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SpaceX’s upcoming Starlink launch will set a record for Falcon 9 booster reuse

Falcon 9 B1021 became the first orbital-class booster to launch and land twice in March 2017. (SpaceX)

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SpaceX’s next launch will fly on a Falcon 9 Block 5 booster with three flights in its history, making the mission the first time SpaceX will launch the same orbital-class booster four times.

Likely attributable to a number of launch customers all coincidentally not ready for flight, SpaceX is in the midst its longest lull between launches since September 2016, three years ago, when Falcon 9 suffered its most recent catastrophic failure. During the lull, SpaceX COO and President Gwynne Shotwell noted that this is the first time in SpaceX’s history where the company is waiting on customers to launch, rather than the other way around.

That lull – currently past the two-month marker – is hoped to end sooner than later, although SpaceX’s ‘return-to-flight’ mission has become more uncertain in the last few weeks. For unknown reasons, the schedule for SpaceX’s next Starlink mission(s) went from having fairly specific launch targets (October 17th and November 4th) to more unclear schedules. Currently, SpaceX’s next launch will likely be the first flight of 60 Starlink V1.0 satellites and is expected no earlier than late-October or November.

An imposing stack of SpaceX’s first 60 Starlink satellites is shown here prior to their inaugural launch. (SpaceX)

Depending on how far right the mission moves on that schedule, SpaceX’s next launch might instead be a more regular commercial satellite mission, Kacific 1, scheduled for launch no earlier than (NET) November 11th.

Regardless of which mission actually comes next, speaking earlier this at the 2019 National Academy of Engineering annual meeting, SpaceX VP of Build and Flight Reliability revealed that “the next launch” will mark the first time a Falcon 9 booster has launched four times. As of now, SpaceX has launched four separate Falcon 9 boosters three times apiece, beginning with B1046 in December 2018 and ending most recently with B1047 in August 2019.

Three of SpaceX’s flight-proven Falcon 9 boosters are pictured here: B1046, B1048, and B1049. (Tom Cross & Pauline Acalin)

According to CEO Elon Musk and other SpaceX executives and employees, Falcon 9 Block 5 boosters are designed to fly no fewer than 10 times apiece before requiring substantial refurbishment. SpaceX has three (B1047 was expended on its third flight) thrice-flown Falcon 9 Block 5 boosters on hand, all of which can thus be assumed to be ready for another mission. In fact, B1046.3 is known to be assigned to SpaceX’s imminent Crew Dragon In-Flight Abort (IFA) test (NET November 23rd).

This leaves B1048 and B1049 as SpaceX’s booster options for their next launch. Assuming it’s a Starlink, it seems likely that B1049 would be the booster of choice, as that particular booster supported SpaceX’s first Starlink v0.9 launch back in May 2019. On the other hand, Falcon 9 B1048 completed its third launch in February 2019, meaning that it has had more time for post-flight inspections and (minimal) refurbishment, although it’s entirely unclear what sort of timescales SpaceX is currently operating on for Block 5 booster reuse.

Regardless of the specifics, SpaceX’s plans for a prolific number of internal Starlink launches will create a huge number of opportunities for the company to test new hardware/software and push the envelope of reusability, all without having to convince paying customers to be the guinea pigs. Once SpaceX has pushed its booster fleet onto their fourth flights, Starlink missions can easily take the reins and prove the safety of five-flight Falcon 9s and beyond.

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Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

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Tesla Cybercabs narrowly miss deadly Amazon cargo plane crash

An Amazon cargo plane crash near Miami’s airport stopped feet from dozens of Tesla Cybercabs.

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Photorealistic depiction of the Amazon Prime plane crash in Miami on Sep 3, 2026 near a fleet of Tesla Cybercab
Photorealistic depiction of the Amazon Prime plane crash in Miami on Sep 3, 2026 near a fleet of Tesla Cybercab

An Amazon Prime Air Boeing 767 cargo jet overran the runway at Miami International Airport on Sunday afternoon, killing five people and injuring five more. The jet, operated by North Carolina based carrier 21 Air as Flight 7598, touched down around 2 p.m. after arriving from San Juan, Puerto Rico, then crossed the airport perimeter, plowed across NW 67th Avenue and struck multiple vehicles before catching fire, according to the Associated Press.

Photos and video from the scene show the aircraft’s nose stopped within meters of a fenced staging lot holding dozens of gold painted Tesla Cybercabs, the steering wheel free robotaxi Tesla began putting on public roads in Austin last week. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue has confirmed the plane struck “multiple vehicles” but has not said whether any Cybercabs were among them, and neither Tesla nor airport officials have addressed the fleet directly.

The Cybercabs had not yet entered commercial service in Miami. Tesla’s existing Robotaxi operation there runs on modified Model Y vehicles and has been unsupervised since Ashok Elluswamy confirmed the detail on X in July.


Elon Musk offered the briefest of reactions. Replying to a Zero Hedge post about the Cybercabs sitting so close to the wreckage, he wrote a single word: “Weird.” He has not commented further, and Tesla has not issued a statement.

The timing puts Tesla’s newest vehicle near an unrelated but highly visible tragedy just days after its Austin debut, a launch that had already drawn scrutiny from federal regulators. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an audit how Tesla certified the Cybercab as compliant with federal vehicle safety standards, a process Teslarati covered after the vehicle’s September 3 launch event. That inquiry concerns the car’s lack of a steering wheel and pedals, not the Miami crash.

Investigators from the FAA and NTSB are focused on the plane, not the parking lot beside it. Flight data reviewed by outlets including Simple Flying show the 767 touched down around 170 knots, well above the 135 to 140 knot range typical for the aircraft, though investigators have not determined a cause. Amazon said it is working with authorities and that its priority is the safety of everyone affected.

Whether any Cybercabs were damaged, and what Tesla plans for the fleet parked near one of the country’s busiest airports, remain open questions.

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Tesla crosses major Unsupervised Self-Driving milestone

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla has reached a notable benchmark in its autonomous driving program after its Robotaxi fleet surpassed one million miles of unsupervised operation. The company made the announcement during its Cybercab event in Austin on September 3.

Tesla Vice President of AI Ashok Elluswamy told attendees he was happy to report the fleet had achieved one million miles of unsupervised Robotaxi operation as a testament to safety.

The new total marked a sharp increase from the 380,000 unsupervised miles Tesla disclosed during its second-quarter 2026 earnings update in late July.

In roughly six weeks, the company added about 620,000 miles. That acceleration followed Tesla’s decision to remove in-vehicle safety monitors from most of its operations outside the San Francisco Bay Area.

Credit: Tesla

Tesla first launched Robotaxi service in Austin in June 2025 with safety drivers present. It later began fully unsupervised rides and expanded into Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando, and Tampa. The San Francisco Bay Area remains the exception, where a safety monitor still rides in the vehicle under California permitting rules.

The company has not released a city-by-city breakdown of the one million unsupervised miles.

The milestone arrived as Tesla began offering public Cybercab rides in Austin. The purpose-built vehicle has no steering wheel or pedals and is designed only for autonomous ride-hailing. Production versions joined the existing fleet of modified Tesla vehicles already operating in the service.

Tesla’s unsupervised mileage is growing at a double-digit weekly rate according to earlier company comments, yet its fleet size remains modest compared with established competitors. Waymo has accumulated more than 200 million fully autonomous rider-only miles. Tesla has described its own unsupervised operations as having recorded zero notable incidents in the period leading up to the July update.

The one-million-mile figure reflects Tesla’s shift from supervised testing to broader driverless service in multiple states. It also highlights the company’s strategy of using both existing Model Y vehicles and the new Cybercab to scale its network.

Credit: Tesla

Whether the rapid recent growth continues will depend on further city expansions, regulatory approvals, and the performance of the purpose-built Cybercab in everyday paid rides. Tesla has not specified how many of the latest miles involved the new vehicle versus the rest of the fleet.

The announcement underscores Tesla’s progress toward a larger robotaxi network while illustrating the remaining gap in total autonomous experience relative to longer-operating rivals.

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Tesla Robotaxi will be a 24/7 service: here’s when

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Credit: @AdanGuajardo/X

Tesla AI lead Ashok Elluswamy said this week that 24-hour Robotaxi service is close. Replying on X to a rider who wanted Cybercab trips all night, he wrote that the capability would arrive “next month or so” once “the next tech to merge on the v15 plan” is ready.

The comment landed on September 4, one day after Tesla opened public Cybercab rides in Austin. It is the clearest near-term timeline yet for overnight unsupervised operation. Tesla’s paid Robotaxi network currently runs from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week across Austin, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando, and Tampa.

That 16-hour window is shorter than the 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. schedule the company used for much of the prior year.

Elluswamy did not name the specific feature or say whether the change would apply first to purpose-built Cybercabs, the existing Model Y fleet, or both. He also offered no city-by-city rollout list. The link to Full Self-Driving v15 is nevertheless significant.

Tesla has described v15 as a step-change architecture with seven parallel improvement tracks and roughly ten times more parameters than earlier builds. Early versions of that software already operate on the Robotaxi fleet and contain about 40 percent of the planned gains.

By July 2026, the unsupervised fleet had logged more than 380,000 miles across six cities in two states with what the company called an impeccable safety record and no notable incidents caused by the vehicles themselves. Tesla has repeatedly argued that camera-based end-to-end neural networks, rather than extra sensors, are the core of the solution.

Overnight service would test that claim in lower-light conditions and would also raise vehicle utilization, a key variable for Robotaxi unit economics. The company has already begun using public Superchargers at night and is building dedicated Robotaxi charging sites.

Riders have asked why software must change if the cars already drive in the dark. The practical answer appears to be reliability and scale: Tesla has held back mass expansion until more of the v15 stack is merged, citing the need for higher confidence before putting thousands of unoccupied vehicles on streets around the clock.

If the next module arrives on the timetable Elluswamy sketched, 24-hour service could begin in October 2026 in at least some markets.

That would mark a shift from a daytime-bounded pilot to a service that can run whenever demand exists, including the late-night hours that have so far remained out of reach.

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