News
SpaceX aims for two launches in two days, droneship robot spotted again
NASASpaceflight.com has reported that two SpaceX launches have slipped five days, with SES-11 and Iridium NEXT-3 respectively scheduled for launch on October 7th and 9th. Initially planned for October 2nd and 4th, the concurrent delays mean SpaceX will still attempt to conduct two launches within approximately 48 hours of each other.
We expect the Falcon 9 launch with the third set of Iridium NEXT satellites from Vandenberg to be NET Oct. 9. Philip Sloss (NSF) IR-2 photo. pic.twitter.com/rv7FoM5ZbC
— NSF – NASASpaceflight.com (@NASASpaceflight) September 25, 2017
Earlier this summer, SpaceX managed to successfully launch three Falcon 9 missions in just 12 days, with two of those launches and booster recoveries occurring in less than 48 hours. As such, the company has readily demonstrated its ability for rapid-fire launch cadence and a willingness to schedule missions as few as 24 hours apart, if necessary.
While SpaceX is only able to intermittently achieve such a cadence, their ability to launch rapidly will likely mature as LC-40 is reactivated and the company finds itself with three active launch pads. This is the only way SpaceX can achieve a planned cadence of weekly launches by 2019, and it would also help the company conduct several dozen potential launches next year, 28 of which presently have tentative launch dates in 2018.
If all goes according to plan, the second week of October will see two Falcon 9 vehicles launch satellites into Earth orbits and then return to their respective oceans for recovery aboard both of SpaceX’s autonomous droneships; Just Read The Instructions in the Pacific, and Of Course I Still Love You in the Atlantic.
Of Course I Still Love You‘s mythical robotic companion was spotted out and about aboard the droneship earlier this week by Julia Bergeron, an active SpaceX fan and resident of Florida’s Space Coast. More exciting still, the launch of SES-11 will be the second time the telecommunications company has chosen to fly on a refurbished Falcon 9, and SpaceX’s third commercial reuse of an orbital-class rocket.
I went to @PortCanaveral to visit @SpaceX #OCISLY since it's been a while. I was greeted with autonomous open arms. Yes, we miss you too! pic.twitter.com/9dPDSjpwkd
— Julia Bergeron (@julia_bergeron) September 22, 2017
SpaceX’s next Eastern mission, Koreasat 5A, may be pushed back at least several days from its tentative October 14th launch date due to the aforementioned delays. SES-11 may be the last launch from the LC-39A launch facility for some time, requiring Koreasat 5A to launch from SpaceX’s second Eastern pad, LC-40. LC-39A needs a hiatus from launch activities for at least several weeks to give SpaceX’s pad engineers time needed to modify the facility for Falcon Heavy. Extensive on-pad testing for Falcon Heavy will precede its inaugural launch attempts, and that process will demand a level of flexibility that an operational launch facility simply could not support over a period of several weeks or months.
Still, SpaceX is unlikely to allow Falcon Heavy to seriously intervene with or delay its customers’ launches, and evidence of LC-40 nearing launch readiness is currently hard to find. SpaceX employees are reportedly busy assembling and outfitting the Transporter/Erector/Launcher (TEL) that will allow for launches to begin again at the newly repaired pad, but a significant amount of work remains. If LC-40 ends up requiring more time to reach operational status, LC-39A will undoubtedly continue to support commercial launches until it can be seamlessly replaced. A slower reactivation of LC-40 will also inevitably result in delays of some sort to Falcon Heavy’s inaugural launch date, pushing the massive rocket’s first liftoff well into December 2017 or the first few months of 2018.
The Tesla Model Y L is arguably the most hyped trim of the all-electric crossover, other than the Performance configuration that comes with white-knuckle speed and sports car-level handling.
However, it is not all perfect. Tesla owners in China who took delivery of the Model Y L, denoted with an L to highlight its longer wheelbase, are experiencing what they are referring to as “collapsing” of the rear wheels, as suspension issues appear to be an issue with some of the builds.
🚨 Model Y L owners in China report rear suspension sag
• Six-seat long-wheelbase Y. Shanghai. On sale since August 2025
• Owners say the rear tire-to-arch gap shrinks after mileage or a full load. Some cases after about 9,000 km loaded. Others near 30,000 km
• Tesla service… pic.twitter.com/Lr6i5Tbi07— Joe Hansen (@joehansen) September 1, 2026
The gap between the wheel arch and tire has narrowed to the point that “not even a single finger” could fit, according to a report from Car News China. The failures are not tied to a specific mileage, as one owner said that after just 9,000 kilometers (5,600 miles), they noticed the suspension issue when their car was fully loaded.
Another one had the issue at 30,000 kilometers (18,640 miles) and noticed that the wheel gap shrank to two fingers, so not as drastic as the person who reported a similar issue at 9,000 km.
Tesla Model Y L is gaining momentum in China’s premium segment
Along with the visual recognition of the issue, others are saying the sagging is causing abnormal wear on the inside of the tires. Extra weight and instant torque already provide additional stress on the tires in electric vehicles during normal operation, so it is no surprise that this is another complaint.
There has been no recall issued by Tesla, and the company has not yet publicly acknowledged the issue.
Some are suggesting that owners use a “finger test” to self-diagnose whether there is an issue with the suspension. There should be four fingers between the tire and the wheel well; anything less than that starts to get dicey.
Tesla is starting to truly tease and hype its groundbreaking Cybercab event, which takes place tomorrow in Austin, Texas. It will be the first time members of the public will be able to ride in a Cybercab, a vehicle without any manual controls, on public roads.
Tesla has been dropping some hype on X over the past several days, but this morning, the excitement has truly started to build up for the event. Although Cybercab has been unveiled before, this is truly Tesla’s announcement that it is ready to start offering autonomous rides for public passengers in its new ride-hailing-geared vehicle for the first time.
The hype has started with a variety of different social media posts that are a true indication that Tesla is preparing for something big. Teasing so much of the potential of Cybercab, including its ability to truly revolutionize how people hail rides for local travel, is what the big idea for the event entails. The time that many Tesla owners, fans, and investors have been waiting for is potentially here:
— Tesla (@Tesla) September 2, 2026
The event has remained slim on details. Even invitees are still awaiting true details about what the event will entail, where they’ll go, and what is in store for the evening. This is pretty typical for an event run by Tesla; they keep things under wraps for the most part until the very last minute.
However, there is no secret about what the real intention of Tesla is for this event: it is going to be a huge reveal party for a vehicle that has no steering wheel and no pedals. It is a truly massive step for the company moving forward.
No steering wheel, no pedals
— Tesla Robotaxi (@robotaxi) September 2, 2026
Speculation persists as to whether this is going to be an event that simply announces that rides will begin with the Cybercab, or it will be something more substantial. Tesla has said in the past that they plan to sell the Cybercab to the general public in what could become a great way to earn passive income by adding it to a more global fleet of Robotaxi-geared vehicles.
Tomorrow, the show begins in Austin, and the Cybercab goes live at some capacity; we just don’t know exactly how quite yet.
News
SpaceX tells the FCC that Starship Flight 14 is going to orbit
SpaceX filed with the FCC for Starship Flight 14, its first true orbital launch attempt.
SpaceX has asked the Federal Communications Commission for permission to fly Starlink terminals during Starship’s fourteenth flight test, and the filing lays out a genuine trip to orbit, something the program has never attempted.
Every Starship flight so far, including Flight 13’s successful splashdown in the Indian Ocean on July 24, has flown a suborbital arc that ends with the ship reentering the atmosphere within the same hour it launches. The FCC paperwork describes a mission profile built around an actual orbital insertion instead.
The payload is the other half of the story. Flight 13 carried 20 production Starlink V3 satellites, but because that mission never reached orbit, the satellites reentered along with the ship rather than joining the constellation, something Teslarati covered in detail after SpaceX released footage shot from one of those satellites as it drifted away from Starship in space. Flight 14 is designed to close that gap. If the orbital insertion holds, the roughly 20 V3 satellites onboard would separate into an operational orbit and could eventually go into service, each one rated for about 1 terabit per second of downlink capacity by SpaceX’s own account.
SpaceX announces new Starbase for ‘thousands of Starship launches annually’
Elon Musk first flagged the orbital attempt during SpaceX’s August 4 earnings call, the company’s first as a public entity following its June IPO under the ticker SPCX. He also floated catching the ship with the Starbase tower on the same flight, an idea he walked back on August 20, saying the catch attempt would more likely come “in a few months,” as Teslarati reported at the time. Flight 14 will instead target a splashdown for the ship in the Indian Ocean, the same recovery method used since Flight 12.
Hardware has been catching up to the ambition. Booster 21 completed a full 33-engine static fire on August 28, and Ship 41 finished its own six-engine test the week before. An airspace briefing circulated to pilots on August 20 listed September 15 as the target date, later than the end of August window Musk mentioned on the earnings call, though SpaceX has not confirmed a launch date publicly and Starship schedules routinely slip while hardware and FAA paperwork line up.
The FCC filing itself does not guarantee a launch date. It covers communications authority, and not flight readiness, considering SpaceX still needs Ship 41 fully stacked and cleared by the FAA before Flight 14 can fly. But the filing is a real marker of intent and it puts a specific regulatory process behind what had so far only been Musk’s word on the earnings call.
Tesla Model Y L gets suspension complaints in over odd issue China
Tesla Cybercab event gains steam ahead of massive launch
