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SpaceX fires up rocket for second NASA spacecraft launch in two weeks
SpaceX says it has successfully static fired Falcon 9 ahead of the company’s second scientific NASA spacecraft launch in just two weeks.
On November 24th, SpaceX successfully launched the small Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft, marking Falcon 9’s first direct interplanetary launch and the rocket’s first flight-proven mission for NASA’s Launch Service Program (LSP). Now, as early as 1am EST (06:00 UTC) on Thursday, December 9th, SpaceX is on track to launch an even tinier NASA spacecraft known as the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer or IXPE. A telescope designed to survey some of the most extreme environments in the known universe, IXPE was originally meant to launch on the small but expensive and oft-delayed Pegasus XL rocket and weighs about 325 kilograms (720 lb) as a result.
Instead, in mid-2019, SpaceX effectively stole NASA’s IXPE launch contract out from under Orbital ATK in the midst of chronic delays of a different Pegasus XL NASA mission, bidding just over $50 million to launch the smallsat on Falcon 9. Some two years behind schedule when it finally completed the mission, Pegasus XL ultimately launched NASA’s similarly small ICON spacecraft in October 2019 for the equivalent of ~$66 million in 2021
In other words, SpaceX is charging NASA less than Orbital ATK charged to launch ICON on a rocket capable of delivering 600 kg (~1300 lb) to low Earth orbit (LEO) to launch IXPE on a rocket capable of launching about 16,000 kg (~35,000 lb) to the same orbit. Even then, despite Falcon 9’s comparatively dirt-cheap pricing relative to the performance it offers, the IXPE launch should still be profitable for SpaceX. In the recent past, CEO Elon Musk and a few other executives have indicated that the cost to SpaceX to launch a flight-proven Falcon 9 is between $15 million and $28 million depending on how costs are measured.
That is to say that even at $50M, SpaceX has plenty of breathing room to drop launch costs even further if it ever runs into actual competitive pressure. Since the first booster recovery in December 2015 and the first booster reuse in March 2017, Falcon 9 is still the world’s only reusable orbital-class rocket. IXPE is the latest in a line of NASA missions to benefit from SpaceX’s unprecedented private expertise and the company has assigned Falcon 9 booster B1061 to launch the ~$140M spacecraft.
The booster has currently launched eight astronauts, three Dragons, and one large geostationary communications satellite in its four-launch, 13-month career and IXPE will be the booster’s fifth spaceflight and orbital-class launch since November 2020. It will also be the smallest dedicated payload a Falcon 9 rocket has ever launched by a large margin, making for a very empty payload fairing at liftoff.
On December 4th, SpaceX successfully performed a launch rehearsal, fully fueling Falcon 9 B1061 and a new upper stage and briefly firing up the booster’s nine Merlin 1D engines to verify that the vehicle is ready for flight. The company has since brought Falcon 9 horizontal and rolled it back into Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Pad 39A’s main hangar, where the rocket’s payload fairing – containing IXPE – will be attached to the rest of the stack. IXPE will be SpaceX’s 28th launch in 2021 (a new record) and is the second of four or five East Coast Falcon 9 launches planned this December.
Read more about the IXPE spacecraft and its mission to observe black holes, dead stars, and other bizarre phenomena here.
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In a new note to investors on Tuesday, Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Percoco said that Tesla has one big financial question to answer for investors regarding its Robotaxi rollout, Full Self-Driving software, and Optimus.
Percoco said in the note that, for the most part, investors are still very positive about the direction the company is headed. However, there are some things the firm would like to see, and they have to do with financials.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla bulls are more than convinced that the company’s Full Self-Driving software is proof it can develop physical AI. Financially, however, there are still some questions, especially on elevated spending, which CEO Elon Musk said would occur as the company works to roll out Robotaxi faster and continue developing its Optimus robot.
The latter two are where Tesla will have to prove progress to investors, as Percoco writes that both projects “will require clearer evidence that Robotaxi is scaling and more tangible Optimus proof points to support the ROI on elevated capex.”
Percoco said the second quarter earnings call did not change his long-term thesis of where Tesla is positioned in the AI race, which is out in front. However, there are concerns that weaker gross margins and higher R&D spend will stress financials, and that has “sharpened our (and investors’) focus on measurable progress across Robotaxi and Optimus.”
Additionally, Robotaxi still needs to be proven with more operation in existing cities while maintaining safety but improving how many rides it gives in any given time, he said. For Optimus, Percoco wrote that he is “still looking for evidence beyond commentary around SOP.”
Morgan Stanley put Percoco in charge of covering Tesla after long-time analyst Adam Jonas transitioned to the automotive side.
Currently, Morgan Stanley has a $415 price target on Tesla and a ‘Hold’ rating on the stock. It is trading at around $330 at the time of publication, which was 2:30 P.M. on the East Coast.
SpaceX’s massive investment in AI will make it a big winner, Argus Research said after the company’s successful earnings call last week.
The firm also upgraded shares to a Buy from Hold and set a $160 price target.
SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) is currently recovering from its heavy AI infrastructure investments, as it spent nearly $16 billion in Q2 alone. The company did this primarily by monetizing high-demand GPU compute capacity at a much faster pace than traditional data center economics would suggest.
Company CFO Bret Johnsen said that SpaceX would be able to pay back anything on new deployments within a year.
There are plenty of ways the company can do this:
Leasing excess compute capacity through contracts
SpaceX has already built Colossus and Colossus II, largely for its own model training. However, much of that capacity is already rented out to third parties. It already has major deals with Anthropic, Google, and Reflection AI. These partnerships are adding billions per month to SpaceX’s spreadsheet.
High utilization driven by industry-wide scarcity
The demand for advanced AI training and inference capacity continues to exceed what is available for use. SpaceX can fill new racks quickly after they come online, so the capital deployed converts into revenue with minimal idle time.
Additionally, management and outside observers have described the new compute capital as behaving more like a cost-of-goods-sold than traditional multi-year capex, especially because of this rapid monetization pattern.
Capacity has already scaled from ~0.4 GW a year to 1.4 GW annually by the end of Q2. There are targets of more than 2 GW by year-end.
High incremental margins on the rental business once capacity is online
GPU cloud providers often operate at strong gross margins. SpaceX can monetize capacity that was already partially built or can be added efficiently. This means that incremental EBITDA margins on the rental revenue are usually high. This accelerates cash recovery relative to the gross capital outlay.
Parallel monetization of its own AI software and applications
Beyond pure infrastructure rental, SpaceX also generates revenue from Grok through subscriptions and usage, from X through ads, data, and other related services, enterprise APIs, and the planned integration of the Cursor coding tools acquisition.
These application layers ride on the same compute infrastructure and provide additional high-margin streams that could offset build-out costs. AI-segment revenue overall rose sharply to about $2.6 billion in Q2, according to Motley Fool. This was driven primarily by the infrastructure contracts, but the software side is also partially responsible.
Efficient, large-scale deployment and vertical integration advantages
SpaceX has emphasized the rapid construction of power and cooling infrastructure and favorable cost-per-megawatt economics relative to industry benchmarks in some disclosures.
Combined with its ability to scale capacity aggressively and the fact that many contracts start generating revenue within months of capacity coming online, the effective payback compresses dramatically compared with more conventional multi-year data-center projects.
SpaceX’s dominant near-term recovery path will turn the AI clusters into a hyperscale-style compute rental business for other leading AI companies while still using a portion for internal models.
Tesla headlights have caused a recall of over 20,000 of the company’s two most popular vehicles, the Model 3 and Model Y, due to the low-beam bulb exceeding the maximum allowed intensity according to federal standards.
Tesla initiated the recall with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) this morning, stating that the low-beam output “exceeds the maximum allowed intensity in the outer upper-right and outer upper-left areas of the 10U and 90U zone, as prescribed in FMVSS No. 108.”
Tesla sourced the impacted headlights from Marelli Automotive Lighting, a Mexico-based company. The recall impacts 2020-2023 Model Y vehicles and 2017-2023 Model 3 vehicles. It is estimated that every VIN in this recall is impacted by the defect.
🚨 Tesla is recalling 20,349 2020-23 Model Y vehicles and 2017-23 Model 3 vehicles due to an excessively bright headlamp low beam.
Currently, there is no remedy plan in place, as it is still being developed. pic.twitter.com/y34cIO2U0B
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 11, 2026
Typically, Tesla would remedy recalls of this nature through an Over-the-Air software update, which has been a major focus of criticism by the company and its supporters because the NHTSA still refers to it as a “recall,” even though it requires no action by the vehicle owner. The fix is shipped over the internet and downloaded to the car.
However, there appears to be a potentially different solution for this problem. Tesla has not developed a remedy for this issue, so it could potentially be on the way. The big issue appears to be the fact that these recalled lamps are out of production, and this is an old body style for both vehicles. The headlights and front-end designs are completely different.
Tesla switched to another supplier when the affected headlight design was discontinued. It plans to begin notifying owners of their remedy options by September 15.
Tesla filed a petition protesting the recall to fix the vehicles’ headlight issue, but the NHTSA denied it. Now, Tesla will come up with a solution to fix it.
Tesla has one big financial question to answer for investors: Morgan Stanley
SpaceX AI investment gamble will make it a big winner, firm says
