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SpaceX rings in the New Year with preparations for first Falcon 9 launch of 2020
SpaceX’s first Falcon 9 launch of 2020 – and the new decade – is just around the corner after drone ship Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY) departed Port Canaveral on Monday to prepare for its 27th booster landing attempt.
Known as Starlink-2, SpaceX’s first launch of the new year slipped a handful of days from December 30th to January 3rd and finally January 6th and will be the company’s second launch of 60 upgraded Starlink v1.0 satellites, as well as the third dedicated Starlink launch overall. Just one of potentially dozens of SpaceX launches planned in 2020, the year is setting up to be – by a long shot – the company’s most ambitious year ever.
Meanwhile, Starlink-2 alone is set to ring in at least two significant milestones, pushing the nascent broadband internet constellation a step closer to serving customers and Falcon 9 reusability a step closer to being fully realized.
Drone ship OCISLY departed Port Canaveral on December 30th and is now being towed some 630 km (390 mi) downrange to Falcon 9’s planned Atlantic Ocean recovery location. SpaceX’s first launch and landing of 2020 will also be the three-year-old drone ship’s 27th attempted Falcon booster recovery and – hopefully – 23rd successful recovery.
Simultaneously, SpaceX technicians are in the midst of preparing other recovery fleet assets for what appears to be a partial fairing recovery attempt. Twin fairing catchers Ms. Tree and Ms. Chief debuted on their first simultaneous fairing catch attempt in December 2019 but each unfortunately missed their catches, instead picking up the floating fairing halves off the surface of the Atlantic and returning to port on December 18th.
The fairing halves were thus still successfully recovered and may be able to fly again on a future Starlink mission, but both fairing recovery ships suffered damage during their first simultaneous deployment. Ms. Tree suffered minimal damage in the form of tears to its secondary net – an easy fix – but Ms. Chief was not as lucky and somehow lost one of the two white booms that support each of her four arms.
That wounded arm was visibly hanging lower than its companions when Ms. Chief returned to port and technicians have since removed all of her arms, presumably evaluating whether the ordeal overstressed any components or caused significant damage.
Unsurprisingly, Ms. Chief will reportedly not take part in the fairing recovery portion of SpaceX’s imminent Starlink-2 launch, although it’s starting to look like Ms. Tree will be able to attempt a catch. SpaceX will still attempt to extract both fairing halves from the Atlantic even if the catch attempt fails and appears to be preparing GO Navigator to recover the half that would have otherwise been assigned to Ms. Chief.
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Two milestones, one launch
As implied by the Starlink-2 title, SpaceX’s first launch of 2020 will feature the third batch of 60 Starlink satellites. Excluding 9 Starlink v0.9 satellites that have been intentionally lowering their orbits over the last several months to hasten reentry, this will give SpaceX a constellation of at least 170 operational satellites less than eight months after the company began launching the satellites.
This may not immediately seem significant but 170 operational satellites in orbit could make Starlink the world’s largest satellite constellation and SpaceX the world’s largest constellation operator. The only known competitor that comes close is Planet Labs, an Earth observation company believed to have approximately 150-170 operational satellites in orbit – most of which are 5-10 kg (10-20 lb) ‘Doves’ roughly the size of a loaf of bread.
Put another way, after Starlink-2, SpaceX will have around 45 metric tons (100,000 lb) of functional Starlink satellites in orbit, a constellation mass probably only rivaled by major geostationary commsat operators, global navigation satellites, and a few other high-value military constellations.
Meanwhile, according to NASASpaceflight.com, SpaceX has assigned Falcon 9 booster B1049.3 to its Starlink-2 mission, meaning that the launch will mark the second time that a single SpaceX rocket has flown four orbital-class missions. This follows on the footsteps of the November 11th, 2019 Starlink-1 launch, which saw Falcon 9 B1048 become the first booster to fly four times.
At this point, SpaceX has two additional Starlink launches scheduled in January and has plans for as many as 38 orbital launches throughout 2020. To complete that incredibly ambitious manifest, SpaceX will have to dig deep into its fleet of reusable rockets, meaning that Falcon 9 B1049’s imminent fourth launch is almost certainly just the tip of the iceberg. Falcon 9 B1049 is scheduled to launch SpaceX’s Starlink-2 mission no earlier than (NET) 9:20 pm ET, January 6th (02:20 UTC, Jan 7).
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SpaceX will report second quarter results after the market closes on Tuesday, August 4, marking the first time the company has opened its books to the public since its record IPO in June. Management will host a live audio only webcast at 4:30 p.m. ET, streamed on X, with no dial in option.
The debut carries more weight than a typical first quarter as a public company. Two trading days after the release, on August 6, the first tranche of SpaceX’s lockup expires, freeing roughly 911.5 million insider and employee shares, worth well over $100 billion at current prices and the largest such release in Wall Street history. A second, larger tranche tied to the stock trading 30 percent above its $135 IPO price never triggered, since shares have spent most of July trading below that price.
Wall Street’s models point to revenue near $6.9 billion for the quarter, up sharply from the $4.69 billion SpaceX reported in the first quarter, with a narrower per share loss than the $1.27 posted three months earlier, according to estimates compiled by Motley Fool. Those numbers will be the first look at how SpaceX’s three segments, Starlink, launch and AI, are performing independently.
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Investors heading into the call have a specific list of questions. How many net new Starlink subscribers did SpaceX add after ending March with 10.3 million, and is average revenue per user holding up as the service expands into lower income markets. How much of the AI segment’s revenue reflects contract signings with Anthropic, Google and Reflection AI this year, deals that combined could annualize to nearly $28 billion if fully ramped. Whether capital expenditures, which nearly doubled in the AI segment alone between 2024 and 2025, are still accelerating or starting to plateau. And whether management offers any forward guidance at all, something SpaceX has never done publicly.
The report will also land days after Elon Musk publicly denied a Wall Street Journal report describing internal planning to separate Tesla’s China business ahead of a potential Tesla-SpaceX merger. Whether Musk or SpaceX executives address that speculation on the call, even indirectly, maybe something investors will be listening for on Tuesday.
As Teslarati reported after Musk’s own warning to short sellers last week, the CEO has made clear he expects skeptics to be proven wrong over time. Tuesday will be the first chance for the numbers themselves to make that case.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s Starship just got filmed by its own cargo
SpaceX released new footage of Starship in space captured by the Starlink satellites it deployed.
SpaceX released a new video Friday evening showing Starship from an angle showcased by its own Starlink satellites, watching the rocket drift away in orbit.
The 65 second clip, posted on X, stitches together footage from four cameras mounted on a single Starlink V3 satellite. It opens with a close view of Starship’s 171 foot upper stage, still catching sunlight, then pulls back as the two spacecraft separate.
The footage comes from Starship’s 13th flight test, which launched July 24 from Starbase after a scrubbed attempt and an abort caused by an engine issue the week before. When Flight 13 finally flew, it carried the first batch of functional Starlink V3 satellites Starship has ever deployed, twenty of them, with six equipped with cameras meant to scan the ship’s heat shield during reentry.
View of Starship in space from a Starlink V3 satellite on Flight 13.
This composite is made of imagery from four separate cameras on a single satellite. Six of the satellites were equipped with cameras to scan Starship’s heat shield and transmit imagery down to operators to… pic.twitter.com/sNTHHz5vLr
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 31, 2026
Flight 13 checked most of its boxes. Starship deployed all 20 satellites, relit a Raptor engine in space, and splashed down softly in the Indian Ocean off Western Australia. Musk’s longer term plan calls for a Starlink V3 constellation of 100,000 satellites, according to a recent FCC filing, with Starship as the only vehicle capable of launching them at the volume that requires. Each Starship flight is designed to carry up to 60 V3 satellites once the vehicle reaches routine service, well beyond what Falcon 9 can carry in a single mission.
Starship is next expected to fly with an attempt at catching the ship itself with the launch tower’s mechanical arms, a maneuver SpaceX has so far reserved for the Super Heavy booster.
Tesla flexed the new features of the Model Y L with a dedicated media event at the company’s Diner on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles.
The Model Y L is the extended-wheelbase version of the all-electric crossover, which has been voted the best-selling car in the world on three occasions. The vehicle is already rolling off production lines at Gigafactory Texas, and first deliveries are slated to take place later this year.
Tesla brings Model Y L ‘Launch Series’ to the U.S. at $61,990
Teslarati was invited to the event, but due to some scheduling conflicts, we could not make it to Los Angeles. Instead, we will have our hands on a media unit sometime in August, so we’ll be able to spend some more extended time with the Model Y L.
However, plenty of those who made it to LA shared some cool features that set the Model Y L apart from the Model Y.
Multi-Row Climate Control
Tesla fitted the Model Y L with full climate control on all three rows on the front screen. It can be adjusted by selecting which row you’d like to modify on the right-hand side of the touch screen:
The Model Y L has a little row of icons on the right side of the climate screen so the front passenger can more quickly jump to whatever row they want to control. pic.twitter.com/uJS44mgCvk
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) July 30, 2026
Better Rear Window Visibility
One of the strangest things about the Model Y, especially the Juniper iteration, is the rear window has extremely limited visibility when looking into the rearview mirror.
Tesla has improved upon this with the Model Y L:
This is a drastic difference. https://t.co/wTdhitD5aA pic.twitter.com/z6hFs0Jkss
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 30, 2026
PowerShare will be included
Model Y L will come with PowerShare in North America, with an 11.5kW output to your home. Tesla said it would require Powerwall 3 for operation.
Wireless Charging Pad
There has been some speculation that Tesla would upgrade the wireless charging pads in the United States, but this is not the case.
Tesla owner fixes common feature complaint with crafty DIY retrofit
Tesla confirmed that it does not come with the cooled pads as the Y L in China does. This is because North America has not adopted Qi charging yet.
Thermal Management Improvements
These improvements in the Model Y L were seen with thermal management:
- Up to 15% faster cabin cooling
- +23% thermal efficiency gained in hot weather, 7 miles of real-world range gained
- 8x more solar energy reflection off of glass roof
- 30% reduction in solar energy entering the cabin
Some of the thermal management improvements in the new Model Y L Premium:
• Up to 15% faster cabin cooling
• Up to 15 min faster cabin cooling in sunny conditions
• +23% thermal efficiency gained in hot weather +7 miles of real-world range gained
• +10 miles recovered after… pic.twitter.com/jZirFWFdtO— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) July 31, 2026
Demand
Tesla said the Model Y L is almost sold out in the U.S. It comes with
- 1 year of FSD Supervised
- 1 year of Supercharging
- 1 year of Premium Connectivity
- Free exterior paint color, interior, and wheel option at no additional cost
SpaceX’s biggest test yet arrives this week and it’s not a rocket launch
SpaceX’s Starship just got filmed by its own cargo
