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SpaceX, NASA already planning its next astronaut mission following historic launch
SpaceX’s first launch of Crew Dragon with astronauts on board may have to wait a few more days to get off the ground, but that doesn’t mean that the company isn’t already looking forward to the future. Following Demo-2, and if all goes as planned, NASA is expected to certify the Crew Dragon spacecraft for regular flights to and from the space station.
At that time, SpaceX and NASA will start nailing down the details for its next crewed mission. Each Dragon spacecraft is certified to stay on orbit for no more than 120 days, so they have to time everything carefully. That’s why the length of Demo-2 is uncertain — it all depends on when the next spacecraft will be ready.
That could happen sooner rather than later. NASA administrator, Jim Bridenstine, explained during a pre-launch briefing that the next flight of the Crew Dragon could fly as soon as August 30. That flight, called Crew-1, would see the Dragon carry four astronauts to the space station for a six-month stay. On board will be three NASA astronauts — Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker — who will be joined by Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi.
However, before they can fly, the Demo-2 crew of Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken are putting the Dragon through its paces. It’s their job to test out the craft’s various systems on this final test flight. Crew Dragon has already made one successful flight to the space station, but that was without a crew on board. When it flies this next time, Bob and Doug will not only test out manual controls of the Dragon’s flight systems, but also the craft’s ECLISS (or environmental control and life support system).
Bridenstine stresses that Demo-2 is a test flight. The mission is designed to test the vehicle, land it safely, and prepare to regularly launch crew. To that end, there will be several weeks in between the Demo-2 flight and the launch of Crew-1. This will allow SpaceX and NASA to inspect and certify the Dragon.
“They can be there probably until early August,” Bridenstine said, referring to the Demo-2 mission. “If we have a good window to come home and they are not necessary on the International Space Station, we will be taking it.”
“The goal is to get them to the International Space Station, test the systems and get them home,” he added. “If they can do more work than that while on the ISS, certainly that’s OK. But this is a test flight.”
Behnken and Hurley will be joining fellow NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy on station. Cassidy, along with two Russian cosmonauts, launched to the station in April. They’ve been serving as a skeleton crew, so the addition of two more astronauts will be welcomed.
SpaceX snagged a $2.6 billion contract in 2014, to fly six operational crewed missions for NASA. For nearly a decade now, NASA has been forced to rely on Russia as the sole means of transporting astronauts to and from the orbital outpost. This arrangement is expensive, with seats now costing NASA approximately $90 million each.
Once Crew Dragon is fully operational, NASA hopes to end its payments to Russia. It would lie to establish a barter system for seats instead. NASA is hopeful that the Russians will want to fly on the Dragon and are wanting to trade seats with the Russians in the near future.
That arrangement would see U.S. astronauts continue to fly on Soyuz spacecrafts as well as Russian cosmonauts fly on U.S. spacecraft with no money being exchanged. Russian officials have said they would be open to putting cosmonauts on U.S. vehicles after they’ve been fully certified.
Russia as well as many international partners participated in the Dragon’s readiness review process along with NASA. The Dragon passed both its flight readiness review and launch readiness reviews with flying colors. Right now, the only thing standing in its way is launch weather.
Currently, NASA and SpaceX are targeting Saturday, May 30 at 3:22 p.m. for liftoff.
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Tesla FSD (Supervised) is about to go on “widespread” release
In a comment last October, Elon Musk stated that FSD V14.2 is “for widespread use.”
Tesla has begun rolling out Full Self-Driving (Supervised) V14.2, and with this, the wide release of the system could very well begin.
The update introduces a new high-resolution vision encoder, expanded emergency-vehicle handling, smarter routing, new parking options, and more refined driving behavior, among other improvements.
FSD V14.2 improvements
FSD (Supervised) V14.2’s release notes highlight a fully upgraded neural-network vision encoder capable of reading higher-resolution features, giving the system improved awareness of emergency vehicles, road obstacles, and even human gestures. Tesla also expanded its emergency-vehicle protocols, adding controlled pull-overs and yielding behavior for police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances, among others.
A deeper integration of navigation and routing into the vision network now allows the system to respond to blocked roads or detours in real time. The update also enhances decision-making in several complex scenarios, including unprotected turns, lane changes, vehicle cut-ins, and interactions with school buses. All in all, these improvements should help FSD (Supervised) V14.2 perform in a very smooth and comfortable manner.
Elon Musk’s predicted wide release
The significance of V14.2 grows when paired with Elon Musk’s comments from October. While responding to FSD tester AI DRIVR, who praised V14.1.2 for fixing “95% of indecisive lane changes and braking” and who noted that it was time for FSD to go on wide release, Musk stated that “14.2 for widespread use.”
FSD V14 has so far received a substantial amount of positive reviews from Tesla owners, many of whom have stated that the system now drives better than some human drivers as it is confident, cautious, and considerate at the same time. With V14.2 now rolling out, it remains to be seen if the update also makes it to the company’s wide FSD fleet, which is still populated by a large number of HW3 vehicles.
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Tesla FSD V14.2 starts rolling out to initial batch of vehicles
It would likely only be a matter of time before FSD V14.2 videos are posted and shared on social media.
Tesla has begun pushing Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14.2 to its initial batch of vehicles. The update was initially observed by Tesla owners and veteran FSD users on social media platform X on Friday.
So far, reports of the update have been shared by Model Y owners in California whose vehicles are equipped with the company’s AI4 hardware, though it would not be surprising if more Tesla owners across the country receive the update as well.
Based on the release notes of the update, key improvements in FSD V14.2 include a revamped neural network for better detection of emergency vehicles, obstacles, and human gestures, as well as options to select arrival spots.
It would likely only be a matter of time before FSD V14.2 videos are posted and shared on social media.
Following are the release notes of FSD (Supervised) V14.2, as shared on X by longtime FSD tester Whole Mars Catalog.
Release Notes
2025.38.9.5
Currently Installed
FSD (Supervised) v14.2
Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14.2 includes:
- Upgraded the neural network vision encoder, leveraging higher resolution features to further improve scenarios like handling emergency vehicles, obstacles on the road, and human gestures.
- Added Arrival Options for you to select where FSD should park: in a Parking Lot, on the Street, in a Driveway, in a Parking Garage, or at the Curbside.
- Added handling to pull over or yield for emergency vehicles (e.g. police cars, fire trucks, ambulances.
- Added navigation and routing into the vision-based neural network for real-time handling of blocked roads and detours.
- Added additional Speed Profile to further customize driving style preference.
- Improved handling for static and dynamic gates.
- Improved offsetting for road debris (e.g. tires, tree branches, boxes).
- Improve handling of several scenarios including: unprotected turns, lane changes, vehicle cut-ins, and school busses.
- Improved FSD’s ability to manage system faults and improve scenarios like handling emergency vehicles, obstacles on the road, and human gestures.
- Added Arrival Options for you to select where FSD should park: in a Parking Lot, on the Street, in a Driveway, in a Parking Garage, or at the Curbside.
- Added handling to pull over or yield for emergency vehicles (e.g. police cars, fire trucks, ambulances).
- Added navigation and routing into the vision-based neural network for real-time handling of blocked roads and detours.
- Added additional Speed Profile to further customize driving style preference.
- Improved handling for static and dynamic gates.
- Improved offsetting for road debris (e.g. tires, tree branches, boxes).
- Improve handling of several scenarios, including unprotected turns, lane changes, vehicle cut-ins, and school buses.
- Improved FSD’s ability to manage system faults and recover smoothly from degraded operation for enhanced reliability.
- Added alerting for residue build-up on interior windshield that may impact front camera visibility. If affected, visit Service for cleaning!
Upcoming Improvements:
- Overall smoothness and sentience
- Parking spot selection and parking quality
The Tesla Model X has always been one of the company’s most loved vehicles, despite its low sales figures, which can be attributed to its high price tag.
However, the Model X has been a signature item on Tesla’s menu of cars, most notably recognized by its Falcon Wing Doors, which are aware of its surroundings and open according to what’s around it.
But recent improvements to the Model X were looking slim to none, but it appears most of the fixes actually happened under the body, at least according to Tesla’s Vice President of Powertrain, Lars Moravy.
In a recent interview with Car and Driver, Moravy detailed all of the changes to the 2026 iteration of the vehicle, which was about 400 pounds lighter than it was originally. The biggest change is a modification with the rear motor, switching from an induction-type motor to a permanent-magnet design and optimizing the half-shafts, which shed about 100 pounds.
Tesla also got “almost 80 pounds out of the interior bits and pieces,” which “included making parts thinner, different manufacturing process choices, and incorporating airbag-deployment requirements into the headliner fabric,” the report said.
Additionally, the standard five-passenger, bench seat configuration saved 50 pounds by ditching pedestal mounting. This also helped with practicality, as it helped the seat fold flat. Engineers at Tesla also saved 44 pounds from the high-voltage wiring through optimizing the wiring from the charge-port DC/DC converter and switching from copper to aluminum wiring.
Tesla makes a decision on the future of its flagship Model S and Model X
Tesla also simplified the cooling system by reducing the number of radiators. It also incorporated Nürburgring cooling requirements for the Plaid variant, which saved nearly 30 pounds.
Many Tesla fans will be familiar with the megacastings, manufactured in-house by presses from IDRA, which also saves more than 20 pounds and boosts torsional stiffness by around 10 percent. Tweaks to the suspension also saved 10 pounds.
People were truly disappointed with what Tesla did with the Model S and Model X, arguing that the cars needed a more severe exterior overhaul, which might be true. However, Tesla really did a lot to reduce the weight of the vehicle, which helps increase range and efficiency. According to Grok, every 200 pounds removed adds between 7 and 15 percent to range estimations.
This makes sense considering the range estimations both increased by 7 percent from the Model X’s 2025 configuration to the 2026 builds. Range increased on the All-Wheel-Drive trim from 329 miles to 352 miles, while the Plaid went from 314 miles to 335 miles.
Tesla FSD (Supervised) is about to go on “widespread” release
Tesla FSD V14.2 starts rolling out to initial batch of vehicles
