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SpaceX’s NASA astronaut launch debut jumps its place in line, now up next
According to NASASpaceflight.com reporter Michael Baylor, SpaceX’s Starlink-7 satellite launch has been indefinitely delayed due to drone ship constraints, meaning that the company’s Crew Dragon astronaut launch is now up next.
As a result, SpaceX’s next orbital launch has been delayed by at least eight days. In return, however, that launch will arguably be the most important in the company’s 18-year history, (hopefully) marking the biggest step by far SpaceX has taken towards its main goals of democratizing spaceflight and enabling the sustainable, permanent settlement of Mars. Known as Demonstration Mission 2 (Demo-2), it will simultaneously be the first crewed launch under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP) and SpaceX’s first astronaut launch ever and is scheduled to lift off no earlier than (NET) 4:33 pm EDT (20:33 UTC), May 27th.
Formerly scheduled to launch no earlier than (NET) May 7th, 17th, 18th, and 19th after a number of technical and weather-related delays, SpaceX’s 8th 60-satellite Starlink launch has now been delayed until sometime after Crew Dragon’s late-May inaugural astronaut launch. According to NASASpaceflight and speculated about in-depth on unofficial forums in the days prior, the schedule swap decision was made due to constraints in SpaceX’s drone ship. While simple on the face of things, the change does reveal a bit of the hidden strategy behind SpaceX’s management of both its rocket fleet and the ships that recover them.
Compounded by multiple largely unrelated delays, including weather in the planned booster and fairing landing zones, the Starlink-7/Demo-2 launch swap was caused by the simple fact that SpaceX only has one operational drone ship on the East Coast. The company coincidentally began sea trials with a second drone ship the very same day that Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY) headed out to sea to catch Starlink-7’s Falcon 9 booster. However, that second ship has been extensively upgraded and will likely take several weeks of sea trials before it can be declared ready for its first East Coast rocket recovery attempt.
For each drone ship booster landing, it takes at least a week for the ship to be towed several hundred miles downrange to the recovery zone and at least as long to return to port. Add in the time required to safe and secure a landed Falcon 9 or Heavy booster, navigate sea states to prevent damage to – or the outright loss of – that booster, and the work needed to safely lift it off the drone ship’s deck onto dry land and it can easily be 9-10 days before a drone ship is ready for another landing.
At the same time, SpaceX’s turnaround record is about eight days between booster landings. Had SpaceX persevered and attempted to launch Starlink-7 on May 19th and Crew Dragon’s inaugural astronaut launch on May 27th, it’s possible that things would have worked out, with both booster landings occurring on schedule on the same drone ship. However, given just how much of a priority Crew Dragon Demo-2 is compared to an internal Starlink launch and a tropical storm threatening to delay Starlink-7’s launch and landing even further, SpaceX clearly decided that it just wasn’t worth the risk.
Given the extraordinary importance of Demo-2, set to be the first time the United States has launched its own astronauts into orbit in almost nine years, it’s not exactly surprising that SpaceX has chosen conservatism this time around and prioritized its inaugural NASA astronaut launch. According to Spaceflight Now, the Crew Dragon capsule assigned to SpaceX’s inaugural NASA astronaut launch – pictured above – actually joined the new Falcon 9 rocket that will launch it at Pad 39A on May 15th. Now fully fueled with liquid hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide, the spacecraft could be mated with Falcon 9’s upper stage at any moment (if it hasn’t been already).
Once fully assembled, Falcon 9 booster B1058, a new Falcon 9 upper stage, Crew Dragon capsule C206, and an expendable trunk section will be rolled horizontally out to Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Pad 39A to perform a crucial pre-launch static fire test. Rollout and static fire operations could begin at any point within the next few days. It remains to be seen whether drone ship OCISLY will remain in the Atlantic Ocean or head back to Port Canaveral before departing again to catch booster B1058.
Elon Musk has acknowledged that early discussions with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) could bring the company into his ambitious Terafab semiconductor project, signaling a possible partnership with the world’s leading contract chipmaker.
Musk confirmed that early talks are underway, but as of right now, they are “just discussions.” There is no confirmation of a deal nor dismissal of the possibility of one, leaving open the prospect of one of the largest advanced-chip collaborations under discussion in the U.S.
@wholemars Just discussions, but something may come of it
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 3, 2026
The report that speculated on potential discussions between Terafab and TSMC comes from Tim Culpan, who outlined a few ways the collaboration could operate. One is TSMC using the project as an “anchor customer” for future facilities in Texas, potentially contributing process expertise, operational know-how, or capacity while Terafab provides capital, long-term purchase commitments, or both.
Tesla and SpaceX jointly developed the Terafab project, with Intel already participating on the tech side. Elon Musk announced the project in March, and it intends to produce more than one terawatt of AI compute capacity annually once fully built.
Company statements place the first phase at approximately $16.8 billion in cost, with later filings pointing to a total that could reach well into the tens of billions across multiple stages.
Intel joined the effort in April 2026 and is expected to supply its 14A manufacturing process for the full-scale plant.
Musk has said existing suppliers, including Samsung and TSMC, remain important for near-term needs; Tesla already has production arrangements with Samsung for AI5 and AI6 chips, but that future demand from Optimus robots, Cybercab vehicles, and planned space-based data centers will eventually exceed what the global industry can currently deliver.
Terafab is positioned as the long-term answer to that projected shortfall, and Tesla did something similar during COVID to avoid a chip shortage. This is just a much larger-scale solution.
If the partnership were to materialize, it would add TSMC’s industry-leading strategies to a project that already combines Tesla’s and SpaceX’s capital and offtake with Intel’s process technology. For now, the only public confirmation is Musk’s brief acknowledgement that conversations are occurring.
Tesla’s early strategy for charging units operating within its Robotaxi fleet reveals that the company surely has not lost any of that scrappy DNA that took it from an unlikely success story to the most valuable carmaker in the world.
An observer at a Tesla Supercharger in Austin spotted ten total Robotaxi vehicles arrive: one Cybercab and nine Model Y units. A Tesla employee was waiting at the lot and allowed each unit to park itself; every car that arrived had nobody in it.
Tesla wins FCC approval for wireless Cybercab charging system
The Tesla employee would walk around and plug each car in, adjusting the parking if needed:
So look at what I found. This is how Tesla charges unsupervised robotaxis at a public supercharger. Here is a driverless Cybercab showing up with no one in it. There are 9 other Model Ys that showed up too. A Tesla employee is walking around and plugging each of them in. She also moves the cars if they are not positioned well enough to charge. I love this process. One person charges multiple robotaxis at once
— Abhimanyu Yadav (@WorldlyReviewer) October 3, 2026
It’s a very interesting strategy, but extremely understandable at this early point in the Robotaxi program. It’s only been out for about 15 months, and Cybercab just entered the fleet in early September.
On top of that, Tesla is still working tirelessly on its wireless charging apparatus, and a new patent was just published regarding that product last week.
However, this is just another example of how Tesla still has plenty of that scrappy DNA leftover from the “production hell” days, when CEO Elon Musk slept on the floor of the factory, employees were working crazy hours, Tesla was building Sprung Structures to build cars in, and the company was tiptoeing on the brink of bankruptcy.
@Teslarati Sheer magnitude of the entire production system is hard to appreciate. Almost every element of production is >75% automated. Only wire harnesses & general assembly, which are <10% of production costs, are primarily manual.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 12, 2020
For now, Tesla is utilizing a simple system for recharging its ride-hailing vehicles, and that is a Tesla employee doing it manually until another solution presents itself. Sure, it’s not the most high-tech thing, and it certainly is not what people might have expected at this point in time, but it works, and it’s keeping the entire suite running.
Tesla is expanding its Robotaxi service hours by pushing the time back by one hour, keeping the ride-hailing service operational until 11 p.m., one hour later than previously.
CEO Elon Musk confirmed the change and offered a specific reason the expansion has been gradual: the system still needs to reliably avoid small pets that are difficult to see after dark, as they commonly blend into the color of the road, especially when they’re grey.
The latest adjustment restores only a fraction of the operating window the service once held. When paid Robotaxi rides began in Austin on June 22, 2025, vehicles ran from 6 a.m. to midnight.
In September 2025, Tesla lengthened the day to a 2 a.m. close, producing a 20-hour window that stayed in place for most of the following year. By early August of this year, the cutoff had already been pulled back; an August 26 update formalized hours of 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. across Austin and several other markets.
The October move to 11 p.m. therefore leaves the Austin day one hour shorter than the original launch schedule and three hours shorter than the 2025 peak.
Musk addressed the constraint directly after the announcement. “The main thing we’re trying to solve is making sure that we don’t run over pets when they’re hard to see at night,” he wrote. “Literally trying to avoid grey kittens on grey tarmac in the dark.”
Robotaxi operating hours moved from 10pm to 11pm.
The main thing we’re trying to solve is making sure that we don’t run over pets when they’re hard to see at night. Literally trying to avoid grey kittens on grey tarmac in the dark.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 3, 2026
The example points to a low-contrast perception problem in which a small animal can blend into the road surface under limited lighting.
Tesla’s vehicles rely on cameras and neural-network processing rather than lidar; Musk has previously argued that advanced vision software can extract useful information even in low light by analyzing photon counts, but the pet-detection case remains the stated limiter in later hours.
The modest schedule change arrives alongside faster growth in the purpose-built Cybercab fleet. Texas registration data tracked by observers showed the Austin Cybercab count rising sharply in recent weeks, reaching 169 vehicles after more than 100 were added in a short span.
Tesla has indicated that a broader shift toward 24-hour operation is tied to the upcoming FSD v15 software release expected this month on Robotaxi vehicles. Until that capability is validated for the edge cases Musk described, the company continues to add service time incrementally rather than jumping straight to overnight coverage.
The one-hour extension gives Austin riders a later option for evening trips while the underlying detection work continues.
Elon Musk teases TSMC as potential Terafab partner
Tesla reveals early Robotaxi charging strategy, showing scrappy DNA
