News
SpaceX’s orbit-ready Crew Dragon nears first trip out to Pad 39A atop Falcon 9
Now primarily reserved for launches involving the company’s Falcon Heavy rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft, SpaceX has begun touching up its Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) pad with new paint and hardware in anticipation of the first orbital launch of Crew Dragon, set to occur as early as the evening of January 17th.
A little over three weeks away from the milestone mission’s launch, SpaceX has – even more importantly – rolled Pad 39A’s transporter/erector (T/E) into an on-site hangar, where Falcon 9 B1051 and Crew Dragon C201 are awaiting final integration and fit checks prior to a series of careful dress rehearsals including a dry (mission) rehearsal, a wet rehearsal (WDR), and an on-pad static fire.
@NASASpaceflight looks SpaceX is giving the tower at 39A a fresh paint job pic.twitter.com/l6ZD6c6PvN
— Evan Richard (@TheEvangineer) December 21, 2018
Over the past month or two, SpaceX’s Florida pad technicians have gradually begun a number of small but important modifications to Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A, Pad 39A), primarily focused on what is known as its Fixed Service Structure (FSS), a tall and rectangular tower off to the side of SpaceX’s launch mount. Notably, SpaceX has completed the demolition and removal of all extraneous Pad 39A structures related to its decades of service under the Space Shuttle program and has further modified the FSS to allow for the installation of Crew Dragon’s Crew Access Arm (CAA), completed earlier in 2018.
With those major tasks complete, SpaceX workers have since subtly modified the pad’s transporter/erector (T/E) for Crew Dragon and begun to both paint and clad the tower, both designed to minimize wear and tear from regular launch operations and coastal Florida’s omnipresent sea breeze. Captured in photos from the November 2018 launch of Es’hail-2, the tower cladding appears to be made of double-layered sheets of half-opaque black plastic, while the paint of choice is gray (and black accents) to mesh with the tower’s minimalist arm.
Given CEO Elon Musk’s well-known preference that his companies, products, and facilities look “beautiful”, this is almost certainly being done on his whim, albeit for the best. A coat of paint and minimalist arm design are probably cost a minimal amount of money and effort, but the bare minimum still easily sets SpaceX’s facilities apart from competitors like ULA and even NASA.
- A panorama of LC-39A in November 2017. (Tom Cross/Teslarati)
- Pad 39A seen after most extraneous Shuttle-era hardware had been removed, November 2018. (Tom Cross)
- Falcon 9 B1047 lifts off from Pad 39A, November 2018. (Tom Cross)
- A detailed look at SpaceX’s shiny new Crew Access Arm, installed on Pad 39A in August 2018. (Tom Cross)
- Boeing/ULA’s Starliner Crew Access Arm (CAA) was installed at LC-41 in 2015. (NASA)
Crew Dragon closes in on orbital launches
For perhaps the first in the history of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP), SpaceX revealed earlier this month that all the major hardware components needed for the first orbital launch of Crew Dragon were under one literal roof at the company’s Pad 39A launch complex. In the weeks and months prior, both Musk and COO/President Gwynne Shotwell stated rather explicitly that that hardware would indeed be physically ready to launch no later than the end of 2018, even suggesting that SpaceX engineers and technicians would attempt to conduct a dry (propellant-less) Mission Dress Rehearsal (MDR) to ensure everything fits together in late December.
omfg @spacex just posted some absolutely stunning photos inside Pad 39A's hangar: meet the first completed Crew Dragon and its Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket (B1051) 😀 In the far left (second photo), you can also see what is probably B1047 in the midst of refurbishment. pic.twitter.com/NWULyAEhpQ
— Eric Ralph (@13ericralph31) December 18, 2018
As of last week, 39A’s T/E disappeared from its launch mount, indicating that the pad crew had rolled the massive apparatus into the complex’s integration hangar, where the above Falcon 9(s) and Demo-1 Crew Dragon were stashed as of December 18th. Having spent a solid five days in the hangar, SpaceX technicians have likely begun or even completed the integration of Falcon 9 B1051 and Crew Dragon and proceeded to integrate that full rocket/spacecraft combo to the T/E. As such, the T/E could very well roll out of its hangar with Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon attached at almost any moment between now and 2019.
If all goes as planned and NASA and SpaceX can wrap up paperwork (certification, approvals, etc) in the next week or two, SpaceX could launch an uncrewed Crew Dragon into orbit as early as the evening of January 17th. The rocket’s rollout will be the be the next major milestone so stay tuned!
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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.
Elon Musk
Tesla’s mysterious Robovan makes a sneak peek with Optimus in Terafab video
Elon Musk shared a new Terafab video showing Optimus, Robovans, and a stunningly futuristic campus.
Elon Musk posted a new video of Terafab on X Thursday morning, and the most eye-catching details in it were not the building itself, but two products still awaiting production: Optimus and the Robovan.
The concept render, credited to SpaceX, shows Optimus robots working the grounds of the roughly 2.5-mile-long facility planned for the Gibbons Creek site in Grimes County, while a Robovan glides along an elevated roadway cutting through the building itself, sharing the frame with a Tesla Semi and a Cybercab.
Robovan is the boxy, driverless people and cargo mover Musk unveiled alongside Cybercab at Tesla’s “We, Robot” event in October 2024. He pitched it as a way to move up to 20 passengers at once, or handle freight instead, at a target cost he claimed could fall under a dollar a mile, with no steering wheel or pedals, the same layout as Cybercab. Nearly two years later, Robovan still has no confirmed production timeline and has not shown up in any factory footage, which makes Thursday’s render one of the only recent looks at the vehicle in any form.
Terafab Texas will be the largest and most valuable building on Earth by far.
And it will be stunningly beautiful. pic.twitter.com/4NweOqTL7y
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2026
Optimus has moved further along. Tesla began converting Fremont’s old Model S and Model X assembly line into a Gen 3 Optimus production line earlier this year, and Musk visited the site on July 1 to mark the changeover. A second, larger Optimus plant is under construction at Giga Texas, targeting volume production in summer 2027 and eventual capacity of 10 million units a year. Tesla AI lead Ashok Elluswamy said this month the robot has “big shoes to fill” in replacing the S and X line, while Musk has repeatedly called Optimus the company’s biggest product of any kind, with a long-term price he has pegged between $20,000 and $30,000.
Check out the “Robovan” from @Tesla
📸: @Teslarati pic.twitter.com/D4es2i9NUe
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 11, 2024
“Terafab Texas will be the largest and most valuable building on Earth by far,” Musk wrote alongside the clip. “And it will be stunningly beautiful.”
One quote post summed up the reaction: “Futuristic scene with RoboVan + Cybercab + Tesla Semi + Optimus.”
Beyond the vehicles, the architecture wrapped around them stands out too. The building’s facade is canted at sharp angles, with illuminated horizontal bands running through what appears to be a multi level interior visible from outside. Below the elevated roadway, pedestrians walk along a plaza next to a reflecting pool, and the skyline behind the campus is dotted with angular spires that read more like sculpture than infrastructure, a departure from the strictly utilitarian look of Gigafactory Texas or Starbase.
The timing tracks with what Terafab representative Riley Trennell told Grimes County residents on Wednesday, when he said renderings of the facility would be released “within days.” Musk’s post followed less than 24 hours later, and Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s office sent out its own release Thursday confirming the project. As Teslarati reported this morning, Terafab’s tax abatement agreements with Grimes County are now signed and active, and SpaceX has sent the county its first $10 million payment under that deal. The dollar figure tied to this phase of construction, per Reuters, is $16.8 billion, one of the first hard capital expenditure numbers attached to Terafab since Musk unveiled the joint Tesla-SpaceX-xAI venture in March.Reaction on X ranged from enthusiastic to skeptical. “God Bless Texas! Everything is bigger and better in Texas!” one reply read. Another was more measured: “Terafab in a decade…..”
Whether the finished building matches the render is a separate question from whether Musk wanted people talking about the render itself. Less than a day after posting, the video had already crossed 5.5 million views.
Cybertruck
Tesla Cybertruck production snaps back after ugly supplier fight
Cybertrucks are piling up again at Giga Texas after Tesla’s court win against a parts supplier.
Cybertruck production at Giga Texas is showing its first visible recovery since Tesla sued a supplier last month over withheld manufacturing tooling.
Aerial observer Joe Tegtmeyer flew over the Austin factory Wednesday morning and counted roughly 100 or more Cybertrucks filling the outbound lot, a sharp jump from the thin numbers seen in recent weeks. The flyover came a day after a judge granted Tesla a temporary restraining order against Angstrom Automotive Group, the parts supplier at the center of the dispute.
Tesla filed an emergency lawsuit in late July after Angstrom told the automaker it planned to close the Troy, Texas facility where Tesla’s die-cast tools, trim dies and other Cybertruck stamping equipment were housed. According to Tesla’s complaint, a shipment of 700 finished parts never left the building, and when Tesla sent representatives to retrieve its equipment, accompanied by law enforcement, they were turned away. Angstrom allegedly then asked for an extra $250,000 a week to keep operating, which Tesla’s filing described as holding its own property for ransom.
TESLA: U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Wolfe of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Waco Division granted Tesla a Temporary Restraining Order and Writ of Replevin in its dispute with Angstrom Automotive (Case No. 6:26-cv-00477).
The order authorizes… https://t.co/E1DKcQSxMn pic.twitter.com/LR8aAiV2Og
— S.E. Robinson, Jr. (@SERobinsonJr) August 5, 2026
The restraining order gives Tesla immediate right of entry to Angstrom’s facility to recover the tooling. It is temporary, with a fuller hearing still to come, but the speed of Wednesday’s rebound suggests the Angstrom shortage was indeed the main bottleneck limiting Cybertruck output. Outbound lot counts are an imperfect measure of actual production, since finished trucks can sit for days before shipping, but a lot that full after a lean stretch is a meaningful signal.
Cybertruck output at Giga Texas has fluctuated all year as Tesla worked through supply issues and introduced new trims, including a cheaper Dual Motor AWD version that drew strong early demand.







