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(Updated) SpaceX’s next launch is a first step to rival Comcast and Time Warner
Updated February 21: Due to strong upper-level winds, SpaceX has postponed the launch to the same time on Thursday, 6:17 a.m. PST, 9:17 EST. CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter to address the delay, “High altitude wind shear data shows a probable 2% load exceedance. Small, but better to be paranoid.”
Update: SpaceX has delayed the launch of PAZ and its Starlink prototype satellites from Sunday, February 18 to Wednesday the 21st in order to complete additional tests and checks of an upgraded payload fairing. Wednesday’s new instantaneous launch window remains unchanged – 6:17 a.m. PST, 9:17 EST.
Standing down today due to strong upper level winds. Now targeting launch of PAZ for February 22 at 6:17 a.m. PST from Vandenberg Air Force Base.
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) February 21, 2018
Not long after SpaceX’s recent, flawless Falcon Heavy debut, the company has completed a successful static fire of a flight-proven Falcon 9 on the West coast. SpaceX is preparing to send the Spanish government’s PAZ imaging satellite skyward aboard the same rocket that launched Formosat-5 for the Taiwanese government in August 2017.
Amazingly, this means that three of the four launches conducted by SpaceX in the last two months will have made use of reused Falcon 9 boosters, something I am choosing to take as foreshadowing for the coming months. By all appearances, the rocket company has been eminently successful in enacting a true industrial phase change towards the acceptance of flight-proven rocketry – a hard-earned achievement made possible by a combination of incredible reliability and unexpectedly positive responses from government agencies like NASA and the USAF.
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- SpaceX is readying one of three flightworthy reused boosters for its final flight, NET June 4. (SpaceX)
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- GovSat-1’s sooty booster from late January 2018. (Tom Cross)
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- Falcon Heavy’s incredible debut also featured two flight-proven boosters – the side cores were converted from reused Falcon 9s. (Bill Carton)
A relatively light payload, PAZ weighs in just shy of 1400 kg. However, despite a lack of confirmation, it is known that riding along with the imaging satellite are two highly significant prototype satellites, built by SpaceX itself. Deemed Microsat 2A and 2B in FCC licensing applications, the small 400 kg satellites will act as SpaceX’s first-ever flight test of integrated satellite hardware – a massive step towards realizing the company’s dream of Starlink, a global internet constellation meant to provide service of the same caliber (or better…) as providers like Comcast, Time Warner, and others. This will be a major moment if successful, and will make SpaceX the first US company to successfully launch its first prototype internet satellites intended for low Earth orbit (200-1000 miles above Earth), a factor that would make them far more viable as a competitive alternative to ground-based internet than the current heavyweights in geostationary orbit (30,000+ miles above Earth).
Those distances are crucial: such a long distance between user and terminal (60,000+ miles round trip) results in what the average person would consider “lag” or simply unresponsive internet, where actions take as long as several seconds to register (such as clicking a link). This makes things like gaming, video chat, and more effectively unusable. However, thanks to the miniaturization enabled by the relentless progress of electronics technologies, tiny satellites (100-500 kg) with electric propulsion are rapidly becoming a viable alternative and threat to the massive (4000-8000 kg) communications satellites placed into geostationary orbit. Through mass production and lower costs to orbit, a giant network of magnitudes smaller satellites can realistically beat those giant satellites by being closer to the Earth. This means that more satellites in a given network will more frequently reenter the Earth’s atmosphere and be destroyed, requiring the constant launch of reinforcements, but this new paradigm is actually a viable strategy.
A beautiful string of Iridium NEXT satellites deployed into the sunrise. (SpaceX)
SpaceX’s own Microsats, prototypes for a constellation likely to be named Starlink, are quite possibly the most promising entrants among a sea of interested constellation operators. With the addition of laser-based communications links between each or most of the Starlink satellites planned to be placed in orbit, SpaceX’s constellation will be truly unique in its extreme flexibility as a giant, global mesh network.
By using lasers, latency (lag) will be far less significant and will enable SpaceX to distribute its network’s availability beyond the capability of any individual satellite, known as a decentralized network. As always, SpaceX’s choice to pursue such a configuration is extraordinarily ambitious. Still, the very fact that Microsat 2A and 2B are scheduled for launch just days from now suggests that the company’s near-silent satellite development program, employing several hundred people all over the West coast, has seen some considerable successes. In other words, it’s likely not a coincidence that the first flight test of a Starlink satellite will actually feature two satellites – one cannot test laser interlinks with just one satellite.
All things considered, fingers crossed for SpaceX on this flight-proven commercial mission. If all goes well with both PAZ and the Starlink prototypes, SpaceX will be one huge step closer to being able to provide truly universal, affordable, and high-quality internet.
Stay with us on Twitter and Instagram as Teslarati’s West Coast photojournalist, Pauline Acalin, will bring us on the ground coverage at California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base ahead of, and on the day of, the PAZ mission.
Follow along live as we cover these exciting proceedings live on social media!
Teslarati – Instagram – Twitter
Pauline Acalin – Twitter
Eric Ralph – Twitter
Elon Musk said today on X that Teslas will start to learn your individual preferences. This is something that he seemed to hint toward earlier this month when he said parking was by far the biggest reason drivers intervene with Full Self-Driving.
Musk made the comment in response to notable Tesla influencer Whole Mars, who said that his vehicle will sometimes disobey the settings he has enabled for his car. He responded to the post, stating that “The car will start to remember your specific interventions and match each person’s individual preferences.”
The car will start to remember your specific interventions and match each person’s individual preferences
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 18, 2026
This is something that could be perhaps one of the biggest ways Tesla could minimize or even work closer toward eliminating interventions altogether. While FSD does a lot of things really well, many people intervene a vast majority of the time not due to major or critical safety errors.
Instead, many take over because the car is doing something that they do not like as a preference; it might park in a parking spot that is not preferred by the driver, it might linger too long in the left lane on the highway (a personal favorite), or it could even take a route that the driver does not like.
These all lead to interventions, but they are not triggered by a major safety issue. Instead, it’s just preference.
READ OUR REVIEW OF TESLA’S LATEST FSD VERSION:
Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.3.5 Early Impressions: new features and early performance
If Teslas could start to learn the personal preferences of the person who owns them, interventions will truly begin to be less frequent. Some of this is already pretty evident, in my opinion. Teslas use a neural network to learn behaviors and accumulate data to improve performance.
For months now, we’ve tracked FSD’s performance at “Except Right Turn” stop signs, something that is very common in Pennsylvania, but many of our readers located in other parts of the U.S. have never heard of. FSD handles one Except Right Turn stop sign very well, one that I travel past frequently. Others that I do not navigate through as often do not have as confident a performance. It seems like the cars might already be doing this to an extent.
🚨 Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.3 proceeds through an Except Right Turn Stop Sign pic.twitter.com/YemRSlens7
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 8, 2026
That example is also for something that is a street sign and not necessarily a driver preference; however, I still feel it is worth mentioning because it only handles that commonly passed Except Right Turn stop sign with true confidence. Others it still seems to struggle with.
This could be one of Tesla’s big moves toward full autonomy, and it could be a pathway to truly unsupervised driving. Every day, millions of cars on the road travel at a human driver’s personal preferences with no incident. Why can’t autonomous vehicles still cater to a passenger’s preferences while being autonomous? Tesla seems to have the idea that it would be possible.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has sharply criticized legacy media outlets for what he describes as selective and biased reporting on vehicle accidents involving Tesla. In a recent X post, DeSantis questioned why headlines routinely spotlight the Tesla brand in crash stories, even when human error is the clear cause, while similar incidents with other automakers often receive generic treatment.
A prime example is the June 19, 2026, fatal crash in Katy, Texas. A Tesla Model 3 driven by Michael Butler struck a brick home at high speed, killing 76-year-old Martha Avila inside. Initial reports and headlines prominently featured “Tesla crash” and referenced the driver’s claim that an automated driving-assistance system was engaged.
Many outlets quickly speculated that Full Self-Driving or Autopilot were the cause of the crash, immediately blaming the suites for the accident shortly after it happened.
However, Tesla responded shortly after the accident with vehicle data that showed Butler manually overrode the system by pressing the accelerator to 100 percent, reaching 73 MPH in a residential area, more than double the speed limit. The accelerator remained floored after impact.
Tesla finally clarifies fatal Texas crash, confirms driver manually overrode acceleration
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) later confirmed these findings, and Butler now faces manslaughter charges. His phone searches also included queries like “Tesla FSD too timid,” suggesting he may have intervened aggressively. Despite this, many headlines continued to center Tesla’s technology rather than the driver’s actions.
DeSantis highlighted a Washington Post headline, which was labeled, “Newly released photo shows wreckage of Tesla crash that killed grandmother.”
Do legacy media outlets typically use headlines involving the make of a car in a crash or is that only for Tesla?
It would be one thing if the self-driving malfunctioned but the crash was purely human-induced.
Seems like these outlets want to associate Tesla with crashes as… pic.twitter.com/EmfyeYiuv6
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) July 17, 2026
The subheadline noted the driver overrode assistance and floored the accelerator, yet the brand name dominated the framing. He asked whether legacy outlets typically name the make of a car in routine crashes or reserve that treatment for Tesla to push a narrative.
This pattern appears widespread. Crashes involving Ford, Chevrolet, or Toyota vehicles frequently appear as “pickup truck slams into home” or “fatal car crash kills pedestrian” without brand specifics, especially absent new technology angles.
High-profile Ford F-150 or Chevy Silverado incidents tied to large sales volumes often escape brand-callout scrutiny. In contrast, Tesla stories consistently lead with the manufacturer, amplifying perceptions of risk despite data showing strong overall safety performance:
🚨 Why do Tesla Owners get so defensive over the narrative of crashes involving Teslas? https://t.co/aX7ogtjTCR pic.twitter.com/KO4QWaLOKl
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 24, 2026
Tesla’s own 2025 Impact Report indicates vehicles using FSD logged 0.19 major incidents per million miles, roughly eight times fewer than the U.S. average. Models like the Model Y also rank among the safest in IIHS and NHTSA testing for occupant protection. Critics argue disproportionate coverage ignores these statistics and driver behavior factors, such as younger or more aggressive Tesla owners in some studies.
DeSantis frames this as part of a broader political agenda against innovative American companies like Tesla. By consistently naming Tesla while downplaying others, media outlets risk eroding public trust and shaping perceptions detached from the evidence of human error in most cases.
As autonomous technology evolves across the industry, consistent and factual reporting will be essential to separate real safety concerns from narrative-driven coverage.
Tesla entered two new markets this week by advancing its presence in Latvia (Europe) and officially launching operations in Uruguay (South America), marking a rapid dual-continent expansion.
These moves underscore the company’s strategy to tap into emerging EV markets with supportive policies, renewable energy grids, and growing demand for sustainable transport.
Latvia: Strengthening the Baltic Footprint
In Latvia, Tesla has built on its earlier registration of Tesla Latvia SIA in late 2025 with recent steps toward full operations, including job postings for a service center and representation in Riga. This aligns with broader Baltic expansion following Lithuania’s model of pop-up stores and service centers.
Coming to Latvia https://t.co/XNkQQJ2O6a pic.twitter.com/yS9kpcNky1
— Tesla Europe, Middle East & Africa (@teslaeurope) July 17, 2026
EV penetration in Latvia stands at around 7 percent for BEVs in new passenger car registrations. 2025 data showed 1,602 BEVs out of about 22,500 total, or 7.1 percent, with combined plug-ins nearing 19 percent. Growth has been steady but below the European average, supported by government subsidies and infrastructure development. Tesla models like the Model 3 lead local EV registrations.
Vehicles for the Latvian market will likely be sourced from Gigafactory Berlin or Gigafactory Shanghai. Charging infrastructure is robust for the region as well, with over 400- 2,000 public points, with Tesla Superchargers in Riga, Jūrmala, and along Via Baltica routes offering up to 250 kW.
Uruguay: Third South American Country
Tesla teased its Uruguay arrival with “Estamos llegando,” or, “We are arriving,” on social media, followed by an official presentation scheduled for mid-July.
Hola Uruguay 🇺🇾
Nuestros Model 3 y Model Y están cada vez mas cerca! pic.twitter.com/FR41fsA7um
— Tesla Latinoamérica (@Tesla_LatAm) June 30, 2026
The company established Tesla Uruguay SAS, homologated Model 3 and Model Y (three versions each), and appointed local leadership. This makes Uruguay Tesla’s third official South American market after Chile and Colombia.
Uruguay boasts one of Latin America’s highest EV penetrations, with battery-electric vehicles exceeding 20 percent market share recently, driven by tax incentives, high fuel prices, and a nearly 95-100 percent renewable electricity grid. Hundreds of Teslas already operate via grey imports, but official sales bring warranties, service, and support.
Vehicles will be imported from Gigafactory Shanghai, enabling competitive pricing for Model 3 and Model Y. Charging plans include Supercharger development alongside existing infrastructure, leveraging the country’s green energy advantage for affordable operation.
Tesla Superchargers follow Model 3 and Model Y to South American country
Tesla’s Dual Continent Expansion
Tesla’s simultaneous push into Latvia and Uruguay demonstrates efficient scaling: prioritizing service and infrastructure first, then direct sales in high-potential niches. In Europe, it fills Baltic gaps; in Latin America, it counters Chinese dominance while leveraging renewables.
This dual move signals Tesla’s ambition to accelerate global EV adoption amid varying regional paces. By addressing local needs, like subsidies in Latvia or incentives and green grids in Uruguay, Tesla not only boosts volumes but advances its mission of sustainable energy.
For investors and consumers, it highlights resilience and opportunity in diverse markets, potentially paving the way for further growth in underserved regions. With strong fundamentals in both, these entries could yield long-term gains as EV transitions mature worldwide.
Tesla Diner is throwing a birthday party with a Franz-signed special treat
Elon Musk says your Tesla will start to learn your individual preferences
