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SpaceX, NASA batten down the hatches as another storm approaches Florida
SpaceX, NASA, and the rest of the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) are doing what they can to prepare for Tropical Storm Nicole’s imminent arrival.
The somewhat unexpected storm grew quickly in recent days and has become a system that could at least partially threaten the Space Coast and its tenants. After the likelihood of favorable weather conditions dropped to just 20% on November 7th, SpaceX announced later the same day that it would delay its next Falcon 9 launch from November 8th to no earlier than (NET) November 12th. Increasingly tight scheduling of one of SpaceX’s two Florida pads will likely trigger delays for at least two or three more November launches, magnifying the storm’s immediate impact.
In comparison, the situation facing NASA could become more serious. On November 4th, for the fourth time since April 2022, NASA rolled its first Space Launch System (SLS) rocket to KSC’s LC-39B pad for a third launch attempt. Due to a combination of the storm’s quick growth and the nature of the SLS rocket, the design of which was dictated more by political expediency than rational engineering, the agency was reluctant to roll the rocket back to shelter. By the time it was clear that Nicole would impact Cape Canaveral, it was too late for NASA to complete the multi-day rollback process.
In late September, Hurricane Ian created a similar situation. The threat of the tail-end of the storm bringing winds higher than the SLS rocket is rated to survive forced NASA to abandon a third launch attempt and instead roll SLS back to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), which is rated to survive even a Category 5 hurricane. According to NASA, SLS is designed to withstand wind gusts as high as 137 km/h (85 mph). Even then, some senior officials were brazenly reluctant to stand down. Every round trip to and from the VAB guarantees weeks of delays before the next possible launch attempt. Additionally, while NASA has refused to offer more context, each crawler ride seemingly takes a toll on the SLS rocket, meaning that the vehicle can only handle a limited number of rollbacks before unspecified issues begin to arise.
As a result, even though high winds could apparently damage the first SLS rocket and orbit-capable Orion spacecraft, which represent 10-15 years of work and would cost a minimum of $4.1 billion to replace, NASA was nearly willing to play chicken with a hurricane. Ultimately, someone in the agency saw reason and took the threat seriously enough to return the rocket to the safety of the VAB. But just six weeks later, with no evidence that NASA seriously considered a rollback before it was too late, SLS is stuck at Pad 39B while an increasingly threatening tropical storm – verging on a Category 1 hurricane – approaches the Space Coast.
Because the rollback process (which takes about a day) requires days of preparation, NASA would have had to decide to return SLS to the VAB days in advance. Instead, even though NASA was already aware that a storm system was developing, the agency decided to roll the rocket out of the VAB to LC-39B late on November 3rd. Had NASA merely delayed rollout by a few days to allow forecasts of the storm system to become more confident, it’s unlikely that it would have moved forward with its rollout plans as the storm’s predicted impact worsened.
When Hurricane Ian threatened KSC, NASA decided to roll SLS back to the VAB after the odds of sustained hurricane-force winds grew to 6%. That makes NASA’s decision to roll SLS to the pad when it had a forecast showing a 4% chance of similar winds even stranger.
SLS will be forced to weather the storm while sitting unprotected at the launch pad. As of November 7th, NOAA models predicted a 7% chance of hurricane-force winds at Kennedy Space Center. The odds increased to 15% 12 hours later – briefly equivalent to Russian roulette. The latest forecast has dropped to a 10% chance of sustained wind speeds of 120 km/h (75 mph) or higher. It’s unclear what the SLS rocket’s tolerance for sustained winds is, but it’s likely lower than its tolerance for gusts of up to 85 mph.
With any luck, Nicole will fall on the right side of NASA’s gamble. In the meantime, to “provide sufficient logistical time to get back into launch status following the storm,” NASA has delayed its third SLS launch attempt from November 14th to November 16th. The bulk of Nicole’s impact will begin to be felt at KSC as early as November 9th and should last for several days.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk and Tesla AI Director share insights after empty driver seat Robotaxi rides
The executives’ unoccupied tests hint at the rapid progress of Tesla’s unsupervised Robotaxi efforts.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk and AI Director Ashok Elluswamy celebrated Christmas Eve by sharing personal experiences with Robotaxi vehicles that had no safety monitor or occupant in the driver’s seat. Musk described the system’s “perfect driving” around Austin, while Elluswamy posted video from the back seat, calling it “an amazing experience.”
The executives’ unoccupied tests hint at the rapid progress of Tesla’s unsupervised Robotaxi efforts.
Elon and Ashok’s firsthand Robotaxi insights
Prior to Musk and the Tesla AI Director’s posts, sightings of unmanned Teslas navigating public roads were widely shared on social media. One such vehicle was spotted in Austin, Texas, which Elon Musk acknowleged by stating that “Testing is underway with no occupants in the car.”
Based on his Christmas Eve post, Musk seemed to have tested an unmanned Tesla himself. “A Tesla with no safety monitor in the car and me sitting in the passenger seat took me all around Austin on Sunday with perfect driving,” Musk wrote in his post.
Elluswamy responded with a 2-minute video showing himself in the rear of an unmanned Tesla. The video featured the vehicle’s empty front seats, as well as its smooth handling through real-world traffic. He captioned his video with the words, “It’s an amazing experience!”
Towards Unsupervised operations
During an xAI Hackathon earlier this month, Elon Musk mentioned that Tesla owed be removing Safety Monitors from its Robotaxis in Austin in just three weeks. “Unsupervised is pretty much solved at this point. So there will be Tesla Robotaxis operating in Austin with no one in them. Not even anyone in the passenger seat in about three weeks,” he said. Musk echoed similar estimates at the 2025 Annual Shareholder Meeting and the Q3 2025 earnings call.
Considering the insights that were posted Musk and Elluswamy, it does appear that Tesla is working hard towards operating its Robotaxis with no safety monitors. This is quite impressive considering that the service was launched just earlier this year.
Elon Musk
Starlink passes 9 million active customers just weeks after hitting 8 million
The milestone highlights the accelerating growth of Starlink, which has now been adding over 20,000 new users per day.
SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service has continued its rapid global expansion, surpassing 9 million active customers just weeks after crossing the 8 million mark.
The milestone highlights the accelerating growth of Starlink, which has now been adding over 20,000 new users per day.
9 million customers
In a post on X, SpaceX stated that Starlink now serves over 9 million active users across 155 countries, territories, and markets. The company reached 8 million customers in early November, meaning it added roughly 1 million subscribers in under seven weeks, or about 21,275 new users on average per day.
“Starlink is connecting more than 9M active customers with high-speed internet across 155 countries, territories, and many other markets,” Starlink wrote in a post on its official X account. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell also celebrated the milestone on X. “A huge thank you to all of our customers and congrats to the Starlink team for such an incredible product,” she wrote.
That growth rate reflects both rising demand for broadband in underserved regions and Starlink’s expanding satellite constellation, which now includes more than 9,000 low-Earth-orbit satellites designed to deliver high-speed, low-latency internet worldwide.
Starlink’s momentum
Starlink’s momentum has been building up. SpaceX reported 4.6 million Starlink customers in December 2024, followed by 7 million by August 2025, and 8 million customers in November. Independent data also suggests Starlink usage is rising sharply, with Cloudflare reporting that global web traffic from Starlink users more than doubled in 2025, as noted in an Insider report.
Starlink’s momentum is increasingly tied to SpaceX’s broader financial outlook. Elon Musk has said the satellite network is “by far” the company’s largest revenue driver, and reports suggest SpaceX may be positioning itself for an initial public offering as soon as next year, with valuations estimated as high as $1.5 trillion. Musk has also suggested in the past that Starlink could have its own IPO in the future.
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NVIDIA Director of Robotics: Tesla FSD v14 is the first AI to pass the “Physical Turing Test”
After testing FSD v14, Fan stated that his experience with FSD felt magical at first, but it soon started to feel like a routine.
NVIDIA Director of Robotics Jim Fan has praised Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14 as the first AI to pass what he described as a “Physical Turing Test.”
After testing FSD v14, Fan stated that his experience with FSD felt magical at first, but it soon started to feel like a routine. And just like smartphones today, removing it now would “actively hurt.”
Jim Fan’s hands-on FSD v14 impressions
Fan, a leading researcher in embodied AI who is currently solving Physical AI at NVIDIA and spearheading the company’s Project GR00T initiative, noted that he actually was late to the Tesla game. He was, however, one of the first to try out FSD v14.
“I was very late to own a Tesla but among the earliest to try out FSD v14. It’s perhaps the first time I experience an AI that passes the Physical Turing Test: after a long day at work, you press a button, lay back, and couldn’t tell if a neural net or a human drove you home,” Fan wrote in a post on X.
Fan added: “Despite knowing exactly how robot learning works, I still find it magical watching the steering wheel turn by itself. First it feels surreal, next it becomes routine. Then, like the smartphone, taking it away actively hurts. This is how humanity gets rewired and glued to god-like technologies.”
The Physical Turing Test
The original Turing Test was conceived by Alan Turing in 1950, and it was aimed at determining if a machine could exhibit behavior that is equivalent to or indistinguishable from a human. By focusing on text-based conversations, the original Turing Test set a high bar for natural language processing and machine learning.
This test has been passed by today’s large language models. However, the capability to converse in a humanlike manner is a completely different challenge from performing real-world problem-solving or physical interactions. Thus, Fan introduced the Physical Turing Test, which challenges AI systems to demonstrate intelligence through physical actions.
Based on Fan’s comments, Tesla has demonstrated these intelligent physical actions with FSD v14. Elon Musk agreed with the NVIDIA executive, stating in a post on X that with FSD v14, “you can sense the sentience maturing.” Musk also praised Tesla AI, calling it the best “real-world AI” today.
Elon Musk and Tesla AI Director share insights after empty driver seat Robotaxi rides
Starlink passes 9 million active customers just weeks after hitting 8 million
