News
(Update: scrubbed) SpaceX’s next Starlink launch to break rocket fairing reuse record
Update: SpaceX says that today’s Starlink-12 launch attempt was scrubbed due to a mysterious “recovery issue.” Liftoff from Kennedy Space Center Pad 39A is now scheduled no earlier than (NET) 1:57 pm EDT (17:57 UTC) on Friday, September 18th.
Prior to the announcement, fairing recovery ship GO Ms. Tree was spotted diverting to a North Carolina port for unknown reasons, leaving twin ship Ms. Chief to recover both fairing halves. Based on bouy data, conditions at the Atlantic Ocean fairing and booster recovery zones appeared to be moderately challenging but far from unreasonable and SpaceX has been happy to point to recovery weather for past launch delays.
SpaceX has revealed that its next Starlink launch will mark a new first for Falcon 9 payload fairing reuse, reaching a milestone that took booster reuse 18 months in less than a year.
Scheduled to lift off no earlier than (NET) 2:19 pm EDT (18:19 UTC) on Thursday, September 17th, the Starlink-12 (v1.0 L12) mission will be SpaceX’s 11th in 2020 alone and 13th overall. If things go according to plan, it could leave SpaceX’s nascent constellation just two or so months away from the beginning of the first public beta tests of Starlink internet service.
Meanwhile, Falcon 9 booster B1058 will be attempting its third launch less than four months after its flight debut, an unprecedented cadence of reuse for SpaceX. Aside from likely ensuring that B1058 becomes the proud holder of SpaceX’s first and second place records for booster turnaround (time between launches), the mission also continues an unexpected trend: the near-extinction of Falcon 9 static fire tests.
SpaceX’s first successful Falcon booster landing happened in December 2015, just a few months shy of five years ago. In March 2017, two years later, SpaceX reused a Falcon 9 booster on an orbital-class launch for the first time in history. Some 21 months after that historic milestone, SpaceX launched the same Falcon 9 booster for the third time, kicking off a relentless series of reusability firsts that continue to be made to this day.
Now, SpaceX says it’s about to launch the same Falcon 9 payload fairing half for the third time in a significant and unexpected first for fairing reuse. Constructed primarily out of a carbon fiber-aluminum honeycomb composite material, Falcon fairings are dramatically more fragile – and reaches much higher altitudes and velocities – than the boosters SpaceX has cut its teeth on recovering and reusing.
Compared to booster reuse, it’s quite the achievement. SpaceX first managed to launch the same Falcon 9 booster three times in December 2018, ~33 months after the first booster reuse. Measured from SpaceX’s first fairing reuse, completed in November 2019 as part of the first Starlink v1.0 launch (Starlink-1), the company will have managed to cross the three-flight fairing reuse barrier less than 11 months later – a full three times faster than SpaceX’s booster reuse program took to achieve the same milestone.
Additionally, prior to SpaceX’s September 16th reveal, it was purely up to speculation whether the company would be able to reuse Falcon fairing halves more than once, particularly when a given fairing half is only fished out of the ocean. If successful, Starlink-12 will prove that Falcon fairing halves can be reused at least three times regardless of whether SpaceX was/is able to catch said halve in a recovery ship’s net.
No more static fires?
Meanwhile, SpaceX appears to be turning a major corner on Falcon 9 launch operations. Of all 93 Falcon 9 launches since the rocket’s June 2010 debut, every single one has been preceded by a combined wet dress rehearsal (WDR) and static fire test a few days or weeks prior to liftoff. Effectively simulating a launch 1:1 up to the exact moment before liftoff, SpaceX has used static fires to verify vehicle health and firewall minor quality assurance lapses for as long as it’s been launching rockets.
In a major operational change that has almost flown under the radar, SpaceX appears to have killed the practice of universal prelaunch static fires beginning with Starlink-8 in June 2020. Including Starlink-8, of the seven launches SpaceX has completed in the last three months, just three (GPS III SV03, Starlink-9, and Starlink-10) included Falcon 9 static fire tests prior to liftoff. A step further, two of the four static fire-free launches were for major commercial missions – not retiring risk on SpaceX’s own Starlink launches, in other words.
As of today, Falcon 9 has completed 65 successful launches since the last catastrophic vehicle failure (Amos-6, September 2016) and 74 consecutively-successful launches if Amos-6 (which never lifted off) is excluded. As of 2020, it’s the most reliable US launch vehicle currently in operation, surpassing ULA’s Atlas V several months ago. In fewer words, it’s not actually surprising (in retrospect) that SpaceX has begun to relax its position on static fires – especially considering that there isn’t another launch provider on Earth that static fires rockets before every launch.
More likely than not, SpaceX will continue to static fire Falcon 9 and Heavy boosters at the launch pad before their flight debuts and upon customer request. If launch or post-flight inspection data offer reason(s) for concern, SpaceX may still choose to static fire boosters out of caution. Additionally, SpaceX shows no signs of ending the practice of performing full booster static fires in McGregor, Texas as part of acceptance testing, still leaving it a step beyond traditional rocket manufacturers, which only static fire individual engines.
Regardless, SpaceX’s 13th Starlink launch will be streamed live as usual, with coverage beginning around 15 minutes prior to liftoff.
Check out Teslarati’s Marketplace! We offer Tesla accessories, including for the Tesla Cybertruck and Tesla Model 3.
News
Tesla pulls back the curtain on Cybercab mass production
Tesla’s Cybercab drives itself off the Gigafactory Texas line in a striking new production video.
Tesla has provided a first look from inside a production Cybercab as it drove itself off the assembly line at Gigafactory Texas. The video footage, posted on X, opens on the factory floor with robotic arms and assembly equipment visible through the Cybercab windshield, and follows the car through a branded tunnel marked “Cybercab”, before autonomously navigating itself to a holding lot.
The first Cybercab rolled off the Giga Texas production line on February 17, 2026, with Musk writing on X, “Congratulations to the Tesla team on making the first production Cybercab.” April marked the official shift to volume production. The Giga Texas line is being prepared to produce hundreds of units per week, with 60 units already spotted on the Gigafactory campus earlier this month.
Purpose-built for autonomy
Cybercab in production now at Giga Texas pic.twitter.com/Y9qG3KyWBa
— Tesla (@Tesla) April 23, 2026
The Cybercab was first revealed publicly at Tesla’s “We, Robot” event in October 2024 at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California, where 20 pre-production units gave attendees rides around the studio lot. Musk said he believed the average operating cost would be around $0.20 per mile, and that buyers would be able to purchase one for under $30,000. The two-seat design is deliberate. Musk noted that 90 percent of miles driven involve one or two people, making a compact two-passenger vehicle the most efficient configuration for a fleet-scale robotaxi. Eliminating rear seats also removes complexity and cost, supporting that sub-$30,000 target.
Tesla’s annual production goal is 2 million Cybercabs per year once several factories reach full design capacity. The Cybercab has no steering wheel, no pedals, and relies entirely on Tesla’s vision-based FSD system. What the video shows is the first evidence of that system working not as a demo, but as a production reality, driving itself off the line and into the world.
🚗 Our first ride in Tesla Cybercab last October: pic.twitter.com/kGqIqgJPRn https://t.co/BITCXFhbVd
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2025
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s last manually driven Tesla will do something no other production car will do
Elon Musk confirmed the Roadster as Tesla’s last manually driven car, with a debut coming soon.
During Tesla’s Q1 2026 earnings call on April 22, Elon Musk made a brief but notable comment about the long-awaited next generation Roadster while describing Tesla’s future vehicle lineup. “Long term, the only manually driven car will be the new Tesla Roadster,” he said. “Speaking of which, we may be able to debut that in a month or so. It requires a lot of testing and validation before we can actually have a demo and not have something go wrong with the demo.”
That single statement is the entire Roadster update from yesterday’s call, and while it represents another timeline shift, it comes as no surprise with Tesla heads-down-at-work on the mass rollout of its Robotaxi service across US cities, and the industrial scale production of the humanoid Optimus.
The fact that Musk specifically framed the Roadster as the last manually driven Tesla is significant on its own. As the rest of the lineup moves toward full autonomy, the Roadster becomes something rare in the Tesla-sphere by keeping the driver in control. Driving enthusiasts who buy a $200,000 supercar are not doing so to be passengers. They want the physical connection to the road, the feel of acceleration under their own input, and the experience of controlling something with that level of performance. FSD, however capable it becomes, removes that entirely. The Roadster signals that Tesla understands this distinction and is building a car specifically for the people who consider driving itself the point.
Tesla isn’t joking about building Optimus at an industrial scale: Here we go
The specs for the Roadster Musk has teased over the years are genuinely unlike anything in production. The base model targets 0 to 60 mph in 1.9 seconds, a top speed above 250 mph, and up to 620 miles of range from a 200 kWh battery. The optional SpaceX package takes it further, rumored to add roughly ten cold gas thrusters operating at 10,000 psi, borrowed directly from Falcon 9 rocket technology. With thrusters, Musk has claimed 0 to 60 mph in as little as 1.1 seconds. In a 2021 Joe Rogan interview he went further, stating “I want it to hover. We got to figure out how to make it hover without killing people.” Tesla filed a patent for ground effect technology in August 2025, suggesting the hover concept has not been abandoned. The starting price remains $200,000, with the Founders Series requiring a $250,000 full deposit. Some reservation holders placed those deposits in 2017 and are approaching a full decade of waiting.
With production now targeted for 2027 or 2028 at the earliest, the Roadster remains Tesla’s most audacious promise and its longest-running delay. But if what Musk is testing lives up to even half of what he has described, the demo alone should be worth waiting for.
Elon Musk says the Tesla Roadster unveiling could be done “maybe in a month or so.”
He said it should be an extraordinary unveiling event. pic.twitter.com/6V9P7zmvEm
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2026
Elon Musk
Tesla confirmed HW3 can’t do Unsupervised FSD but there’s more to the story
Tesla confirmed HW3 vehicles cannot run unsupervised FSD, replacing its free upgrade promise with a discounted trade-in.
Tesla has officially confirmed that early vehicles with its Autopilot Hardware 3 (HW3) will not be capable of unsupervised Full Self-Driving, while extending a path forward for legacy owners through a discounted trade-in program. The announcement came by way of Elon Musk in today’s Tesla Q1 2026 earnings call.
🚨 Our LIVE updates on the Tesla Earnings Call will take place here in a thread 🧵
Follow along below: pic.twitter.com/hzJeBitzJU
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2026
The history here matters. HW3 launched in April 2019, and Tesla sold Full Self-Driving packages to owners on the understanding that the hardware was sufficient for full autonomy. Some owners paid between $8,000 and $15,000 for FSD during that period. For years, as FSD’s AI models grew more demanding, HW3 vehicles fell progressively further behind, eventually landing on FSD v12.6 in January 2025 while AI4 vehicles moved to v13 and then v14. When Musk acknowledged in January 2025 that HW3 simply could not reach unsupervised operation, and alluded to a difficult hardware retrofit.
The near-term offering is more concrete. Tesla’s head of Autopilot Ashok Elluswamy confirmed on today’s call that a V14-lite will be coming to HW3 vehicles in late June, bringing all the V14 features currently running on AI4 hardware. That is a meaningful software update for owners who have been frozen at v12.6 for over a year, and it represents genuine effort to keep older hardware relevant. Unsupervised FSD for vehicles is now targeted for Q4 2026 at the earliest, with Musk describing it as a gradual, geography-limited rollout.
For HW3 owners, the over-the-air V14-lite update is welcomed, and the discounted trade-in path at least acknowledges an old obligation. What happens next with the trade-in pricing will define how this chapter ultimately gets written. If Tesla prices the hardware path fairly, acknowledges what early adopters are owed, and delivers V14-lite on the June timeline it committed to today, it has a real opportunity to convert one of the longest-running sore subjects among early adopters into a loyalty story.
Tesla pulls back the curtain on Cybercab mass production
Elon Musk’s last manually driven Tesla will do something no other production car will do
