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SpaceX, NASA targeting separate Moon launches days apart
NASA and a SpaceX customer have announced plans to launch two unrelated Moon missions days apart next month.
On October 12th, NASA confirmed that it will roll its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket out to its Kennedy Space Center LC-39A pad for the fourth time as early as November 4th. Barring surprises, the rocket’s next launch attempt is scheduled no earlier than (NET) 12:07 am EDT (17:07 UTC), November 14th. SLS is tasked with launching an uncrewed prototype of NASA’s Orion crew capsule on its way to the Moon, where the spacecraft will attempt to enter lunar orbit and conduct tests before returning to Earth.
The same day, Japanese startup ispace confirmed that HAKUTO-R M1, its first commercial Moon lander, is scheduled to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket sometime between November 9th and 15th. While NASA has a $73M contract with ispace to develop a second-generation SERIES-2 Moon lander in the United States, the first-generation HAKUTO-R program has been an almost entirely private endeavor. The first M1 lander will attempt to deliver two rovers – one built by Japan and the other by the United Arab Emirates – and several other commercial and government payloads to the surface of the Moon.
As of 2020, HAKUTO-R is expected to weigh around 1050 kilograms (~2300 lb) at launch and has been designed to land up to 30 kilograms (~66 lb) of usable payload on the Moon. ispace has designed and built most of the lander’s structures but contracted with Europe’s ArianeGroup to provide the propulsion system and fully assemble, integrate, and test the lander in Germany.
According to ispace’s documentation [PDF], Falcon 9 will launch HAKUTO-R into a “supersynchronous” Earth orbit, where the lander will check out its systems before eventually using its own propulsion to thrust itself free of Earth’s gravity well and into the Moon’s. It expects a nominal transit from Earth orbit to the lunar surface to take at least 20 days. The lander is designed to survive up to 12 days on the Moon, during which it will attempt to operate its onboard experiments, deploy both of its tiny rovers, and transmit all the data gathered back to Earth.
The startup initially [PDF] described its arrangements with SpaceX as contracts to launch two landers as secondary payloads on two Falcon 9 rockets. In its press releases, ispace no longer specifies whether the one-ton spacecraft will be the only payload on Falcon 9. It’s possible that HAKUTO-R M1 will be a secondary payload on SpaceX’s launch of the Eutelsat 10B geostationary communications satellite, which is currently scheduled NET November 11th. In a rare move, SpaceX will reportedly expend Falcon 9’s reusable first-stage booster during the mission, leaving much more performance on the table.
Update: Launch photographer Ben Cooper reports that Falcon 9’s reusable booster will fly back to the Florida coast to land on land after launching HAKUTO-R, strongly implying that the Moon lander will actually be the rocket’s only payload.
ispace has raised approximately $210 million since it was founded in 2010 – coincidentally the same year that the US Congress forced NASA to begin developing the SLS rocket. 12 years later, there’s a chance that the first launches of SLS and HAKUTO-R could occur hours apart.
When it rolls out next month, NASA’s SLS rocket will be heading to the launch pad for the fourth time. SLS and Orion have had a less-than-smooth journey to their first launch, suffering half a decade of delays and running tens of billions of dollars over budget as a result. Once all the pieces had arrived in Florida, it took NASA and its contractors about 12 months to finish assembling SLS and Orion and begin testing the integrated rocket.
Since integrated testing began in April 2022, SLS has undergone five publicized wet dress rehearsal (WDR) tests in April, June, and September. It also attempted to launch twice on August 29th and September 3rd, although both attempts were arguably a continuation of WDR testing in everything but name. But it appears that when the rocket rolls out for the fourth time, NASA will have finally completed nearly all of the testing it should have finished before loudly proclaiming that its “Mega Moon Rocket” was ready to launch back in August.
The SLS launch debut will almost certainly take precedence over any other Cape Canaveral launch around the same time, including HAKUTO-R M1, but SpaceX could potentially launch the Moon lander roughly one day before or after NASA’s Moon rocket.
Wedbush Securities is initiating stock coverage on SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX), marking the first comments on the company since it went public several weeks ago. Wedbush and its analyst handling coverage, Dan Ives, are widely bullish on fellow Musk company Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA).
Ives wrote his first note initiating coverage of SpaceX shares on Wednesday with a $190 price target and an ‘Outperform’ rating. The firm believes the company is well positioned off of its IPO because of its wide array of projects, including AI compute power and infrastructure, connectivity projects, and launches.
“We view SpaceX as one of the most differentiated assets within the tech market with a strong footprint across its three core markets, with Starlink driving success with connectivity,” Ives wrote, “Starship launches leading to a demand flywheel and increasing deal flow for its Colossus clusters.”
Elon Musk called it Epic: The full story of SpaceX’s Starship Flight 12
Wedbush leans heavily on Starlink, which they say is the “profitability driver given the strength of its recurring revenue base of ~12 million subscribers as of June 5th.” Ives believes Starlink is still in the “early innings” of penetrating the global telecommunications and broadband market, as it only holds less than a 1 percent share. However, this number is sure to increase over time.
It also highlights the importance of Starship, which it says is an “essential layer” of SpaceX’s overall success. SpaceX developing and displaying the ability to reuse rockets is a major cost and reliability advantage “as it reduces the necessary hardware launch costs while generating a feedback loop for future flights to improve their launch flight rate without accelerating capex spend.”
Finally, SpaceX’s recent AI/Compute projects are also very elementary, Ives writes. It is worth mentioning Wedbush said its $190 price target is derived from a valuation forecast that sees the company yielding roughly $2.48 trillion of implied enterprise value.
There are also some factors that Wedbush did not take into account with its initial coverage. The firm wrote in the note:
“We note that there is optional value coming from Starship’s accelerating scale towards sub-$200/kg unit economics, orbital data centers, and enterprise AI monetization as these factors could drive meaningful upside but these face major hurdles, so we do not take that into account with our valuation.”
SpaceX shares are down just over 2 percent today, trading at around $167 at the time of publication.
Tesla has expanded the footprint of a massive safety feature worldwide with a recent Software Update labeled as 2026.20.6. The expansion of the “Blind Spot Warning While Parked” feature represents the more widespread availability of the feature, which aims to prevent “dooring.”
Dooring is when a driver or passenger opens a car door into the path of an oncoming road user, usually a cyclist or motorcyclist. It is among the most common types of cycling accidents, the League of American Bicyclists says.
For this reason, Tesla created a feature that warns occupants not to open the door because an object is approaching. The feature will sound a chime, and it will also delay the opening of the door to prevent an incident.
The release notes state (via Not a Tesla App):
“If you attempt to open a door while an approaching object is detected in your blind spot (for example, a bicyclist approaching from behind) a chime sounds, and your door will not open upon initial button press. Wait a short time and press the button a second time to override the warning.”
Tesla initially rolled out this feature back in 2024 with the Model 3 “Highland.” However, it remained with the Model 3 exclusively for over a year; that was until Tesla added it to the Cybertruck this past Spring.
Now, it is making its way to the new Model Y, 2021 and newer Model S, and 2021 or newer Model X.
The prevention of dooring incidents could eliminate many injuries to cyclists, especially in an urban setting. Dooring accounts for 10-20 percent of bike-related crashes in major cities, and over 17,000 dooring-related incidents were treated in the U.S. over the course of a decade. These usually involve fractures, contusions, and head trauma.
Tesla confirmed this morning that it has sent the first production units, manufactured with no steering wheel or pedals, to on-road testing in Austin, sharing video of the first rides with no human controls.
The lack of steering wheels and pedals in the Cybercab aligns with Tesla’s self-certification of Robotaxi as Level 4 SAE, a platform it plans to make widespread through internal vehicles and customer-owned cars that will operate and generate revenue for individuals.
The start of these engineering tests is a major signal for Tesla, which plans to bring driverless, wheel-less, and pedal-less Cybercabs to market in the coming months. With production already well underway at Gigafactory Texas, where the Cybercab is built, there is some inclination to believe the first public rides could happen sooner rather than later.
Engineering tests of the first production Cybercab have begun in Austin pic.twitter.com/fk3KQvcE8a
— Tesla (@Tesla) June 30, 2026
Tesla’s engineering tests will put the Cybercab in real-world scenarios, testing not only the hardware, but more importantly, the software that drives the car around Austin with nobody supervising it within the car.
This is perhaps the biggest part of the internal testing process, especially prior to allowing regular, everyday people to hail the Cybercab for an autonomous ride. These early rides serve as a true benchmark for Tesla: How many rides can it achieve safely? How many miles did it travel consecutively without needing an intervention? What scenarios challenge the Full Self-Driving suite the most?
The proper precautions have already been put into place as well, as Tesla released the First Responders Guide to Cybercab over the weekend, ensuring that emergency services have 24/7 access to Robotaxi Assistance, as well as other boundaries, such as Geofencing features that can be used to redirect autonomous vehicle traffic due to accidents, road closures, construction, or maintenance.
Cybercab seems genuinely close to being added to the Robotaxi fleet in Austin, but Tesla has prioritized safety throughout this entire process. Therefore, we think it could be months before it truly starts giving rides to the public. People have been frustrated with this, but Robotaxi in Austin has a tremendous safety record so far, so the slow rollout has kept people safe and accidents to a minimum.
The most important thing is that Tesla continues to show consistent progress in the Cybercab’s ramp-up toward fleet addition. A few weeks back, we saw the EPA reward the Cybercab a Certificate of Conformity, allowing it to enter the stream of commerce. Then, we saw Tesla add decals, signaling that it was likely about to start testing it publicly. That has now happened.
The next big move will be the announcement of the first rides, so this Summer should be filled with anticipation.
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