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SpaceX wants to boost Hubble Space Telescope’s orbit with Dragon spacecraft
NASA and SpaceX have signed a Space Act Agreement to study the feasibility of boosting the orbit of the iconic Hubble Space Telescope, potentially ensuring that the highly successful observatory will remain operable well into the middle of this century.
Thanks to three servicing missions completed in the 1990s and 2000s, Hubble remains highly productive more than 32 years after its launch. NASA believes that that will remain the case until at least the late 2020s or 2030s. However, many components of the telescope have spent decades in the unforgiving environment of space, raising unsurprising concerns about their longevity.
More importantly, the inexorable march of time, gravity, and Earth’s atmosphere mean that Hubble is guaranteed to eventually reenter that atmosphere and burn up without intervention. That demise could come as early as the mid-2030s, but SpaceX thinks it could help extend the telescope’s viability into the 2050s.
NASA and SpaceX will spend the next six or so months discussing whether it’s possible to use Dragon to boost the telescope’s orbit back to a nominal 600 kilometers (~372 mi). Both parties say that the agreement will also investigate the possibility of Dragon servicing missions, which could be even more significant for Hubble. While a boost that large would likely keep it in orbit for decades to come, there’s no guarantee the telescope would remain functional to take full advantage of the extra time it would have.
During the fifth and final Space Shuttle servicing mission, NASA astronauts installed a docking adapter (Soft Capture Mechanism) on the Hubble Telescope. Although no concrete plans existed for any additional servicing missions, the forward-facing installation of that adapter has made this feasibility study possible.
In theory, that docking adapter could make boosting Hubble’s orbit far more feasible, safe, and affordable than a Shuttle-style crewed servicing mission. SpaceX’s Cargo Dragon 2 spacecraft has the same autonomous docking capabilities its crewed sibling has and costs less to launch and operate, so it’s not inconceivable that an uncrewed Dragon could autonomously dock with Hubble and boost its orbit. Jessica Jensen, SpaceX’s Vice President of Customer Operations and Integration, says that an uncrewed option will be studied alongside crewed servicing and orbit-boost alternatives.
According to Patrick Crouse, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope project manager, without a reboost, NASA would need to consider a separate mission to ensure a controlled deorbit of the massive telescope by “the end of the decade.” The study’s targeted boost of “40 to 70 kilometers,” meanwhile, could extend the longevity of Hubble’s orbit by “15 to 20 years,” or well into the 2050s. But as a feasibility study, there’s a chance that it will conclude that using Dragon – crewed or uncrewed – to boost or service HST isn’t feasible. Ordinarily, the most likely outcome would be a conclusion that the project is feasible from a technical perspective but out of reach from a financial perspective.
Enter billionaire and private astronaut Jared Isaacman, who was directly involved in the September 29th press conference. In September 2021, Isaacman – alongside four others – became the first all-private astronaut mission in history to reach orbit. After the spectacular success of Inspiration4, Isaacman’s relationship with SpaceX has become even closer. In early 2022, the pair announced a new endeavor – the Polaris Program – that intends to conduct at least two or three more private astronaut launches over the next few years.
Expanding the scope of their joint ambitions, the Polaris Program intends to debut the world’s first privately developed EVA spacesuit, test spacecraft-to-spacecraft communications using Starlink’s network of space lasers, and culminate in the first crewed launch of SpaceX’s next-generation Starship rocket. On its own, the decision to privately fund and develop an EVA suit and pursue the ability to conduct EVAs out of Crew Dragon represents a major leap forward for SpaceX and private spaceflight if realized.
But crucially, when asked about the synergies between the Polaris Program, SpaceX, and NASA, Isaacman revealed that he and SpaceX are willing to undertake a sixth Hubble servicing mission more or less pro bono, “with little or no potential cost to the government.” According to Isaacman, it’s possible that “the study could result in [a Hubble servicing mission] becoming the second [Polaris Program] mission.”
Polaris Dawn, the program’s first mission, was recently delayed from a late-2022 launch target to March 2023. The four private astronauts assigned to the mission (including Isaacman himself) recently began training for the historic private EVA, which will see two of four astronauts attempt to briefly exit their Crew Dragon spacecraft in new SpaceX-designed suits. With a targeted apogee of 1400 kilometers (~870 mi), the mission will also attempt to break the record for the highest Earth orbit reached by astronauts, and the spacewalk attempt will also occur at a record-breaking altitude of 700 kilometers (~435 mi)
Tesla Cybercab is set to launch in Austin, Texas, on September 3, as the company has officially started sending out invitations to a dedicated event it will hold in the city where its headquarters is located.
The Cybercab is Tesla’s dedicated ride-sharing vehicle: it features just two seats and has no steering wheel or pedals. It is aimed at fully autonomous passenger transport, and will operate in the Robotaxi fleet alongside the Tesla Model Y, which has been performing driverless rides for real-world passengers for more than a year.
Thank you so much @Tesla for inviting us to the Cybercab launch in Austin! 🤠 pic.twitter.com/F1rAR8zd5O
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 22, 2026
The launch of the Cybercab marks the next chapter in Tesla’s autonomy story. The company has been developing autonomous transport for years with its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) platform, which is available in any vehicle the company has built with the proper hardware and software capabilities.
Its capabilities vary by hardware and software version, but Tesla says its latest hardware version, known as AI4, can deliver full autonomy. However, future vehicles will operate with even more robust hardware packages, as Tesla will develop AI4.5 and AI5 for even more capability in its vehicles.
Following a report from The Information that surfaced earlier this week, the writing was on the wall that Tesla was set to launch Cybercab in the near term. The report stated Tesla could launch Cybercab as soon as the end of August. Tesla came close and has booked it for September 3.
The big thing with this event being scheduled is not necessarily that Tesla is launching a new vehicle, but instead that it is launching a vehicle that has no steering wheel or pedals and will operate exclusively on a self-driving program that is evidently nearing full autonomy. If the event allows vehicles to take passengers on public roads and drop them off wherever they please within the City of Austin, it will be a drastic advancement in the company’s self-driving story.
People have ridden in Cybercab previously: Tesla had the “We, Robot” event in October 2024, which allowed people to experience fully autonomous rides in a closed circuit at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank.
🚨 Ride in a Tesla Cybercab with us
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) May 11, 2025
Additionally, Tesla launched employee rides in Cybercab in July.
It’s a drastic step forward for Tesla, whose CEO, Elon Musk, has promised for years that the company would release a fully autonomous vehicle and platform capable of allowing drivers to relinquish any responsibility behind the wheel.
Elon Musk put a number on where he thinks SpaceX’s Starship program is headed by 2030, replying on X a day after President Trump signed a memo pushing the country toward 1,000 space launches and reentries a year.
The exchange started when Aaron Burnett, co-founder of propulsion startup Mach 33, posted that “1,000 launches/reentries is the goal,” quoting White House science adviser Michael Kratsios on the newly signed National Space Transportation Policy. Burnett noted that the FAA’s own bull-case forecast reached only 385 annual launches by 2030, while his firm’s conservative model already put SpaceX alone near 940. Musk responded, “We’re aiming to reach 30+ Starship launches/day in 2030, which is ~10k annualized. Still tiny numbers compared to airplane flights!”
We’re aiming to reach 30+ Starship launches/day in 2030, which is ~10k annualized.
Still tiny numbers compared to airplane flights!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 21, 2026
That figure is specific to Starship, the rocket SpaceX is still developing for orbital and lunar missions, not the Falcon 9 fleet that carries most of the company’s current launch volume. Starship has flown twice this year, a slower pace than the four and five flights SpaceX managed in 2024 and 2025. Getting from two flights a year to 30 a day is the scale of jump the new federal policy is meant to clear regulatory room for.
Trump’s memo, signed Thursday, directs agencies to identify new launch and reentry sites on federal land, including a new reentry site within 90 days, and to speed up the permitting and environmental reviews that have long slowed cadence growth. It also sets a goal of returning American astronauts to the moon by 2028 and placing initial lunar base elements by 2030, tying the launch buildout directly to NASA’s Artemis program.
SpaceX has already been pushing the FAA toward higher numbers on its own. The agency approved up to 44 annual Starship launches from Kennedy Space Center in February, on top of a 2024 review that raised the cap at Starbase in Texas to 25 a year. Those approvals cover a fraction of the 10,000 annual flights Musk is now describing, which shows how far current permitting still sits from the administration’s stated target.
The near-term test of all this is more modest. SpaceX cleared a full-duration, six-engine static fire on its next Starship vehicle this week, the last major hardware checkpoint before Flight 14, which is targeting no earlier than August 28 and is expected to attempt the vehicle’s first full orbital mission. Musk said last week that a tower catch of the upper stage is still probably months away, a reminder that the immediate roadmap remains far more incremental than the daily launch numbers he just posted.
Tesla will resolve its massive recall of nearly three million vehicles in China with stickers and a software update.
On Friday, Chinese regulators filed recall plans against Tesla, Xiaomi, Leapmotor, Xpeng, Chery, Geely, Dongfeng, Arcfox, and FAW to resolve what is essentially a carbon-copy issue throughout each of the companies’ vehicle models: emergency door release latches are simply not visible enough.
Tesla door handle saga gets its latest chapter and a big change is coming
The companies will be required to add things that will make these latches, which will open the door in the event of an emergency, more visible. Of the 7 million vehicles impacted, Tesla accounts for 2,975,910 units. More than 1.9 million of those are Model Y vehicles, with the rest, just over 970,000, being Model 3s.
To resolve the issue, Tesla is going to add warning labels to the emergency latches free of charge, and then utilize an Over-the-Air update to add a post-crash window-lowering strategy, according to CNEVpost.
This massive effort to fix the all-electric Model Y and Model 3’s emergency latch system comes just months after several probes across various markets identified the trouble some had identifying this latch. Those who had gotten involved in car accidents that stripped the vehicle of its power were not aware that every Tesla has emergency door latches.
China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) said that severe crashes that disable a vehicle’s low-voltage system could not only hinder occupants from getting out, but also make it more difficult for emergency response workers to gain entry.
SAMR is starting to tighten the regulations it has on door handles on vehicles. A new mandatory national standard will take effect for all models starting January 1, 2027, and will require all doors to be equipped with mechanical release mechanisms. This will effectively end purely electronic door handles. Models already on sale with type approval have been granted a two-year transition period, which will enable things to change until January 2029.
Tesla will launch Cybercab on September 3
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