News
SpaceX rapidly tests, ships Falcon 9 second stage for next NASA astronaut launch
SpaceX has shipped, tested, and delivered the new Falcon 9 upper stage tasked with carrying the company’s next Crew Dragon astronauts to orbit as early as October 30th.
Offering rare insight into the kind of timelines and margins SpaceX operates on for even its most important missions, a Falcon upper stage bearing NASA’s ‘worm’ logo and ‘meatball’ insignia was spotted by a local resident and photographer on October 2nd. Thus far, the only SpaceX rockets that have flown with NASA iconography are those supporting Crew Dragon launches, making them a dead giveaway for Crew Dragon launch hardware.
After Demo-2, SpaceX’s May 2020 astronaut launch debut, the company moved those decals from Falcon 9’s booster – liable to fly any number of non-NASA missions later in life – to each NASA crew mission’s expendable Falcon second stage (S2). Since then, Crew-1 (November 2020) and Crew-2 (April 2021) have both launched with NASA logos on their second stages and Crew-3 now looks set to continue that tradition.
Thanks to the watchful eye of local resident turned SpaceX fan Reagan Beck, it was actually possible to identify Crew-3’s Falcon 9 upper stage as soon as it was spotted at the company’s McGregor, TX development and testing facilities on October 2nd. While there was technically a tiny chance that it could be for one of several upcoming NASA spacecraft launches or even for Crew Dragon’s April 2022 Crew-4 mission, the likeliest destination by far for the NASA-branded Falcon S2 was Crew-3.
Due partially to the fact that Falcon booster qualification testing typically takes McGregor at least two or so weeks but mainly to the seemingly razor-thin schedule margins it would imply, there was some understandable skepticism that the upper stage was bound to launch Crew-3 just four weeks after it was first spotted. Moreso, Crew Dragon typically rolls out to the launch pad on Falcon 9 at least 5-7 days before launch to allow extra time for an integrated static fire, final checkouts, and a ‘dry dress’ practice runs for each mission’s crew.
Further, even after completing static fire qualification testing in McGregor, Crew-3’s Falcon stage would still need to be packaged up, transported more than a thousand miles by road, carefully unpackaged at a SpaceX launch site or hangar, outfitted with a Merlin Vacuum nozzle extension, installed on the mission’s Falcon 9 booster, and mated to Crew Dragon itself before that pad rollout can occur. In other words, rather than Crew-3’s exact October 30th launch date, the mission’s upper stage would likely need to arrive at SpaceX’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Pad 39A launch facilities at least 9-10 days before launch.
Realistically, that means that from the moment the NASA-branded upper stage first spotted on a McGregor test stand, it had maybe two weeks to complete qualification testing and ship out to Pad 39A. With practically no context, that seemed like a stretch at the time – particularly for a single-engine Falcon second stage explicitly tasked with safely delivering four astronauts to orbit. In reality, McGregor’s Falcon S2 testing is apparently far faster than booster testing and the presumed Crew-3 stage seemingly passed qualification testing and vacated the test stand less than five days after it was installed.
In theory, that left the McGregor team about a week to complete post-test inspections, clean the interior of its propellant tanks, and prepare the stage for the last leg of its journey to Florida. SpaceX seemingly managed that without issue and a new Falcon upper stage potentially meant for Crew-3 was spotted in Florida just a few miles away from a SpaceX launch site on October 14th.
However, per additional photos and reports from Reagan, McGregor’s second stage test team has been incredibly busy over the last month or so. Prior to the Crew-3 stage’s arrival, another second stage completed qualification testing between September 21st and 28th. Crew-3’s S2 was installed on October 2nd and removed by the 7th. Wasting no time, another second stage was installed on the same stand on October 10th and apparently completed testing by the 13th – equivalent to a new upper stage qualified every week. Even if the Falcon stage that arrived at Cape Canaveral on October 14th isn’t Crew-3’s, then, Crew-3’s can’t be far behind.
Ultimately, SpaceX appears to be testing and shipping one of two integral Falcon 9 stages for a crucial, schedule-sensitive NASA astronaut launch with schedule margins measured in hours or single-digit days. That’s a far cry from competitors Arianespace and ULA and even NASA itself, which generally deliver flight hardware months in advance. Eleven years since Falcon 9’s launch debut, every Falcon second stage that has made it through stage separation – 127 of 127 – has successfully ignited its Merlin Vacuum engine one or several times and delivered its payload(s) to the correct orbit(s). Well over half of those successful launches were completed in the last three and a half years – and with the same Falcon 9 upper stage variant now routinely tasked with carrying astronauts to orbit.
In other words, delivering a NASA Crew mission’s Falcon second stage less than two weeks before the assembled rocket is scheduled to roll out to the launch pad may seem a tad reckless, it’s more likely that it’s evidence of SpaceX’s second stage build/test teams and facilities operating as an incredibly reliable, well-oiled machine.
Elon Musk
Trump to hand Elon Musk a top honor that traces back to JFK
Trump will award Elon Musk the National Medal of Science at Thursday’s White House summit.
Elon Musk is set to receive the highest honor the U.S. government gives to scientists and engineers.
President Donald Trump will present Musk with the National Medal of Science on Thursday at the White House’s Science: A New Golden Age Summit, Fox News Digital first reported on Wednesday. Google cofounder Sergey Brin, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and AMD CEO Lisa Su will receive the same medal, while Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will receive the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. A White House official later confirmed the list to Reuters.
“The Trump administration is grateful for the contributions of these incredible leaders in science and technology. These recipients are helping ensure America keeps leading the world in innovation,” White House spokesperson Liz Huston told Fox News.
FIRST ON FOX: Trump will award Elon Musk the National Medal of Science at the White House Thursday.
Sergey Brin, Jensen Huang and Lisa Su will also receive the science medal, while Michael Dell and Satya Nadella will receive the technology medal.
It marks Trump’s first time presenting the awards across either administration.
Full story here https://t.co/omnrLV0EwS
— Fox News Politics (@foxnewspolitics) October 7, 2026
It will be the first time Trump has presented either medal in his two terms. Congress created the National Medal of Science in 1959, and the National Science Foundation, which administers it, says 529 scientists and engineers have received it since. A presidential committee reviews nominees, but the president makes the final call.
Thursday’s group of medalists run or founded companies, and three of them sit at the center of the Super Intelligence hardware race that Musk competes in. Huang’s Nvidia supplies the GB300 chips filling SpaceX’s Colossus 2 cluster, while Su’s AMD is Nvidia’s biggest rival in data center GPUs.
Worth noting that Trump’s uncle, MIT physicist John G. Trump, received the National Medal of Science from President Ronald Reagan for his work on ionizing radiation and its uses in medicine and industry.
The Pentagon taps Elon Musk to design the battlefield of the future
For Musk, the medal is the latest sign of how far his relationship with Trump has come since their 2025 split over the “Big Beautiful Bill” and his exit from DOGE. Last week, he sat at Trump’s left during a White House lunch where AI executives signed a voluntary safety accord, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth named him to help lead the Pentagon’s Project Meridian study on the future of warfare. Musk has also adopted the administration’s new vocabulary, saying on Sunday that SpaceXAI will be renamed SpaceXSI after Trump ordered federal agencies to replace “artificial intelligence” with “super intelligence.”
Musk has collected science honors before, including the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication in 2019.
Lifestyle
Tesla FSD changed its mind mid-intersection, and it may have saved a life
Tesla shares dashcam footage of FSD Supervised stopping mid intersection to avoid a T-bone crash.
Tesla is putting another Full Self-Driving save in front of its 24.8 million followers on X.
On Tuesday morning, Tesla’s main account shared a dashcam clip with the caption “FSD Supervised preventing T-bone crash.” The footage came from an owner posting as TheNewGrid, who described what happened at a stop sign: “I looked at the car coming to the stop sign figured they would stop, my car went, then came to a stop mid intersection as they flew by. Had I been manually driving this would have resulted in a crash.”
The sequence is the notable part. FSD had already started crossing when the other driver ran the stop sign. Instead of pressing on, the car braked hard in the middle of the intersection and let the crossing vehicle pass in front of it. By the owner’s own account, they had made the same assumption the software initially made, that the other car would stop, and would not have corrected in time.
FSD Supervised preventing T-bone crash
— Tesla (@Tesla) October 6, 2026
The clip is the latest in a run of safety posts Tesla has amplified over the past several days. On Saturday, the company shared a video from Selling Sunset star Jason Oppenheim, who sold his Bentley for a Model Y and said he was buying Teslas with FSD for 10 of his employees. Ashok Elluswamy, who leads Tesla AI, followed up by writing that Tesla self-driving “reacts to other people cutting into your path with super-human response times.” On Monday, a Cybertruck owner posted footage of FSD moving across three lanes from a red light to clear a path for an ambulance approaching from behind.
This recent clip also lands a few weeks after Tesla began shipping Automatic Collision Evasion with FSD v14.3.9, a feature that can activate FSD on the driver’s behalf when a frontal collision is imminent or the driver appears distracted. Elluswamy said in September that “even earlier prediction of hazards, even faster reaction time and overall significantly better safety and collision avoidance” are coming with v15, the release Tesla has tied to round the clock Robotaxi operation.
The safety messaging matters beyond social media. Tesla has said FSD Supervised was 4.1 times less likely to crash than manual driving across 100 million kilometers on European roads, and it has been putting those figures in front of regulators. Eight EU countries have now approved FSD Supervised, with Croatia the most recent, but the EU’s bloc-wide vote originally set for October 6 has been pushed to December at the earliest.
FSD Supervised is still a Level 2 system, and the driver remains responsible at all times. Even heavy users find reasons to step in. Teslarati’s Joey Klender, who uses FSD for about 76 percent of his driving, laid out five recurring issues on Tuesday that still prompt him to intervene. Clips like this one show the other column of that ledger: moments where the software caught a mistake a human was about to make.
Energy
Tesla Model 3 and Model Y can now do what only Cybertruck could
Tesla Model 3 and Model Y can power your home with Powerwall 3 during outages.
Tesla has turned its two top sellers into backup batteries for the house.
Tesla Energy announced on Tuesday that Powershare Home Backup is now available for new Model 3 and Model Y vehicles paired with a Powerwall 3, saying the car can “extend your home backup by over 2 days.” Minutes later, Tesla’s main account quoted the post with a broader pitch: “With Powerwall 3, every Tesla can now serve as your home’s backup battery.”
Until this week, the Cybertruck was the only Tesla that could send power back into a home, and that capability only began working alongside Powerwall 3 last month, after years of ambitious targets.
Tesla’s updated Powershare page says every Model 3 and Model Y ordered in the U.S. or Puerto Rico on or after October 1, 2026 can use the feature. Some, but not all, earlier cars also qualify. Owners can check on the touchscreen under Software, then Additional Vehicle Information, where a capable car shows “Powershare Support: Enabled.” As Electrek reported, bidirectional power on the two cars runs through an inverter Tesla calls PCS2 Lite, and the company has not said when that part entered production on each trim.
The home side is simpler. A house that already has a Powerwall 3 and either a Wall Connector 3 or Universal Wall Connector needs no additional equipment, and Tesla says compatibility is enabled through a software update. When the grid drops, the Powerwall and the car work together, with up to 11.52 kW of continuous power available. Tesla’s “over two days” estimate assumes a home using 30 kWh per day and a car starting at a 90 percent charge. Standard trims are rated for up to two days, while the Cybertruck adds more than three.
There are limits. Powerwall 2 and Powerwall+ support is listed as “coming soon.” Model S and Model X are not included, and Grid Support, the program that lets Cybertruck owners in Texas send power back to the grid during demand spikes for bill credits, is not available for Model 3 or Model Y.
The rollout also lines up with something Elon Musk said more than three years ago. At Tesla’s March 2023 Investor Day, Musk said, “I don’t think very many people are going to want to use bidirectional charging, unless you have a Powerwall.” Tesla has now shipped the feature for its volume cars with exactly that requirement attached.
The Powerwall pairing was the hard part on Cybertruck. Tesla told owners in December 2025 that Powershare with Powerwall had been pushed to mid 2026, and lead engineer Wes Morrill explained that two devices capable of forming a home’s grid have to negotiate which one leads during an outage, across multiple generations of hardware. With that work done for the truck, Tesla was able to extend it to the Model 3 and Model Y within a month.
Ford and GM have offered home backup from their EVs for several years, but both require a separate inverter and backup hardware. Tesla’s version leans on equipment many Powerwall 3 owners already have on the wall. Powershare for the two cars also ships as part of software update 2026.38.3, the same release that began delivering Halloween Mode on Tuesday.
Trump to hand Elon Musk a top honor that traces back to JFK
Tesla FSD changed its mind mid-intersection, and it may have saved a life
