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NASA updates status of SpaceX’s next two astronaut launches

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NASA has updated the status of SpaceX’s next two crewed Falcon 9 launches – one fully private and the other for the space agency.

According to NASA, SpaceX’s first all-private Crew Dragon mission to the International Space Station has been delayed a month to allow additional technical and scheduling issues. Mission customer Axiom Space has yet to confirm or comment on the delay. NASA Commercial Crew Program manager Steve Stich also says that SpaceX’s next NASA astronaut launch will break a record for crewed Falcon booster reusability.

According to Stich, Crew-4’s four astronauts will launch atop a thrice-flown rocket, making the mission the first time SpaceX will have launched humans on the fourth flight of a Falcon 9 booster. However, Axiom’s first Crew Dragon launch might beat the space agency to the punch.

B1067 last launched Turkey’s Turksat 5A commsat in December 2021. (Richard Angle)

Crew-4 will be SpaceX’s fourth operational astronaut launch for NASA and is scheduled to lift off no earlier than (NET) April 15th, 2022 with a new Crew Dragon capsule and thrice-flown Falcon 9 booster B1067. On January 18th, a NASA blog post also confirmed a delay for Axiom’s Ax-1 mission, pushing the mission’s liftoff from February 21st to no earlier than (NET) March 31st, 2022 – quite close to Crew-4. Ax-1 will be Crew Dragon’s first private astronaut launch to the International Space Station (ISS) and the world’s first fully-private spaceflight to a space station. Unlike all other missions with private citizens that have visited the ISS, no Roscosmos or NASA astronauts will be aboard the spacecraft when Dragon lifts off.

Instead, commanded by former NASA astronaut Michael López-Alegría, Ax-1 will only carry private citizens. Each paying $55 million for the privilege, the mission’s three customers are Larry Connor, Mark Pathy, and Eytan Stibbe – all businessmen who’ve respectively amassed multmillion-dollar fortunes in real estate; entertainment and shipping; and military equipment and venture capitalism.

Ax-1 will reuse Crew Dragon capsule C207, which previously launched Crew-1 in November 2020 and Inspiration4 in September 2021. If Ax-1 avoids further delays, the mission will be the first time SpaceX (or anyone) launches astronauts in a twice-flown orbital space capsule. By all appearances, Ax-1 will also have to launch on a Falcon 9 booster that’s flown three or even four times (B1062 or B1063). Again, if Ax-1 launches before Crew-4, it will likely be the first crewed SpaceX launch to use such an experienced Falcon 9 booster.

Crew Dragon C207 is pictured after its second trip to orbit. (SpaceX)

However, if Ax-1 slips even a few days to the right, it’s more likely than not that NASA’s Crew-4 mission will take precedence and delay Ax-1 to late April 2022 at the earliest. Cargo Dragon’s CRS-25 ISS resupply mission is then scheduled to launch as early as May 2022, potentially setting the stage for a salvo of Dragon launches. Pad 39A, which will be responsible for all three launches, has a turnaround record of 10 days and has never launched two Dragons less than 18 days apart. The latter record will have to be broken for the current Ax-1 – Crew-4 schedule to hold.

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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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Elon Musk gives his most telling Tesla-SpaceX merger conversation yet

Elon Musk hinted a Tesla-SpaceX merger could be coming, and Wall Street is taking notice.

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Elon Musk gave his clearest signal yet that Tesla and SpaceX could eventually combine, telling the All-In Summit in Los Angeles that the two companies’ deepening collaboration makes the question worth asking. Sawyer Merritt first surfaced the highlight on X Tuesday.

Asked directly why Tesla and SpaceX remain separate given how closely they already work together, Musk told hosts at the summit: “Great question there. With all this collaboration, on so many levels, who can imagine what action one might take when there’s so much close collaboration in so many areas.” SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell, who joined Musk on stage, added that SpaceX personnel have already moved into xAI to fill leadership and engineering gaps, saying the businesses are integrating “faster than I thought,” though “not fully integrated yet,”

The comments landed on top of merger speculation that has been building on Wall Street for months. JPMorgan has called a tie-up “strategically coherent on paper,” pointing to overlapping ambitions in AI, robotics, energy, transportation and space. Jefferies went further, estimating Musk could retain roughly 55.3 percent voting control in a deal structured without a premium, a scenario that would still leave room for Tesla shareholders to come out ahead. On Kalshi, traders now put the odds of a merger before 2028 at 66 percent.

Tesla’s stake in SpaceX, still under one percent, traces back to its earlier investment in xAI, which converted to SpaceX equity after SpaceX absorbed the AI company. The two are also jointly building Terafab, a chip facility in Austin meant to serve both Tesla’s AI computing needs and SpaceX’s satellite ambitions. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives has stood by a 2027 merger timeline for months, and Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest recently floated a similar case, an idea Musk pushed back on directly at the time.

Another Tesla SpaceX merger prediction by ARK Invest has Elon Musk talking

The timing adds another layer. Tesla has scheduled an October 1 unveiling for its next generation Roadster at a venue near SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas test site, using the phrase “Go for launch” in its promotional material. Both stocks dipped roughly 2 percent Monday before recovering slightly in premarket trading Tuesday, with SpaceX shares up about 0.4 percent and Tesla essentially flat.

Musk stopped short of confirming anything is in motion. But unlike his past denials of a corporate restructuring, this response didn’t rule one out, and it came with Shotwell sitting next to him describing an integration that’s already underway.

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Tesla Roadster unveiling is getting hyped up by Elon Musk

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tesla roadster
Credit: Petersen Auto Museum

The Tesla Roadster unveiling is getting hyped up by the company’s CEO Elon Musk, who has been a big reason the product has such high expectations due to delayed timelines and a constant need to make it even more insane than before.

Tesla announced on September 12 that it would officially unveil the Roadster in Waco, Texas, on October 1, ending years of patience for fans and reservation holders who have waited for the all-electric supercar to enter production since 2017.

Musk has said that this event will be well worth the wait on several occasions, and last year on the Joe Rogan Experience, he said that there should be a closing chapter to supercars- the end of cars that aren’t focused on safety.

He said:

“Whether it’s good or bad, it will be unforgettable. My friend Peter Thiel once reflected that the future was supposed to have flying cars, but we don’t have flying cars. I think if Peter wants a flying car, he should be able to buy one. I think it has a shot at being the most memorable product unveil ever. This is some crazy technology in this car. Let’s just put it this way: if you took all the James Bond cars and combined them, it’s crazier than that.”

Musk’s teases have continued, and now that the event is roughly two weeks away, it seems like Roadster is finally going to show up and blow some minds:

Tesla has definitely dragged out the development of the Roadster, but there is a good reason for it.

Tesla has been working on many other projects, most notably self-driving efforts to increase passenger safety, and those simply took priority over the Roadster, a low-volume, high-performance sports car that has a lightning-fast acceleration rate of 0-60 MPH in just 1.1 seconds, could potentially fly, and contributes very little to the company’s mission.

However, many people have the Roadster on pre-order through the referral program or with their own money, and it is time that Tesla delivers on that.

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Elon Musk’s Boring Company has big plans for Las Vegas by year’s end

Elon Musk’s Boring Company says Vegas Loop stations will double by year end once again.

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the boring company's vegas loop entrance

The Boring Company says the Vegas Loop’s station count will double by the end of the year, tying the target to a hiring push for drivers and operations managers in Las Vegas. “Vegas Loop is getting bigger – the station count will double by end of year!” the company wrote in a post on X, attaching listings for a Loop driver and a senior Loop operations manager.

The number checks out against what’s already public, with the Vegas Loop currently running 14 operational stations, while the Boring Company’s own project page lists 28 as the target for the end of 2026.

Much of that growth is tied to tunnels that are already built and waiting on an opening date. A roughly two-mile dual tunnel system under Paradise Road, connecting Westgate to a planned station at 4744 Paradise Road, is expected to open in stages over the coming weeks, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority chief executive Steve Hill told the Review-Journal last week. New stations at 4744 Paradise, Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, and the former Gordon Biersch site would come online with it, several of them built to speed up rides to Harry Reid International Airport ahead of Formula 1’s Las Vegas Grand Prix.

Clark County entitled Vegas Loop for 123 stations after approving 19 more in August, as Teslarati reported at the time. Entitlement and construction move at different speeds on this project, so county approval alone does not guarantee a station opens on any particular schedule.

Clark County approved 18 additional stations back in 2023, part of a plan that pushed the system’s target to 69 stations across 65 miles, doubling the network on paper for the first time. The target kept climbing after that, to roughly 93 stations by the end of that year and 104 by last year, before August’s vote pushed it to 123. This week’s announcement is the first time that doubling language has been attached to stations actually running rather than stations merely approved on a county map.

Ridership gives some sense of what a denser network could carry. Boring Company executive Mike Baier said in July that the Vegas Loop already moves around 40,000 passengers on busy convention days, a total that tops most light rail systems in the country despite the system running on a fraction of its planned tunnel mileage. Company leadership has projected ridership could triple or quadruple once the airport connector tunnels fully open.

Boring Company did not say which stations beyond those already under construction would open by year end, or whether the hiring push points to a fleet expansion alongside the new stops.

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