flight – currently scheduled for Tuesday, February 6.

Perhaps most intriguingly (or at least uniquely), the to-be-expended booster was still seen outfitted with both grid fins and landing legs at the launch pad, the new legs a stark white against the dark and sooty backdrop of the Falcon 9’s recycled booster. While SpaceX’s webcast host very explicitly stated at least three times that the first stage was not going to be recovered, careful listeners may have still caught snippets of the launch and recovery directors announcing different milestones as Falcon 9 S1 landed softly in the Atlantic Ocean. Similar to the recovery operations after the launch of Iridium-4 in December 2018, S1 flew as if it were landing aboard a drone ship, although in the case of this launch that theatricality extended even to landing legs.

While it may seem quite odd that SpaceX would choose to expend an entire, recoverable rocket, it is presumed that SpaceX is simply choosing to rid itself of a stock of older boosters incapable of flying more than once or twice – preparing for the introduction of the highly reusable Block 5 of Falcon 9, in other words. As stated by the webcast host, a SpaceX engineer, the company’s goal is for boosters to last “tens of launches in the short term, and hundreds or thousands of launches in the long term.” It is worth remembering that expending rocket boosters in the ocean (or even over land for Russia and China) is the status quo of all non-SpaceX rockets, and SpaceX has only just begun to perfect booster recovery and reuse – the first successful ocean recovery was completed less than two years ago. The very fact that it already feels odd or even wrong to “throw away” hardware into the ocean after launch is a testament to just how rapidly SpaceX have changed both the figurative and literal paradigms of orbital rocketry, and it is only a matter of time before the eminently persistent company ends the practice of expendable launches internally, if not globally.

Up next, Falcon Heavy

After yet another successful mission for SpaceX, the company’s Florida efforts will now briefly focus on the imminent inaugural launch of Falcon Heavy, the company’s newest and largest rocket. Loosely penciled in for liftoff on Tuesday, February 6, the massive vehicle will become the most powerful and capable operational rocket in the world, comparable only to the likes of NASA’s Saturn V and Space Shuttle, as well as the Soviet Union’s short-lived Energia. Regardless of its place against a historical backdrop of massive state-funded rockets, Falcon Heavy will by default become the most powerful commercial launch vehicle ever developed, and that title will almost certainly remain uncontested until 2020 at the absolute earliest. If or when the first and smallest version of NASA’s SLS rocket launches, likely also no earlier than 2020, the space agency may well take the crown back for a brief year or so. Regardless, SpaceX will likely be regularly launching Falcon Heavies and nearing the tail end of the development and testing of its much larger BFR rocket and spaceship.

Falcon Heavy will be the clearest progress yet towards such a massive rocket, and will provide SpaceX with invaluable experience and expertise as the only private company to ever operate a super heavy-lift launch vehicle (SHLLV). After a solid four weeks of near-constant testing, bug-fixing, and retesting, Falcon Heavy just days ago completed its first static fire, marking the first point in its history that all 27 of its first stage engines were simultaneously ignited. The data produced by that crucial test was apparently satisfactory, and Elon Musk just yesterday reiterated that the vehicle’s first launch was still targeting February 6.

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Follow along live as launch photographer Tom Cross and your intrepid author cover these groundbreaking events live.

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Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

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SpaceX hit with mishap investigation by FAA for Starship Flight 9

Starship’s ninth test flight has the FAA requiring a mishap investigation from SpaceX.

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Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX has been hit with yet another mishap investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) related to the company’s ninth test flight of Starship earlier this week.

The FAA said the mishap investigation is “focused only on the loss of the Starship vehicle, which did not complete its launch or reentry as planned.” The agency said the loss of the Super Heavy booster is covered by one of the FAA’s approved test induced damage exceptions requested by SpaceX.

All of Starship and Super Heavy booster debris landed within the designated hazard areas, the FAA confirmed.

SpaceX Starship Flight 9 recap: objectives & outcomes

It said it activated a Debris Response Area out of an abundance of caution as the booster “experienced its anomaly over the Gulf of America during its flyback toward Texas. The FAA subsequently determined the debris did not fall outside of the hazard area. During the event there were zero departure delays, one flight was diverted, and one airborne flight was held for 24 minutes. ”

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SpaceX has become accustomed to mishap investigations by the FAA, as they have been impacted by them on several occasions in the past, including on Flight 8. However, they are a precautionary measure and usually are resolved within a few weeks.

Flight 9 was one of SpaceX’s most eventful, as there were several discoveries during the launch. First, it was SpaceX’s first time reusing a Super Heavy booster, as the one utilized for Flight 9 was also used on Flight 7 in January.

Contact with the booster and Starship were both lost during Flight 9. SpaceX said the booster was lost “shortly after the start of landing burn when it experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly approximately 6 minutes after launch.”

Meanwhile, Starship was set to make a splashdown in the Indian Ocean, but the vehicle was lost about 46 minutes into the flight, SpaceX said in a mission recap.

It was an improvement from the previous two flights, as both 7 and 8 resulted in the loss of Starship after just a few minutes. Flight 9 lasted considerably longer. These flights are also not intended to make it to Mars, despite what other reports might try to tell you.

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These are ways to gain information for when SpaceX eventually tries to get Starship to Mars.

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Investor's Corner

Tesla bull writes cautious note on Robotaxi launch: ‘Keep expectations well contained’

Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas is more cautious about Tesla’s upcoming Robotaxi launch.

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla analyst Adam Jonas of Morgan Stanley is telling investors to be wary of the Robotaxi details CEO Elon Musk revealed this week, after a report seemed to land on the prospective launch date of the platform in June.

Earlier this week, a report from Bloomberg indicated Tesla had internally landed on a tentative date of June 12 for its Robotaxi launch in Austin. Shortly after, Musk detailed the successful testing Tesla has already performed without anyone in the driver’s seat.

Tesla lands on date for Robotaxi launch in Austin: report

He also indicated Teslas would self-deliver to customers in June.

Analysts are now sending out investor notes on the announcement Musk made, along with the Bloomberg report. Jonas’s note is more cautious than others.

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Jonas believes Tesla needs to shed more details before investors and fans of the company get too excited. He believes there is more information that could be released, but until then, he is suggesting investors “keep expectations well contained.”

He wrote:

“As is typical for highly anticipated Tesla events, we would keep expectations well contained for the (reported) June 12th Cybercab launch event in Austin. However, we would look for a continued stream of updates for the performance and growth of the network thereafter (numbers of cars, miles, trips, etc.) in the days and weeks that follow.”

The tone of Jonas’s note contradicts that of Wedbush’s Dan Ives, who believes the “golden age of autonomous” lies in Tesla’s hands. He seems to believe Tesla will come through on its June 12 launch.

Tesla set for ‘golden age of autonomous’ as Robotaxi nears, ‘dark chapter’ ends: Wedbush

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Morgan Stanley’s note is slightly more

Jonas is obviously still bullish, but is much more tentative to move forward with an attitude that communicates skepticism about what Tesla has revealed.

Jonas and Morgan Stanley have a $410 price target on Tesla shares with a ‘Buy’ rating. Tesla stock is trading at around $358 at 12:15 p.m. on the East Coast.

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Tesla’s apparent affordable model zips around Fremont test track

Tesla was zipping around a strange, covered, compact Model Y at Fremont this week.

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tesla affordable model prototype on fremont factory test track
Credit: Met God in Wilderness | YouTube

Tesla was racing a compact, short, and stocky Model Y with front and rear end covers around its Fremont Factory’s test track today, potentially giving us a look at the upcoming affordable model.

On Thursday, Met God in the Wilderness on YouTube posted a flyover of the Fremont Factory, a weekly occurrence for the channel. This week’s video featured a smaller, more compact Model Y racing around the Test Track at Fremont, trailed by a Cybertruck:

While both bumpers are covered, it still seems to be a much more compact version of the Model Y. There is also the potential that this is the upcoming Model Y Performance, but it seems that this vehicle is smaller than the traditional Model Y. Tesla would not reduce its size this much for the Performance configuration.

With that, it seems more likely it is one of the affordable models.

Tesla still on track to release more affordable models in 1H25

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It also plays into the idea that Tesla is planning to launch vehicles very similar to the Model Y and Model 3. During the last Earnings Call, Tesla VP of Vehicle Engineering Lars Moravy stated that the affordable models the company planned to launch would be of the same form and factor as the Model Y, indicating potentially a stripped-down version of the all-electric crossover:

“I will say it’s important to emphasize that, as we’ve said all along, the full utilization of our factories is the primary goal for these new products. And so flexibility of what we can do within the form factor and, you know, the design of it is really limited to what we can do on our existing lines rather than building new ones.”

This was essentially a read-between-the-lines moment for investors as they took it as the affordable models would not be much different than the Model Y.

This vehicle seems to fit the bill of what Moravy described: it is eerily similar to the Model Y without the lengthened front and rear. While it is still tough to determine exactly what it is, it surely does look to be something that Tesla is keeping under wraps for the short term.

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