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SpaceX’s NASA Starship contract safe for now as Blue Origin looks to Congress
Fresh off of a major contract loss during a competition to build NASA’s next crewed Moon lander, Blue Origin has begun aggressively lobbying Congress for the contract NASA didn’t give it.
Thankfully, albeit not at first, a modification has been made to an amendment first proposed by a Senator that has long pursued favorable treatment of Blue Origin that will prevent that legislation – if it passes – from unfairly interrupting the $2.9 billion contract NASA already awarded SpaceX. Announced on April 16th, that award came as a shock, effectively cementing SpaceX’s lunar Starship as both the cheapest and most technically sound proposal to return humanity to the Moon.
As such, although NASA made it clear that it would have selected two of the three competing proposals in a perfect scenario, Congress allocated just a quarter of the Human Landing System (HLS) funding NASA requested, forcing the agency between a rock and a hard place.
NASA repeatedly stated as much both before and after the decision was announced, effectively implying that the agency had learned its lesson with the Commercial Crew Program, in which it had selected two redundant providers – Boeing and SpaceX – only for Congress to systematically underfund the program for years. As a direct result of years of underfunding during an early and formative period, both providers suffered at least 2-3 years of delays, followed by another few years of more organic delays as development matured and new challenges were unsurprisingly uncovered.
Politically, NASA could never say that – effectively biting the hand that (under)feeds – out loud, but it was strongly implied in an official HLS source selection statement released to partially explain why it had chosen SpaceX and SpaceX alone. Almost instantly, both losing competitors – Blue Origin and Dynetics – filed protests with the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) filled with far more bizarre, rambling tangents than coherent legal arguments.
Unless GAO operates on a different standard than the court of law or uncovers something nefarious behind closed doors, a close reading of both partially redacted protests does not bode well for either document’s ability to sway the office’s opinion. Almost as if Blue Origin itself is aware of just how frivolous its protest really is, the company – seemingly backed by partners Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and Leidos – wasted no time lobbying Senator Maria Cantwell for an alternate avenue to get what it wants and the government money founder Jeff Bezos feels entitled to.
Cantwell represents Washington State, where both Amazon and Blue Origin are headquartered, and has frequently spoken out in support of – or personally introduced – legislation that would specifically favor Bezos’ space company. On May 12th, Cantwell introduced an amendment that would purportedly “maintain competitiveness” by forcing NASA to select a second HLS winner in addition to SpaceX. Without irony, the authorization bill also demanded that NASA make that decision within a mere 30 days.
Under those conditions, Congress would authorize $10 billion for NASA to develop and demonstrate two landers with an uncrewed and crewed Moon landing each – the original plan. Insultingly, Cantwell tacked that amendment onto an authorization bill, meaning that even if Congress were to pass the bill and the President were to sign it into law, Congress would still have to actually allocate that $10 billion in the form of a more than 10% boost to NASA’s annual budget. Historically, even if Congress were to defy all recent precedent and significantly boost NASA’s 2022 budget, there is no guarantee that that raise would be upheld for four or more years, which it would need to be for the authorization bill to be anything more than a hollow promise.
More recently, a clause was thankfully added clarifying that NASA is not allowed to “modify, terminate, or rescind” SpaceX’s HLS contract to comply with the amendment. Additionally, while still amounting to a legal gun to NASA’s head to force it to into a contract it knows it cant afford, the modification gives NASA 60 days to award a second lander contract. Based on the agency’s own selection statement, Blue Origin’s National Team would almost certainly be the recipient in the event that the bill becomes law, forcing NASA to commit more than $9 billion – instead of $2.9 billion – to the next stage of HLS development with no guarantee that its budget will be raised accordingly.
In the meantime, GAO still has to complete its reviews of Blue Origin and Dynetic’s protests and the White House has to submit its FY2022 budget request and consider adding NASA funding to its proposed jobs and infrastructure package.
For years, there have been images and videos across social media platforms that have reminded me of when I was a 15-year-old kid teased by “Xbox 720” videos on YouTube. These videos are of the supposed “Tesla Phone” that Elon Musk was secretly developing in between leading Tesla with its electric cars and SpaceX with its reusable rockets.
Would you buy a Tesla phone ? pic.twitter.com/aaTwvvIJit
— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) October 6, 2023
Although Musk has put those rumors to bed several times, it was never completely out of the realm that he could get involved in cell phones in some capacity. Think outside the box and more macro-level, though. Instead of reinventing the computer, Musk reinvented connectivity by developing Starlink with SpaceX.
It could be something similar, TD Cowen analyst Gregory Williams said in a note last week, where he hinted SpaceX could be gathering some steam to acquire T-Mobile.
Williams said it would be the “clear choice” for SpaceX if it decided to go through with a network acquisition. He also suggested AT&T.
The move would be possible through selling more of its own stock, which would help SpaceX raise the money to purchase T-Mobile, which would cost roughly $300 billion. It could be one of the moves SpaceX makes post-IPO in terms of an acquisition: it already acquired Cursor AI for $60 billion.
Other analysts, like Dan Ives of Wedbush, believe SpaceX and Tesla will eventually merge into one anyway, and that conglomeration could come as soon as this year, some have said.
The implications of SpaceX purchasing T-Mobile are massive. A combined entity would create a truly ubiquitous network: T-Mobile’s terrestrial 5G towers and Starlink’s growing constellation of Direct-to-Cell satellites. This would essentially eliminate dead zones across the U.S. and potentially globally.
SpaceX would instantly become a full-scale facilities-based carrier with satellite differentiation; a huge advantage. This would pressure AT&T and Verizon heavily.
There are also concerns like a potential reduction in long-term competition, and of course, a deal of that size would face intense scrutiny from government agencies.
The strategic fit is compelling due to the existing Starlink–T-Mobile partnership and complementary technologies (space + terrestrial). It could create a dominant integrated communications player. However, the regulatory, financial, and execution hurdles are enormous — this remains highly speculative with no indication SpaceX is actively pursuing it right now.
Tesla revealed a major new Cybercab detail in a guide it released for First Responders, showing new territory in its beliefs and intentions for the ride-hailing-focused vehicle that entered production in April.
The First Responders Guide is released to give fire departments, paramedics, and other emergency personnel the proper guidance on what to do in the event of an accident, entrapment, or other situation that would require immediate attention.
On one of the pages of the First Responders Guide, Tesla revealed a stark detail about the Cybercab, which could help personnel enter the vehicle more easily in case of an emergency.
Tesla Cybercab has one important piece that AI4 cars might need for FSD
It shows Tesla has no intention of releasing any Cybercab units that were initially proposed for ride-hailing services for the general public with any manual controls, meaning a steering wheel or pedals:
“A Cybercab equipped with steering wheel, brake pedal, and an acceleration pedal is typically an engineering or test vehicle, and operates at SAE Level 2 autonomy. Cybercab is not typically equipped with a steering wheel or acceleration and brake pedals.”
New official Cybercab documentation from Tesla:
“A Cybercab equipped with steering wheel, brake pedal, and an acceleration pedal is typically an engineering or test vehicle, and operates at SAE Level 2 autonomy. Cybercab is not typically equipped with a steering wheel or… https://t.co/P6ut1mZyzr pic.twitter.com/yq6skl9s2J
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) June 27, 2026
This is a major development for those who continue to believe Tesla planned to release the Cybercab with any sort of manual controls so that passengers could take over if needed. However, when Tesla started manufacturing production versions of the Cybercab in Giga Texas earlier this year, they were spotted without a steering wheel or pedals.
It essentially confirms the company has no intentions of bringing manual controls to the car’s production versions. Some have argued that the likelihood of Tesla having something
There still are some Cybercab units out there with a steering wheel and pedals, and as Tesla said, these cars are engineering or test vehicles, which have Safety Monitors on board to help the car out of a precarious situation or emergency.
Tesla released the Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ suite to owners of Hardware 3 or AI3 vehicles today, adding several new features to the vehicles that were once believed to be capable of unsupervised self-driving.
Now, Tesla has released this modified suite to older Tesla vehicles, adding plenty of new features and capabilities.
Here are the full release notes for the suite:
- Distilled the intelligence from HW4 V14 into HW3. This allows HW3 to directly learn how to handle scenarios using HW4 V14 as a guide. This process unlocks the improvements that have been made to HW4 including Reinforcement Learning (RL) and offline models for HW3.
- Improved both proactive and reactive responsiveness across a wide variety of categories including navigation handling, merges and forks, pedestrian interactions, traffic lights, and vehicle cut-in scenarios.
- Improved general comfort in nominal scenarios through fewer false slowdowns, smoother steering and more consistent lane centering.
- Introduced parking, unparking, and reversing capabilities.
- Added Arrival Options for you to select where FSD should park: in a Parking Lot, on the Street, in a Driveway, or at the Curbside.
- Speed Profiles are now available at all times, to further customize driving style preference.
These improvements, according to Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, help distill the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute configurations of AI3.
Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ for older cars finally gets released
He added:
“It includes destination options and speed profiles on city roads, but more importantly significantly improved safety. We hope you’ll enjoy it, once the build ships wide.”
FSD v14 Lite is now rolling out to AI3 early-access customers. Based on the feedback, will rollout to more customers over the next few weeks.
This build distills the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute config of AI3. It includes destination…
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) June 29, 2026
Tesla will continue to roll out the v14 Lite suite more widely in the coming weeks, the company said.
Tesla Phone? Not quite, but close: analyst
Tesla reveals huge Cybercab detail in new guide for First Responders
