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SpaceX may perfect reusable rockets in 2018: Evolution in the Falcons’ Nest
2017 has in almost every respect been an unrivaled halcyon year for SpaceX: over the course of its twelves months, SpaceX has returned to flight, begun reusing Falcon 9 boosters, and overall completed 18/18 successful launches and 15/15 first stage recoveries – five of which were commercial reuses of ‘flight-proven’ boosters. It is difficult to fathom how the year could have been more successful, aside from a slight hiccup with fairing manufacturing that may have prevented the launch company from racking up 20 or more missions in 2017.
And yet, despite the flooring and incontrovertible triumphs, I can state with confidence that, barring any serious anomalies, SpaceX’s 2018 docket will utterly eclipse 2017’s varied achievements. This series of articles will act as a sort of preview of SpaceX’s imminent future in 2018, each looking at what the new year may hold for the company’s three most fundamental pursuits: the Falcon rocket family, the Starlink satellite internet initiative, and its ambitions of interplanetary colonization.
Sooty Falcon 9 1035 before its second flight with an also-reused Dragon payload, CRS-13. (Tom Cross/Teslarati)
Falcon finds its wings
While 2015 and 2016 both saw their own hints of potential successes to come, 2017 is the first year that SpaceX managed a truly impressive launch cadence for Falcon 9 without a serious vehicle failure. Every 2017 launch flew on either a Block 3 or Block 4 iteration of Falcon 9 1.2. Esoteric model numbers aside, this simply means that Falcon 9’s design, manufacture, and operation are all maturing rapidly; SpaceX has clearly learned from the CRS-7 and Amos-6 failures and responded accordingly with a more cautious and tempered perspective.
From a historical perspective, it is extraordinarily impressive that Falcon 9 and Cargo Dragon have experienced such a tiny number of failures over their short but active existences. Both Falcon 9 and Dragon have experienced several miscellaneous teething issues and technical difficulties over their ~7 years of launches, but only three anomalies resulted in failures that catastrophically impacted customer payloads: CRS-1, CRS-7, and Amos-6. Thus, out of a total of 46 Falcon 9 launches, approximately 94% have been complete successes. For perspective SpaceX’s first orbital rocket, Falcon 1, experienced total failures during its first three launch attempts, for a success rate of 40%.
SpaceX’s Falcon family of rockets. (Wikipedia)
Barring further flight hardware anomalies in the Falcon family, however, 2018 is likely to be even more of a boon for Falcon 9 (and Falcon Heavy). While Falcon Heavy is set to ring in the new year sometime in January 2018, just a few weeks away, far more significant for SpaceX’s launch business is the debut of the “final” iteration of Falcon 9, dubbed Block 5 or ‘V5,’ likely within the next several months. Block 5 has been heavily modified almost entirely for the sake of more efficient reuse, and will feature titanium grid fins (most recently spotted on Falcon Heavy) and several other changes. Altogether, SpaceX’s public goal is to be able to reuse Falcon 9 Block 5 as many as a dozen times with relative ease, and each booster’s lifespan could potentially be lengthened by a factor of 5-10 with more extensive periodic maintenance.
For now, we only use those on super hot reentry missions. Will go to all Ti with Falcon 9 V5, which is a few months away.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 17, 2017
This ‘final’ version of Falcon 9 will almost undoubtedly go through its own period of tweaks, changes, and iterative improvements once it debuts and begins to gather flight experience. Nevertheless, it’s plausible that once its minor problems are ironed out, SpaceX will choose to “freeze” the design and begin to aggressively transfer large sections of its engineering and manufacturing base over to the company’s Mars rocket, BFR. Ultimately, the highly reusable Block 5 evolution of Falcon 9 will allow SpaceX to transfer over its customers to reused rockets and thus recoup the cost of reusability R&D far faster than ever before, both by lowering the material cost of launch and enabling a considerably higher frequency of launches.
This crop of Falcon Heavy shows off its side cores, both sporting titanium grid fins that are considerably larger than the original aluminum fins. (SpaceX)
Taken as a whole, the culmination of the Falcon family’s evolution will pave SpaceX’s path to realizing its even wilder ambitions of providing ubiquitous and superior satellite internet and transforming itself into the backbone of crew and cargo transport to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. But that’s a story for another day…
While we wish we could jump forward to the end of 2018 and reflect upon even more incredible SpaceX achievements, you can follow SpaceX’s day by day progress live with our launch photographer Tom Cross on Twitter and Instagram @Teslarati. Significant upcoming events include the ever-secretive launch of Zuma (7:57pm EST, January 4) and the inaugural static fire and launch of the titanic Falcon Heavy (no earlier than Jan. 6 and Jan. 15).
Elon Musk
What is Digital Optimus? The new Tesla and xAI project explained
At its core, Digital Optimus operates through a dual-process architecture inspired by human cognition.
Tesla and xAI announced their groundbreaking joint project, Digital Optimus, also nicknamed “Macrohard” in a humorous jab at Microsoft, earlier this week.
This software-based AI agent is designed to automate complex office workflows by observing and replicating human interactions with computers. As the first major outcome of Tesla’s $2 billion investment in xAI, it represents a powerful fusion of hardware efficiency and advanced reasoning.
At its core, Digital Optimus operates through a dual-process architecture inspired by human cognition.
Macrohard or Digital Optimus is a joint xAI-Tesla project, coming as part of Tesla’s investment agreement with xAI.
Grok is the master conductor/navigator with deep understanding of the world to direct digital Optimus, which is processing and actioning the past 5 secs of…
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 11, 2026
Tesla’s specialized AI acts as “System 1”—the fast, instinctive executor—processing the past five seconds of real-time computer screen video along with keyboard and mouse actions to perform immediate tasks.
xAI’s Grok model serves as “System 2,” the strategic “master conductor” or navigator, providing high-level reasoning, world understanding, and directional oversight, much like an advanced turn-by-turn navigation system.
When combined, the two can create a powerful AI-based assistant that can complete everything from accounting work to HR tasks.
Will Tesla join the fold? Predicting a triple merger with SpaceX and xAI
The system runs primarily on Tesla’s low-cost AI4 inference chip, minimizing expensive Nvidia resources from xAI for competitive, real-time performance.
Elon Musk described it as “the only real-time smart AI system” capable, in principle, of emulating the functions of entire companies, handling everything from accounting and HR to repetitive digital operations.
Timelines point to swift deployment. Announced just days ago, Musk expects Digital Optimus to be ready for user experience within about six months, targeting rollout around September 2026.
It will integrate into all AI4-equipped Tesla vehicles, enabling parked cars to handle office work during downtime. Millions of dedicated units are also planned for deployment at Supercharger stations, tapping into roughly 7 gigawatts of available power.
Oh and it works in all AI4-equipped cars, so your car can do office work for you when not driving.
We’re also deploying millions of dedicated Digital Optimus units in the field at Superchargers where we have ~7 gigawatts of available power.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 12, 2026
Digital Optimus directly supports Tesla’s broader autonomy strategy. It leverages the same end-to-end neural networks, computer vision, and real-time decision-making tech that power Full Self-Driving (FSD) software and the physical Optimus humanoid robot.
By repurposing idle vehicle compute and extending AI4 hardware beyond driving, the project scales Tesla’s autonomy ecosystem from roads to digital workspaces.
As a virtual counterpart to physical Optimus, it divides labor: software agents manage screen-based tasks while humanoid robots tackle physical ones, accelerating Tesla’s vision of general-purpose AI for productivity, Robotaxi fleets, and beyond.
In essence, Digital Optimus bridges Tesla’s vehicle and robotics autonomy with enterprise-scale AI, promising massive efficiency gains. No other company currently matches its real-time capabilities on such accessible hardware.
It really could be one of the most crucial developments Tesla and xAI begin to integrate, as it could revolutionize how people work and travel.
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Tesla adds awesome new driving feature to Model Y
Tesla is rolling out a new “Comfort Braking” feature with Software Update 2026.8. The feature is exclusive to the new Model Y, and is currently unavailable for any other vehicle in the Tesla lineup.
Tesla is adding an awesome new driving feature to Model Y vehicles, effective on Juniper-updated models considered model year 2026 or newer.
Tesla is rolling out a new “Comfort Braking” feature with Software Update 2026.8. The feature is exclusive to the new Model Y, and is currently unavailable for any other vehicle in the Tesla lineup.
Tesla writes in the release notes for the feature:
“Your Tesla now provides a smoother feel as you come to a complete stop during routine braking.”
🚨 Tesla has added a new “Comfort Braking” update with 2026.8
“Your Tesla provides a smoother feel as you come to a complete stop during routine braking.” https://t.co/afqCpBSVeA pic.twitter.com/C6MRmzfzls
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) March 13, 2026
Interestingly, we’re not too sure what catalyzed Tesla to try to improve braking smoothness, because it hasn’t seemed overly abrupt or rough from my perspective. Although the brake pedal in my Model Y is rarely used due to Regenerative Braking, it seems Tesla wanted to try to make the ride comfort even smoother for owners.
There is always room for improvement, though, and it seems that there is a way to make braking smoother for passengers while the vehicle is coming to a stop.
This is far from the first time Tesla has attempted to improve its ride comfort through Over-the-Air updates, as it has rolled out updates to improve regenerative braking performance, handling while using Full Self-Driving, improvements to Steer-by-Wire to Cybertruck, and even recent releases that have combatted Active Road Noise.
Tesla holds a unique ability to change the functionality of its vehicles through software updates, which have come in handy for many things, including remedying certain recalls and shipping new features to the Full Self-Driving suite.
Tesla seems to have the most seamless OTA processes, as many automakers have the ability to ship improvements through a simple software update.
We’re really excited to test the update, so when we get an opportunity to try out Comfort Braking when it makes it to our Model Y.
News
Tesla finally brings a Robotaxi update that Android users will love
The breakdown of the software version shows that Tesla is actively developing an Android-compatible version of the Robotaxi app, and the company is developing Live Activities for Android.
Tesla is finally bringing an update of its Robotaxi platform that Android users will love — mostly because it seems like they will finally be able to use the ride-hailing platform that the company has had active since last June.
Based on a decompile of software version 26.2.0 of the Robotaxi app, Tesla looks to be ready to roll out access to Android users.
According to the breakdown, performed by Tesla App Updates, the company is preparing to roll out an Android version of the app as it is developing several features for that operating system.
🚨 It looks like Tesla is preparing to launch the Robotaxi app for Android users at last!
A decompile of v26.2.0 of the Robotaxi app shows some progress on the Android side for Robotaxi 🤖 🚗 https://t.co/mThmoYuVLy
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) March 13, 2026
The breakdown of the software version shows that Tesla is actively developing an Android-compatible version of the Robotaxi app, and the company is developing Live Activities for Android:
“Strings like notification_channel_robotaxid_trip_name and android_native_alicorn_eta_text show exactly how Tesla plans to replicate the iOS Live Activities experience. Instead of standard push alerts, Android users are getting a persistent, dynamically updating notification channel.”
This is a big step forward for several reasons. From a face-value perspective, Tesla is finally ready to offer Robotaxi to Android users.
The company has routinely prioritized Apple releases because there is a higher concentration of iPhone users in its ownership base. Additionally, the development process for Apple is simply less laborious.
Tesla is working to increase Android capabilities in its vehicles
Secondly, the Robotaxi rollout has been a typical example of “slowly then all at once.”
Tesla initially released Robotaxi access to a handful of media members and influencers. Eventually, it was expanded to more users, so that anyone using an iOS device could download the app and hail a semi-autonomous ride in Austin or the Bay Area.
Opening up the user base to Android users may show that Tesla is preparing to allow even more users to utilize its Robotaxi platform, and although it seems to be a few months away from only offering fully autonomous rides to anyone with app access, the expansion of the user base to an entirely different user base definitely seems like its a step in the right direction.
What is Digital Optimus? The new Tesla and xAI project explained
Tesla adds awesome new driving feature to Model Y
