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SpaceX, NASA hold press conference, historic astronaut launch clears final hurdles before readiness
With less than a month to go before the historic first crewed flight – and final human rating certification test – of the SpaceX Crew Dragon Demonstration 2 mission, NASA and SpaceX jointly held a full day of pre-mission press conferences on Friday, May 1st. Throughout the day many minor, but crucial, details were revealed.
Two primary technical concerns remained prior to Crew Dragon’s debut astronaut mission- the final drop test of the Crew Dragon Mark III parachutes and NASA’s clearance of SpaceX’s resolution of an in-flight engine-out anomaly suffered during the ascent phase of a previous Starlink mission.
Falcon 9 Merlin 1D engine-out anomaly
During the March 18th Starlink launch of a four-time flown Falcon 9 first-stage booster, a brief anomalous engine flare was witnessed during the ascent. Although ultimately successful in the deployment of the stack of 60 satellites, the first-stage booster failed to stick the landing aboard the autonomous spaceport drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You” resulting in a total loss. SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk, responded to comments posted to Twitter confirming the in-flight, early shutdown anomaly of one of the nine Merlin 1D engines.
Musk provided assurance that a thorough investigation would be conducted by SpaceX prior to any return to flight. Musk also noted that the first-ever engine failure of a Merlin 1D engine proved its robustness and the importance of redundancy provided by the other eight engines.
Just prior to the next Starlink mission on April 22nd marking a recycled Falcon 9 booster’s return to flight, Musk once again took to Twitter to provide insight into the early shutdown, in-flight anomaly. Musk stated that a small amount of isopropyl alcohol, used for cleaning the Merlin 1D engines, had been trapped in a sensor dead leg – later clarified as “an area it couldn’t float through” by SpaceX webcast host Lauren Lyons – and was ignited during flight causing the early shutdown of one Merlin 1D engine.
As identified during the April 22nd launch broadcast, out of an abundance of caution SpaceX decided to forgo that cleaning process for the April 22nd mission. However, no information was divulged regarding NASA’s response to either the anomaly or the resolution. Ultimately, the first stage Falcon 9 booster of the Starlink-6 performed flawlessly and even managed to stick the landing aboard the awaiting drone ship.
During Friday’s Commercial Crew and International Space Station overview news conference, a question regarding NASA’s response to the anomaly posed by Jeff Foust – reporter for SpaceNews.com – was directed to NASA’s Commercial Crew Program program manager, Kathy Lueders. She was asked to expand on the final technical constraints remaining prior to the launch of the Crew Dragon DM-2. Lueders responded positively stating that NASA had “reviewed the anomaly resolution…and cleared the engines on our launch vehicle” referring to the Falcon 9 booster slated to support DM-2, noting that the engine-out issue had been satisfactorily resolved and is now behind them.
One more drop test
Early in Friday’s Commercial Crew and International Space Station overview news conference – and later confirmed during remarks made by Lueders – SpaceX Chief Operating Officer, Gwynne Shotwell noted that a final 27th drop test of the Crew Dragon Mk III parachutes was scheduled to be completed later in the day. During a later Q&A interview with the crew of DM-2 – NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley – Hurley commented that the final drop test had begun, however, he wasn’t quite sure if it had been completed successfully or not.
Just after the closing remarks of the crew Q&A interview, SpaceX announced via social media the successful completion of the 27th and final drop test of the all-important Mk III parachutes.
The May 1st final parachute drop test followed a worrisome stumble of the parachute program on March 24th. SpaceX announced that a Crew Dragon test article had become unstable forcing the helicopter pilot to prematurely release the test article out of an abundance of caution to maintain the safety of the helicopter crew. SpaceX noted that “while the test article was lost, this was not a failure of the parachute system and most importantly no one was injured.”
The confirmation of the successful May 1st drop test and the resolution of the Merlin 1D engine anomaly close out one of the final chapters of prerequisites prior to returning human spaceflight to American soil.
The only hurdles that remain to be cleared are various agency-level readiness reviews. According to Lueders, a SpaceX Flight Readiness Review is tentatively scheduled for Friday, May 8th followed by a NASA Flight Readiness Review on May 11th. Just one week ahead of launch, the final joint Launch Readiness Review is tentatively scheduled to be completed Wednesday, May 20th at which point DM-2 will bring crewed astronaut spaceflight back to American soil for the first time in nearly a decade.
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Elon Musk
Tesla owners surpass 8 billion miles driven on FSD Supervised
Tesla shared the milestone as adoption of the system accelerates across several markets.
Tesla owners have now driven more than 8 billion miles using Full Self-Driving Supervised, as per a new update from the electric vehicle maker’s official X account.
Tesla shared the milestone as adoption of the system accelerates across several markets.
“Tesla owners have now driven >8 billion miles on FSD Supervised,” the company wrote in its post on X. Tesla also included a graphic showing FSD Supervised’s miles driven before a collision, which far exceeds that of the United States average.
The growth curve of FSD Supervised’s cumulative miles over the past five years has been notable. As noted in data shared by Tesla watcher Sawyer Merritt, annual FSD (Supervised) miles have increased from roughly 6 million in 2021 to 80 million in 2022, 670 million in 2023, 2.25 billion in 2024, and 4.25 billion in 2025. In just the first 50 days of 2026, Tesla owners logged another 1 billion miles.
At the current pace, the fleet is trending towards hitting about 10 billion FSD Supervised miles this year. The increase has been driven by Tesla’s growing vehicle fleet, periodic free trials, and expanding Robotaxi operations, among others.
Tesla also recently updated the safety data for FSD Supervised on its website, covering North America across all road types over the latest 12-month period.
As per Tesla’s figures, vehicles operating with FSD Supervised engaged recorded one major collision every 5,300,676 miles. In comparison, Teslas driven manually with Active Safety systems recorded one major collision every 2,175,763 miles, while Teslas driven manually without Active Safety recorded one major collision every 855,132 miles. The U.S. average during the same period was one major collision every 660,164 miles.
During the measured period, Tesla reported 830 total major collisions with FSD (Supervised) engaged, compared to 16,131 collisions for Teslas driven manually with Active Safety and 250 collisions for Teslas driven manually without Active Safety. Total miles logged exceeded 4.39 billion miles for FSD (Supervised) during the same timeframe.
Elon Musk
The Boring Company’s Music City Loop gains unanimous approval
After eight months of negotiations, MNAA board members voted unanimously on Feb. 18 to move forward with the project.
The Metro Nashville Airport Authority (MNAA) has approved a 40-year agreement with Elon Musk’s The Boring Company to build the Music City Loop, a tunnel system linking Nashville International Airport to downtown.
After eight months of negotiations, MNAA board members voted unanimously on Feb. 18 to move forward with the project. Under the terms, The Boring Company will pay the airport authority an annual $300,000 licensing fee for the use of roughly 933,000 square feet of airport property, with a 3% annual increase.
Over 40 years, that totals to approximately $34 million, with two optional five-year extensions that could extend the term to 50 years, as per a report from The Tennesean.
The Boring Company celebrated the Music City Loop’s approval in a post on its official X account. “The Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority has unanimously (7-0) approved a Music City Loop connection/station. Thanks so much to @Fly_Nashville for the great partnership,” the tunneling startup wrote in its post.
Once operational, the Music City Loop is expected to generate a $5 fee per airport pickup and drop-off, similar to rideshare charges. Airport officials estimate more than $300 million in operational revenue over the agreement’s duration, though this projection is deemed conservative.
“This is a significant benefit to the airport authority because we’re receiving a new way for our passengers to arrive downtown at zero capital investment from us. We don’t have to fund the operations and maintenance of that. TBC, The Boring Co., will do that for us,” MNAA President and CEO Doug Kreulen said.
The project has drawn both backing and criticism. Business leaders cited economic benefits and improved mobility between downtown and the airport. “Hospitality isn’t just an amenity. It’s an economic engine,” Strategic Hospitality’s Max Goldberg said.
Opponents, including state lawmakers, raised questions about environmental impacts, worker safety, and long-term risks. Sen. Heidi Campbell said, “Safety depends on rules applied evenly without exception… You’re not just evaluating a tunnel. You’re evaluating a risk, structural risk, legal risk, reputational risk and financial risk.”
Elon Musk
Tesla announces crazy new Full Self-Driving milestone
The number of miles traveled has contextual significance for two reasons: one being the milestone itself, and another being Tesla’s continuing progress toward 10 billion miles of training data to achieve what CEO Elon Musk says will be the threshold needed to achieve unsupervised self-driving.
Tesla has announced a crazy new Full Self-Driving milestone, as it has officially confirmed drivers have surpassed over 8 billion miles traveled using the Full Self-Driving (Supervised) suite for semi-autonomous travel.
The FSD (Supervised) suite is one of the most robust on the market, and is among the safest from a data perspective available to the public.
On Wednesday, Tesla confirmed in a post on X that it has officially surpassed the 8 billion-mile mark, just a few months after reaching 7 billion cumulative miles, which was announced on December 27, 2025.
Tesla owners have now driven >8 billion miles on FSD Supervisedhttps://t.co/0d66ihRQTa pic.twitter.com/TXz9DqOQ8q
— Tesla (@Tesla) February 18, 2026
The number of miles traveled has contextual significance for two reasons: one being the milestone itself, and another being Tesla’s continuing progress toward 10 billion miles of training data to achieve what CEO Elon Musk says will be the threshold needed to achieve unsupervised self-driving.
The milestone itself is significant, especially considering Tesla has continued to gain valuable data from every mile traveled. However, the pace at which it is gathering these miles is getting faster.
Secondly, in January, Musk said the company would need “roughly 10 billion miles of training data” to achieve safe and unsupervised self-driving. “Reality has a super long tail of complexity,” Musk said.
Training data primarily means the fleet’s accumulated real-world miles that Tesla uses to train and improve its end-to-end AI models. This data captures the “long tail” — extremely rare, complex, or unpredictable situations that simulations alone cannot fully replicate at scale.
This is not the same as the total miles driven on Full Self-Driving, which is the 8 billion miles milestone that is being celebrated here.
The FSD-supervised miles contribute heavily to the training data, but the 10 billion figure is an estimate of the cumulative real-world exposure needed overall to push the system to human-level reliability.
Tesla owners surpass 8 billion miles driven on FSD Supervised
The Boring Company’s Music City Loop gains unanimous approval
