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SpaceX nails second Falcon 9 fairing catch ever with GO Ms. Tree, Elon Musk shares video

CEO Elon Musk posted a video - captured by drone - documenting Ms. Tree's second successful Falcon 9 fairing catch ever. (SpaceX)

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SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says that the company has successfully caught its second Falcon 9 fairing ever, an excellent sign that the GO Ms. Tree (formerly Mr. Steven) net-boat method has been refined to a point that reliable recovery (and, ultimately, reuse) is within reach.

SpaceX caught its first Falcon 9 fairing for the first time barely a month ago, snagging one of Falcon Heavy Flight 3’s two halves on July 25th in a milestone for the company’s fairing recovery program. On the very next attempt, SpaceX has successfully caught yet another fairing half after Falcon 9’s August 6th AMOS-17 launch. Depending on which half was caught in Ms. Tree’s net, SpaceX may now have a full set of flight-proven fairing halves that could potentially support SpaceX’s first fully flight-proven fairing launch in the near future.

In early July, SpaceX released a spectacular video offering snippets of Falcon Heavy Flight 3’s successful fairing catch from the moment of stage separation to the last moments before touchdown in Ms. Tree’s net. In that video, it very nearly looked as if SpaceX’s Falcon 9 fairing half was attempting to enter hyperspace.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says that a video of Ms. Tree’s second successful Falcon 9 fairing catch will be posted soon following the fairing’s gentle net touchdown 45-60 minutes after launch. It’s unclear what exactly led SpaceX to what appears to have been a tipping point in Falcon fairing recovery.

Prior to the first June 2019 catch, SpaceX had yet to successfully catch a single parasailing fairing despite more than half a dozen post-launch attempts and countless controlled drop tests over the course of nearly 12 months and major upgrades to Mr. Steven. More likely than not, the now-duplicated success can be attributed to a general refinement of all recovery components, ranging from the accuracy of GPS guidance and parafoil controls, as well is improvements to Ms. Tree’s own guidance.

Prior to shipping to the East Coast, Mr. Steven barely missed 2-3 successful Falcon fairing catches during several controlled drop tests. (SpaceX)
One half of SpaceX’s Iridium-6/GRACE-FO just moments before touchdown on the Pacific Ocean. (SpaceX)

GO Ms. Tree successfully replicating her first catch is undoubtedly a major leap forward for fairing recovery, proving that the first success was not just a fluke. Time will tell how easily recovered fairings can be reused but SpaceX is closer than anyone on Earth now that reliable catches – avoiding corrosive saltwater immersion – appear to be within reach.

SpaceX’s first successful Falcon fairing catch was preceded by a spectacular light show as the fairing reentered Earth’s atmosphere at hypersonic velocities. (SpaceX/Teslarati)

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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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Tesla Roadster unveiling is getting hyped up by Elon Musk

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tesla roadster
Credit: Petersen Auto Museum

The Tesla Roadster unveiling is getting hyped up by the company’s CEO Elon Musk, who has been a big reason the product has such high expectations due to delayed timelines and a constant need to make it even more insane than before.

Tesla announced on September 12 that it would officially unveil the Roadster in Waco, Texas, on October 1, ending years of patience for fans and reservation holders who have waited for the all-electric supercar to enter production since 2017.

Musk has said that this event will be well worth the wait on several occasions, and last year on the Joe Rogan Experience, he said that there should be a closing chapter to supercars- the end of cars that aren’t focused on safety.

He said:

“Whether it’s good or bad, it will be unforgettable. My friend Peter Thiel once reflected that the future was supposed to have flying cars, but we don’t have flying cars. I think if Peter wants a flying car, he should be able to buy one. I think it has a shot at being the most memorable product unveil ever. This is some crazy technology in this car. Let’s just put it this way: if you took all the James Bond cars and combined them, it’s crazier than that.”

Musk’s teases have continued, and now that the event is roughly two weeks away, it seems like Roadster is finally going to show up and blow some minds:

Tesla has definitely dragged out the development of the Roadster, but there is a good reason for it.

Tesla has been working on many other projects, most notably self-driving efforts to increase passenger safety, and those simply took priority over the Roadster, a low-volume, high-performance sports car that has a lightning-fast acceleration rate of 0-60 MPH in just 1.1 seconds, could potentially fly, and contributes very little to the company’s mission.

However, many people have the Roadster on pre-order through the referral program or with their own money, and it is time that Tesla delivers on that.

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Elon Musk’s Boring Company has big plans for Las Vegas by year’s end

Elon Musk’s Boring Company says Vegas Loop stations will double by year end once again.

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the boring company's vegas loop entrance

The Boring Company says the Vegas Loop’s station count will double by the end of the year, tying the target to a hiring push for drivers and operations managers in Las Vegas. “Vegas Loop is getting bigger – the station count will double by end of year!” the company wrote in a post on X, attaching listings for a Loop driver and a senior Loop operations manager.

The number checks out against what’s already public, with the Vegas Loop currently running 14 operational stations, while the Boring Company’s own project page lists 28 as the target for the end of 2026.

Much of that growth is tied to tunnels that are already built and waiting on an opening date. A roughly two-mile dual tunnel system under Paradise Road, connecting Westgate to a planned station at 4744 Paradise Road, is expected to open in stages over the coming weeks, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority chief executive Steve Hill told the Review-Journal last week. New stations at 4744 Paradise, Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, and the former Gordon Biersch site would come online with it, several of them built to speed up rides to Harry Reid International Airport ahead of Formula 1’s Las Vegas Grand Prix.

Clark County entitled Vegas Loop for 123 stations after approving 19 more in August, as Teslarati reported at the time. Entitlement and construction move at different speeds on this project, so county approval alone does not guarantee a station opens on any particular schedule.

Clark County approved 18 additional stations back in 2023, part of a plan that pushed the system’s target to 69 stations across 65 miles, doubling the network on paper for the first time. The target kept climbing after that, to roughly 93 stations by the end of that year and 104 by last year, before August’s vote pushed it to 123. This week’s announcement is the first time that doubling language has been attached to stations actually running rather than stations merely approved on a county map.

Ridership gives some sense of what a denser network could carry. Boring Company executive Mike Baier said in July that the Vegas Loop already moves around 40,000 passengers on busy convention days, a total that tops most light rail systems in the country despite the system running on a fraction of its planned tunnel mileage. Company leadership has projected ridership could triple or quadruple once the airport connector tunnels fully open.

Boring Company did not say which stations beyond those already under construction would open by year end, or whether the hiring push points to a fleet expansion alongside the new stops.

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Tesla looks to expand into new Asian market, strengthening presence

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Credit: Tesla Asia | X

Tesla is looking to expand into a new Asian market, strengthening its presence in a region that has been bullish on electric vehicles as a whole.

Tesla officially filed to establish a subsidiary of its business in Vietnam, a report from Reuters suggests. Tesla named the entity “Tesla Motors Vietnam Limited Liability Company.”

The planned entrance into the Vietnamese market is a good sign and move for Tesla, as it has become one of the fastest-growing EV markets in Southeast Asia. It is already among the leaders in the region in both volume and electrification rate. In the first half of this year, Vietnam led Southeast Asia in battery-electric passenger car sales at about 116,000 units, up about 71 percent year over year.

Currently, Vietnamese EV drivers rely on VinFast’s V-Green network, which has about 150,000 ports, but these are primarily reserved for VinFast vehicles. Public third-party charging is fragmented and unreliable for those who do not own chargers that are dedicated to a certain manufacturer’s vehicles.

Tesla has had mixed results in Asia as a whole, and as China remains the core part of its story in Asia, the company is evidently working on expanding its footprint on the continent. Tesla’s domestic retail deliveries fell about 12 percent year over year through the first eight months of 2026.

Model Y remains a standout individual product, holding its position as one of, if not the, best-selling vehicles in the world. However, Model 3 has been weaker than it has been in past years.

Gigafactory Shanghai, the company’s Chinese production facility, still performs very well. Wholesale volumes in terms of exports have more than doubled and now exceed domestic retail sales; Giga Shanghai builds vehicles for Europe, South Korea, Japan, Australia, and other markets. South Korea has been an explicit bright spot, with registrations doubling year-to-date and Tesla frequently appearing as the top imported brand.

Tesla just did something in South Korea that no foreign carmaker has ever done

Tesla’s entrance into Vietnam signals a broader effort to take over the Asian market and grab more market share from rivals.

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