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SpaceX almost ready to launch NASA asteroid impact spacecraft
Update: The NASA official quoted saying that the DART spacecraft had arrived at Vandenberg on September 27th appears to have been incorrect and may have accidentally confused the arrival of an “advance team” with the arrival of the spacecraft itself.
Science communicator and author David Brown was reportedly on-site on September 29th to watch as the DART spacecraft was carefully packaged for the journey from Maryland’s Johns Hopkins University to its California launch site, obviously making a VSFB arrival two days prior impossible. Nevertheless, now stowed inside an environmentally-controlled shipping container, DART should still arrive at Vandenberg within the next week or two.
Revealed as a side note during live coverage of the space agency’s successful Landsat-9 launch, NASA says that the Double Asteroid Redirect Test (DART) spacecraft has arrived at Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB) ahead of a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch less than two months from now.
Weighing around 690 kg (~1500 lb) at liftoff, NASA confirmed that the DART spacecraft and its Italian-built LICIACube smallsat companion are on track to launch out of SpaceX’s VSFB SLC-4E pad on a Falcon 9 rocket no earlier than (NET) November 23rd, 2021. Carrying its small passenger, DART will then make a beeline for binary asteroid pair Didymos and Dimorphos. Respectively measuring around 800 and 170 meters across, DART will ultimately target the smaller of the pair and accelerate to an impact velocity of ~6.6 km/s (4 mi/s or Mach 19).
DART will then rely on a built-in telescope and closed-loop targeting software to home in on and smash into Dimorphos, ultimately using the tiny asteroid system as a sort of sandbox to test theories of asteroid redirection that might one day help humans prevent catastrophic impacts with Earth.
Originally targeted to launch in June 2021 when NASA awarded SpaceX the $69M launch contract (now up to $73M after two small changes) in April 2019, DART has slipped approximately five months in the 2.5 years since when a few minor technical issues arose late in development. Impressively, almost none of those delays appear to have been caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which cannot be said for a number of other NASA, US military, and commercial satellites and launches.
Set to cost a total of ~$250M including launch services, DART’s main purpose is to determine how exactly an asteroid behaves when impacted by a high-velocity spacecraft. Whereas depictions of asteroid “redirection” in popular science fiction tend to lean towards the “send an arsenal of nuclear bombs” approach, the reality is that bombing most asteroids and comets large enough to threaten the surface of Earth would add uncertainty more than it would mitigate the threat.
Given how little is actually known about the physical characteristics of asteroids, attacking one with a bomb could simply separate a killer asteroid into any number of smaller, still-deadly asteroids – now spread into a shotgun-like pattern of undetectable fragments instead of one large, visible object. Instead, most modern science on the matter now believes that the best route to redirection is a combination of early detection and a (relatively) low-energy impact. A bit like the concept of the butterfly effect, a relatively gentle impact (still akin to 2.5 tons of TNT with DART) years or decades in advance could drastically change the trajectory of the threatening asteroid or comet, causing it to miss Earth. DART won’t directly prevent an asteroid from impacting Earth but hitting the asteroid moon of a larger asteroid should effectively magnify the effect the tiny impact has on its orbital characteristics.
DART will also serve as a technology demonstration, debuting both satellite-class roll-out solar arrays and NASA’s self-developed NEXT-C electric propulsion system. With any luck, it will also help scientifically prove that humans could use a similar approach to save ourselves from a catastrophic space impact event years or decades from now.
Tesla has opened a new sweepstakes to allow the public to be one of the first to take one of the initial rides in a Cybercab, the all-electric, steering wheel-less and pedal-less vehicle that is the company’s centerpiece of its autonomous ride-hailing platform called Robotaxi.
There are two ways Tesla fans can get to Austin to take part in the first public rides of the Cybercab: by riding on the Robotaxi platform by August 23, or by mailing a very specific entry to their Headquarters at Gigafactory Texas.
Tesla announced the latter portion of the sweepstakes last night:
🚨 Want to win a trip to Austin to ride in one of the first Cybercab rides ever?
Here’s how:
Tesla has opened up a new sweepstakes to ride in a Cybercab upon its public launch. Here’s the details.
There are two methods of entry into the sweepstakes, and they are as follows:… pic.twitter.com/iJRd4evuWo
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 19, 2026
Tesla will give one entry into the sweepstakes if you mail a 3″ by 5″ piece of paper with your full name, mailing address, telephone number, email address, and date of birth to their address:
Tesla, Robotaxi Sweeps Event
1 Tesla Road,
Austin, TX 78725
There is a limit of one entry per stamped envelope. You can send as many as you’d like, but they must be in separate envelopes.
The company’s unique strategy to give people the opportunity to ride in a Cybercab before pretty much anyone else outside of the company is a hilarious but spot-on representation of how Tesla operates. In classic fashion, they had the perfect response to the event:
— Tesla (@Tesla) August 19, 2026
Cybercab will launch later this month, it appears, especially as it plans to announce the winners of the sweepstakes on August 25. The car has already been operating internally, as employees have been able to utilize the Cybercab for rides in some capacity, something it announced earlier this month.
Tesla weirdly confirms Cybercab employee rides, a huge milestone
Moving forward, the big goal is to get Cybercab out on the roads and integrated into the public Robotaxi fleet, one that will pick up real-world ride-hailers and give them a ride from Point A to Point B.
No matter which way you cut it, it appears Tesla is close to putting a vehicle with no steering wheel and no pedals on the road to help people travel autonomously.
You can ride along with us in our first Cybercab ride from the We, Robot event in October 2024. The video is embedded below:
🎥: Our FULL first ride in the @Tesla Cybercab pic.twitter.com/6gR7OgKRCz
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 11, 2024
Tesla has revealed plans through permit submissions for a massive Robotaxi charging hub in Austin, Texas.
Tesla plans to build the Supercharger hub in multiple phases, with the second phase potentially introducing wireless induction charging, something the company has been developing for the Robotaxi fleet.
Initially, 48 Tesla Robotaxi-geared Superchargers will be built on a lot just across from the St. Elmo, Texas, Service Center. There are about 80 additional spots that will not be impacted by phase 1 of the construction process.
Filings show that the second phase of the project will turn those 80 additional spots into wireless charging for Robotaxi, but it might be an error. The Key Notes state that item 3 is listed as “V4 Charging Cabinet to Support 80 Wireless Chargers in Phase 2. However, the drawings point to V3 Cabinets that are already tied to Superchargers:
There are roughly 128 total spots in the lot, but it is unclear if they will all be used for charging based on what appears to be some sort of typo in the blueprint.
A new Robotaxi fleet charging hub is coming soon to Austin, Texas!!
Permits have been filed for the installation of 48 (V3) stalls in a vehicle storage lot across the road from Tesla’s St Elmo service center. pic.twitter.com/xwRgSWDqht
— MarcoRP (@MarcoRPi1) August 18, 2026
This is among the first Robotaxi charging hubs Tesla has started to develop, as it currently has four others planned throughout various areas: one in Phoenix, one in San Antonio, another in Irving, which will serve the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and another in Las Vegas.
These projects are necessary as Tesla expands its Robotaxi program. Now that preparations have started for the public launch of Cybercab, Robotaxi will likely be expanding aggressively, especially over the next two to three years.
Last night, The Information reported that Tesla was planning to launch Cybercab as soon as the end of August. Hours later, Tesla then announced it was launching a competition for fans to potentially ride in Cybercab during its first public rides.
Tesla’s plan to expand its charging infrastructure in the regions where Robotaxi will initially operate is great preparation for the expanding service. There is still a lot to do, including launching the Cybercab on time.
Tesla got its largest order for the all-electric Class 8 Semi yet, a 500-unit order from Einride AB, a Swedish trucking company.
Einride made the announcement this morning following its second-quarter earnings call. The company said it plans to use 500 Tesla Semi units on its fleet intelligence platform, called Saga AI. The deployments will serve large companies like Amazon and will extend Einride’s electric freight network across logistics routes in California, New Jersey, Texas, Illinois, and Georgia.
🚨 Tesla has received a MASSIVE order from Swedish freight company Einride AB, which placed an order for 500 Tesla Semi trucks
Tesla’s biggest order for the Semi yet! pic.twitter.com/PrtLp5yzvh
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 18, 2026
The deployment is being carried out in several phases over the next two years as Tesla ramps production of the Semi at its dedicated production facility in Sparks, Nevada. Einride will receive its first Semi units in September.
Saga AI
Saga AI is Einride’s dedicated fleet intelligence platform. It enables scaled adoption of electric trucks for freight use and allows shippers to integrate electric capacity without the operational burden or capital risks of managing a fleet. This helps integrate cost-efficient logistics and makes budgeting and forecasting much more accurate.
Tesla Semi’s Adoption
The Tesla Semi is now gathering large-scale clients past those who have helped the company operate a Pilot Program to gain initial information and feedback from real-world drivers.
Perhaps the biggest and most notable is that of Frito-Lay and PepsiCo., who have worked with Tesla for the past several years to dial in the finer details of the truck, including its efficiency and operation-related components.
Tesla Semi gets strange-but-understandable comparison from Jay Leno
There has been tremendous progress in that time, and it even catalyzed Tesla to make some design changes, which were unveiled earlier this year.
But Einride CEO Roozbeh Charli says his company’s partnership with Tesla will continue to push those things forward:
“This deployment is yet another proof point that we can execute at the scale our customers demand. Working closely with Tesla to bring next-generation Semis into active operations quickly and at scale is a testament to the strength of that partnership, and how quickly this technology is maturing from promise to daily operations.”
Additionally, Dan Priestley, the Director of the Semi Program at Tesla, said the partnership is ideal due to Einride’s focus on sustainable transport:
“Einride is at the forefront of sustainable freight, and we are thrilled to deepen our relationship with them through this order of 500 Semis. EV heavy trucks provide lower costs per mile from fuel savings, reduced maintenance, and better uptime over diesel trucks. These savings increase further through operational efficiency when deploying EV trucks at scale, and we are excited that Einride recognizes this and look forward to supporting their deployments.”
Tesla opens Cybercab first public ride sweepstakes: how to enter
Tesla reveals plans for Robotaxi charging hub in Austin
