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SpaceX wraps up Falcon 9 launch, sends drone ship to sea for the next one
SpaceX’s two East Coast drone ships have passed each other by as one returned from the company’s most recent Falcon 9 launch and the other headed to sea for the next one.
An unsurprising consequence of SpaceX’s extraordinary 2022 launch cadence goal, it just so happened that the company’s next launch was scheduled such that the upcoming Starlink mission’s drone ship left Port Canaveral at almost the exact moment that another drone ship was returning from its last launch. The timing was so perfect that the two converted barges sailed past each other just a thousand or so feet apart and just a few thousand feet outside of the mouth of the port both call home.
Drone ship Just Read The Instructions (JRTI) was returning to port after about a week at sea with Falcon 9 booster B1062, which successfully launched Egypt’s Nilesat-301 communications satellite into a supersynchronous geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) on June 8th. Heading in the opposite direction, drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas (ASOG) – towed by support ship Doug – left port and began its journey about 650 kilometers (~400 mi) downrange to support Starlink 4-19, SpaceX’s next launch.
Nilesat-301 was SpaceX’s 23rd launch of 2022 and Falcon 9 B1062’s seventh launch overall, as well as the booster’s sixth launch in less than 12 months. In early 2022, CEO Elon Musk announced that SpaceX was targeting an average of one launch per week throughout the calendar year. He later revised that target to 60 launches or 1.15 launches per week after a few months of undeniable success. Set in 2021, SpaceX’s annual record is 31 Falcon launches, followed by 26 in 2020. In 2022, SpaceX is on track to launch more than 26 times in the first half of the year. In fact, after Nilesat-301, the company has another five missions tentatively scheduled to launch in June for a total of 28 in H1 2022 if all manage to avoid significant delays.
Starlink 4-19 is scheduled to launch from SpaceX’s NASA Kennedy Space Center LC-39A pad no earlier than (NET) 10:50 am EDT (14:50 UTC) on Friday, June 17th. SpaceX’s schedule for the mission will be exceptionally tight and likely offer few – if any – backup opportunities before the end of the month, owing to the company’s need to launch Cargo Dragon on a NASA space station resupply mission as early as June 28th. Unless CRS-25’s launch date has slipped again, the current schedule leaves SpaceX only a handful of days to convert Pad 39A back into its Dragon configuration immediately after Starlink 4-19.
While merely the 48th in a long line of dedicated Starlink internet satellite launches, Starlink 4-19 will be an important mission for SpaceX for a number of other reasons. First, it will be the 100th reuse of a Falcon booster since the first in March 2017. If all goes well, it will also mark SpaceX’s 50th consecutively successful Falcon booster landing. Perhaps most significantly, Starlink 4-19 could be Falcon 9’s 130th consecutively successful launch campaign – just four successes away from breaking the world record of 133 consecutive successes set by variants of Russia’s Soyuz/R-7 rocket.
SpaceX is also scheduled to launch Germany’s SARah-1 radar satellite and a group of rideshare payloads out of California no earlier than (NET) June 18th. Another mysterious launch is scheduled out of SpaceX’s LC-40 Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) pad as early as June 19th. Finally, two more Falcon 9 rockets are scheduled to launch the SES-22 geostationary communications satellite on June 27th or 28th and Cargo Dragon’s CRS-25 resupply mission on June 28th.
Tesla just told us twice that the Model Y L is coming to the U.S., and two social media posts definitely just tipped the company’s hand, as if they wanted it to be any other way.
The two social media posts basically confirm that the slightly longer version of the Model Y will be heading to the United States soon, and many have speculated that the company could launch the vehicle as soon as this weekend.
The first post was directly from Tesla, and it showed an incredibly long Dachshund, with words above that said, “Looking forward to the long weekend.”
Looking forward to the long weekend pic.twitter.com/URzH6zOUdn
— Tesla (@Tesla) July 1, 2026
Anyone who knows Tesla knows the company loves to troll its fans and have fun, and this is a perfect example of that. While not a direct acknowledgement, Tesla is very involved on social media, especially CEO Elon Musk’s platform X, and the company is well aware of what is being discussed within the community.
With recent sightings of Model Y L test mules in California, peeks of the vehicle at Giga Texas, and a large call for the car to come to the U.S., Tesla is simply stoking conversation with this.
However, the company also made another move that was recognized on social media. Tesla has a large gallery that includes photos of its products so media and others can use them. This gallery applies to the U.S. market specifically, unless otherwise specified.
Tesla uploaded a Model Y L to the Gallery last night:
This looks like a Model Y L https://t.co/TpnBwrLmH9
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 2, 2026
This seems to be another indication that the Model Y L is coming to the United States.
Musk said last year that the Model Y L could make its way to the United States late this year, but it was not something that was set in stone by Tesla. The company definitely needs to establish something in the SUV market that is larger than the Model Y, and the Model Y L might be the answer.
Even still, there are consumers out there who would love Tesla to develop something even larger, like a competitor to the Tahoe or Expedition. Tesla has not really given much of an indication that it will go in that direction.
Tesla is using the vehicles’ internal microphones to improve build quality, Vice President of Engineering Lars Moravy revealed recently.
It’s no secret that Tesla is always finding ways to make its manufacturing operations more efficient, accurate, and valuable. Constantly trying to make its cars better, the company has never placed any restrictions on what it will do to improve everything from panel gaps to paint.
As Teslas have been driving autonomously on the property of the Gigafactory Texas plant for a while now, Moravy revealed to Herbert Ong in a new interview that cars rolling off production lines now autonomously navigate themselves through a bumps, squeaks, and rattles (BSR) portion of the line. This helps to identify any loose or improperly installed internal parts.
The cabin’s microphones, which are used for a variety of things in ownership, simultaneously monitor any noises inside the vehicle while it rolls through the BSR portion of the production line. Moravy actually revealed that Tesla is trying to build “Full Self-Hearing,” an AI system that will detect minor imperfections so they can be corrected before delivery.
It’s no secret that build quality is something that Tesla struggled with as it scaled to a fully massive production operation that manufactures over 1.6 million vehicles per year. However, in recent years, especially, there have not been as many complaints. Tesla has truly improved upon its build quality and paint quality over the past several years, especially in the U.S.
Tesla’s ‘megacasts’ are key to massive build quality improvements
While those improvements have been evident, there are still some complaints; no automaker is perfect with this. But this step will now ensure that every single car that rolls off the production lines at Gigafactory Texas will be void of any creaks, squeaks, or squeals when it leaves the factory.
This measure is one of the most unique we’ve seen in terms of a strategy to avoid build quality issues, but it is not exclusive to Tesla.
Ford uses acoustic analysis AI to find abnormalities in seat motors, climate control units, and other components. Suppliers and OEMs will also use microphone arrays or particle velocity sensors in end-of-line stations.
The full interview with Lars Moravy is available below:
🚨 If you’re a Tesla investor, this is one interview you don’t want to skip. The full video posted below.
Jeff Lutz @thejefflutz and I sat down with Tesla VP of Engineering Lars Moravy, and it was packed with insights!
A few of the biggest takeaways:
• Cybercab is expected to… pic.twitter.com/fhYSr2dCqP
— Herbert Ong (@herbertong) July 1, 2026
Investor's Corner
Tesla crushes Wall Street expectations, beats delivery estimates by over 15 percent
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) beat Wall Street expectations of 406,000 vehicles delivered in Q2 by reporting 480,126 deliveries for the three months ending in June.
Tesla reported it delivered 467,762 Model 3 and Model Y units, while 12,364 Model S, Model X, and Cybertrucks switched hands during the quarter. The Model S and Model X were officially sunset this past quarter and will no longer be part of the company’s Production & Delivery reports moving forward.
🚨 BREAKING: Tesla delivered 480,126 vehicles in Q2, ANNIHILATING Wall Street expectations of 406,000. Production was reported at 451,758.
Deliveries:
Model 3/Y: 467,762
Other Models: 12,364Production:
Model 3/Y: 442,936
Other Models: 8,822 https://t.co/TTHwQAsKt8 pic.twitter.com/7qI4Zj6FE5— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 2, 2026
The quarter is a pleasant surprise and a good rebound from Q1, when Tesla slightly missed the Wall Street consensus of 365,645 cars by reporting 358,023 deliveries for the first three motnhs of the year.
Energy storage deployments also provided some strength in Tesla’s delivery report, hitting 13.5 GWh for Q2. This is a particular division of Tesla’s business that has been overwhelmingly robust over the past few years, truly being a strong point of the company’s overall model.
For the year, Tesla analysts still predict deliveries to trend in the 1.69 million unit region, a modest 3 to 5 percent increase from the 1.64 million cars the company delivered last year. Tesla will likely return to more sequential and noticeable year-over-year growth as the Cybercab project starts to ramp up considerably in the next few years.
Tesla has some other potential catalysts to spur vehicle deliveries, too. Not only is it expecting Cybercab to truly start making a change in the next few years, but other vehicles could be entering the company’s lineup.
Tesla sends production Cybercab with no steering wheel, pedals to on-road testing
The slightly longer Model Y L has been a highly speculated release candidate in the U.S. It has already done incredibly well in China, and U.S. buyers have been wanting slightly more interior space than the Model Y. Now that the Model X is gone, it is more needed than ever.
Q2 highlights a pretty stable automotive division within Tesla, and no true concerns arise from these figures, especially considering it managed to beat expectations convincingly.
Tesla just told us twice that Model Y L is coming to the U.S.
Tesla is using vehicle microphones to improve build quality: here’s how
