News
SpaceX has no plans to reuse Crew Dragon spaceships on NASA astronaut launches
According to program manager Kathy Lueders, SpaceX has chosen against reusing its upgraded Crew Dragon spaceships on NASA Commerical Crew Program (CCP) launches, even though NASA itself explicitly provided both CCP providers (Boeing and SpaceX) the option to propose reflights of crew capsules.
In fact, Boeing did just that with their CST-100 Starliner spacecraft, proposing to land Starliners on land (using airbags) and reuse the capsules repeatedly, up to 10 times each. While there is next to no official information on the matter, the question of what SpaceX is planning to do with its flight-proven Crew Dragon spacecraft is well worth puzzling over.
The Crew Dragon capsule for the SpaceX DM-1 mission will be launch ready by the end of September. pic.twitter.com/xsGw9fWkUG
— Michael Baylor (@MichaelBaylor_) August 27, 2018
The future of flight-proven Dragon 2s
Speaking at the most recent (August 27) NASA Advisory Council meeting, Lueders specifically stated that SpaceX had proposed “a new vehicle every time for [NASA]”, although NASA specifically provided the option for either new or reflown hardware, similar to Commercial Cargo where SpaceX already routinely reflies both Falcon 9s and Cargo Dragons on official NASA resupply missions.
The fact that SpaceX already routinely reuses Cargo Dragons – and even does so atop flight-proven Falcon 9 rocket boosters – adds additional intrigue to this seemingly odd decision. However, in the context of other near-term plans for other Dragon-related activities, SpaceX’s choice to not (at least in the near-term) refly Crew Dragon capsules for crewed NASA launches makes more than a little sense.
- DM-1 seen conducting acoustic testing in Ohio. (SpaceX)
- Falcon 9 B1051, DM-1’s rocket of choice, seen during construction in SpaceX’s Hawthorne factory. (SpaceX)
- (SpaceX)
- (SpaceX)
The single most obvious explanation can be found in SpaceX’s next Commercial Resupply Services contract (CRS-2), a similar follow-up to the CRS-1 contract SpaceX is currently launching Cargo Dragons under. Although SpaceX offered its Dragon 1 (already flying) as an option, NASA sided with Dragon 2 thanks to a number of unique and valuable capabilities offered by the upgraded craft. While no official detail has been released by NASA on the gritty specifics of those CRS-2 contracts, an April 2018 report from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) offers a bit more insight into SpaceX’s plans.
Although the OIG report in question never specifically states it, some of the language used to describe Dragon 2’s cargo configuration does seem to imply that Cargo Dragon 2s will predominately (if not exclusively) be derived as slightly-modified Crew Dragon capsules, seemingly indicating that SpaceX’s CRS-2 missions may only ever launch flight-proven Crew Dragon capsules. Depending on the extent of the disassembly required to remove the components described below, all other “modifications” are essentially one-and-done after the software and additional designs are completed. As such, it should be relatively straightforward to modify the vehicles between Crew and Cargo configurations.
- An overview of the expected modifications needed to turn a Crew Dragon into a Cargo Dragon 2. (NASA OIG)
This strategy would make a lot of sense: by using its Commercial Crew contract as a means to fund the construction of brand new Crew Dragon capsules and Falcon 9 rockets and then using those once flight-proven rockets and spacecraft for other NASA cargo launches, general commercial missions, and maybe even low Earth orbit tourism, SpaceX can likely extract as much value and utility as possible from that hardware.
Despite the fact that NASA in this situation would effectively be carrying a significant portion of SpaceX’s non-BFR production-related capital expenditure, the company’s CRS-2 and Commercial Crew contracts place its cargo and crew launch costs far below those of competitors Boeing, Orbital ATK (now Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems), and Sierra Nevada. Overall, SpaceX’s launch costs to NASA range anywhere from 40-75% less than its three competitors’ best offerings, essentially invalidating any nitpicking over slight cost increases from CRS-1 to CRS-2.
Even if SpaceX never ends up reusing Crew Dragons on crewed NASA launches, NASA is still likely to benefit from lower costs derived by the partial modification and reuse of those same capsules and Falcon 9 boosters on CRS-2 cargo resupply missions.
For prompt updates, on-the-ground perspectives, and unique glimpses of SpaceX’s rocket recovery fleet check out our brand new LaunchPad and LandingZone newsletters!
Elon Musk
The Boring Company’s newest tunnel vehicle runs on Tesla parts and no one is driving it
The Boring Company’s new tunnel vehicle runs on Tesla Model 3 batteries and drive units.
The Boring Company just introduced a new piece of hardware, and it runs on parts pulled straight from a Tesla showroom. Liner Truck 3, unveiled in a post from the tunneling company’s official X account, is an all electric vehicle built around Tesla Model 3 battery packs and drive units, purpose built to move concrete tunnel segments to the boring machine face without a single person underground.
Introducing Liner Truck 3 — our latest fully electric tunnel vehicle.
– Tesla Model 3 battery and drive units
– Transports 22,000+ lb of concrete segments to the boring machine
– 28 miles of range
– 12 mph max operating speed
– Remotely piloted from Global OCC in Texas, with… pic.twitter.com/XB7FgSXnpy— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) August 7, 2026
The job itself is unglamorous but critical. Each precast segment run weighs more than 22,000 pounds, roughly the load of a full cement mixer, and Liner Truck 3 hauls that weight repeatedly between the surface staging area and wherever the Prufrock machine happens to be cutting.
The Boring Company said Liner Truck 3 is piloted remotely out of its Global Operations Control Center in Texas, extending the Zero-People-In-Tunnel approach the company has spent years building toward. An earlier version of a ZPIT liner truck was already tested at the company’s Bastrop, Texas research tunnels, and a factory tour released last month showed an employee flying a fully loaded liner truck with a PlayStation controller. Liner Truck 3 looks like the production version of that same idea, cleaned up and pushed into daily use.
The timing lines up with a company digging in more places than it ever has before. The Boring Company now has multiple Prufrock machines active or arriving in Nashville, where Music City Loop construction has been accelerating since February, and its Vegas Loop network keeps adding tunnel mileage on a near monthly basis. Every one of those projects depends on getting concrete segments to the cutting face fast enough to keep the boring machine from idling, which is exactly the bottleneck Liner Truck 3 is designed to remove.
It also reinforces something Tesla owners have watched happen gradually across Musk’s companies: passenger car hardware finding a second life in heavy equipment. Model 3 drive units already move people through the Vegas Loop, and now the same components are hauling concrete underground in Nashville and wherever The Boring Company digs next. Whether that kind of component reuse extends further into TBC’s equipment lineup, or into other Musk owned industrial hardware, is the next thing worth watching.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk and SpaceX shrugs off the trading day Wall Street feared most
SpaceX stock did the opposite of what most of Wall Street expected this week, when the day designed to be its most dangerous turned into a rally, and the rally kept going.
Thursday marked the first major lockup expiration since SpaceX’s June IPO, making roughly 911.5 million insider held shares eligible to trade for the first time, more than doubling the company’s public float. Analysts and short sellers had spent weeks bracing for a flood of selling, especially after the stock fell 13 percent following its first earnings report as a public company on Tuesday. Instead, shares rose 6.1 percent Thursday to close at $114.92, and by Friday they were trading near $129, up more than another 12 percent on the day.
SpaceX shorts get warned by Musk ally, echoing Tesla’s early struggles
The setup made the outcome notable. Short interest had climbed to roughly 34 percent of the float heading into earnings, among the highest of any large cap stock, with about 95 percent of available shares to borrow already on loan. CEO Elon Musk warned short sellers twice in the weeks before the lockup, writing on X that “the survival probability of firms who maintain a significant short position in SpaceX over time is very low,” then following up on the morning of earnings with “I try to warn them, but they just double down.”
When the newly unlocked shares hit the market and the selloff never showed up, some of that short position appears to have started unwinding. TipRanks reported that options activity shifted toward bullish strategies like put selling and risk reversals following the rally, with roughly $600 million in options premium trading Thursday alone. Retail buyers also stepped in during the earnings dip, according to Vanda Research.
The fundamentals behind the stock have not changed much in a week. SpaceX’s revenue nearly doubled year over year to $7.8 billion, with Starlink subscribers doubling to 12 million and the company’s AI segment growing 247 percent. What spooked investors on Tuesday was the spending side. Capital expenditures jumped to more than $18 billion for the quarter, up from $2.8 billion a year earlier, with AI investment alone rising from $749 million to $15.8 billion. Wall Street remains split on whether that spending is building infrastructure SpaceX needs or outrunning what the business can currently support, a debate Teslarati has tracked since shares first came under pressure.
None of that resolves the bigger question hanging over the stock. Thursday’s release was only the first of nine staggered lockup tranches, with roughly $800 billion worth of additional shares scheduled to become eligible through October, and Musk’s own stake stays locked until next June. If this week is any indication, the market is treating that supply as something it can absorb rather than something to fear, at least for now.
News
The Boring Company’s newest Vegas Station has a permit quietly waiting behind it
Sahara Las Vegas opened a new Vegas Loop station, joining an exclusive two resort transit club.
Sahara Las Vegas opened a new Vegas Loop station Thursday, giving The Boring Company’s underground transit system its northernmost stop yet on the Strip. The station sits at Sahara’s Paradise Road entrance, on the southeast corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Sahara Avenue, and connects riders to the Las Vegas Convention Center, other Strip resorts on the network and, eventually, Harry Reid International Airport.
The addition makes Sahara the second resort, after Fontainebleau opened its own station in January, to get a stop built at street level rather than tucked into the property itself. Sahara now joins Westgate as the only two Strip resorts offering both a Vegas Loop station and a stop on the Las Vegas Monorail, giving guests two separate ways to get around without leaving the property.
The Boring Company just doubled its tunneling power in Nashville
The bigger news buried in Thursday’s announcement is what comes next. Boring Company has already secured its first permit to tunnel north of Sahara Avenue, extending the network beyond where it currently ends, even though permits to push the Loop toward downtown Las Vegas still haven’t been granted. Crews are also working on a two mile dual tunnel line running from Westgate to a planned station at 4744 Paradise Road, just north of Tropicana Avenue, that Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority CEO Steve Hill has said the company hopes to open in time for November’s Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Ridership has grown alongside the buildout. The Loop moved roughly 82,000 passengers during CONEXPO in early March, a total the company highlighted on its own X account at the time, and the system has now carried more than 4 million passengers through 11 open stations since it began running in 2021. The airport connector tunnels, meant to give the Loop a direct link to Harry Reid, have slipped past their original first quarter target and remain under construction, with Boring Company director Mike Baier saying that a full opening is still a few months out.
For Sahara, the calculation is straightforward. Convention traffic drives a large share of Loop ridership, and a station at the property’s front door gives conventiongoers one more reason to book rooms on the Strip’s north end instead of closer to the convention center itself.






