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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
Tesla Roadster owners to get “Flying Stunt Mode” and looping track access
Musk says Roadster owners can command the unveiling stunts autonomously, with a Texas looping track.
Elon Musk says owners of the new Tesla Roadster will be able to ask the car to perform the stunts Tesla showed at its unveiling, with the car doing the driving itself. Musk made the comment Saturday in a reply on X to tech blogger Robert Scoble, and he added a promise of a looping track at Tesla’s Texas headquarters.
Scoble had argued that the person in the Roadster is not really driving it. In his description, the driver operates a computer that tells another computer what to do, with steering, braking and acceleration all handled by wire. Musk answered, “True. You will be able to ask the Roadster to perform any of the tricks shown autonomously, as it will be sentient. Also, we will have a wild looping track (crazier even than Hot Wheels) at our Texas HQ where you can test out your Roadster.”
@Scobleizer True.
You will be able to ask the Roadster to perform any of the tricks shown autonomously, as it will be sentient.
Also, we will have a wild looping track (crazier even than Hot Wheels) at our Texas HQ where you can test out your Roadster.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 17, 2026
At the October 15 event outside Waco, the car drove up a curved ramp until it was upside down, flew off on cold gas thrusters, flipped and landed. It also hovered over a Cybercab, Cybertruck, Semi, Model Y and Model 3 while moving. As we noted in our breakdown of the three Roadster configurations, Musk said at the event that the car “literally is just going to puff itself up” to perform the maneuvers whenever an owner wants. Saturday’s reply adds that the car would run them on its own.
Tesla has described some of the hardware that would make that possible. The Roadster uses steer by wire with a yoke, and its cold gas thrusters rely on electric actuators for small adjustments in flight. A fan system under the car creates suction, which Tesla says is strong enough to hold it upside down, a setup we covered in our look at the Roadster’s fan system and thrusters.
Musk did not say when an autonomous stunt feature might arrive, how it would work, or what he means by sentient. He also gave no size, location or opening date for the Texas track. Production is planned for Giga Texas in 2027 or 2028, and Tesla says the car is not approved for public road use. The Rocket version, the one built to fly, is invite only.
The comment follows a week of Musk teasing the event, including his claim that the demo would be a banger, which we covered before the stream. Tesla reports third quarter earnings on October 21, and shareholders can submit and vote on questions through the Say portal until 4 p.m. EDT on October 20, according to our earnings Q&A preview. A question about autonomous Roadster stunts and the Texas track would be a quick way to get specifics from management.
Elon Musk
How to use Grok Bot to block spam calls and texts
Musk told users to ask Grok Bot to scrub their phone numbers from spam lists.
Elon Musk has a new use case for Grok Bot, and it is the spam call. On Thursday he replied to an X user named Arash with a short instruction: “Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!” Arash had said he got tired of the calls, had an AI bot find his number on listing sites and file removal requests, and packaged the process as a free skill for others.
The skill is called Spam-Call Scrubber, which is described to find a phone number on people search sites and data brokers, submits the opt outs, completes the confirmation emails those sites send back, and rechecks on a schedule the user picks. Using it requires the Grok Bot app. The pitch is time saved, since most broker opt outs sit behind separate forms on separate sites.
Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 15, 2026
Musk said Grok Bot now gives each bot its own email address, and that it can detect scam emails. On Thursday he also said SpaceX would make users whole if the bot botches a purchase or leaks a card, then told users to shop away from Amazon after the retailer blocked the agent, as Teslarati reported. The terms of service we reviewed at the time put responsibility for what an agent does on the user.
For Tesla owners, Grok Bot is not just a phone app. Tesla brought Grok Bot into its vehicles on September 22, and we argued earlier this week that the Cybercab’s real advantage may be the errands it runs during a ride. Every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y Robotaxi fleet has it enabled. The more routine tasks like this one become, the more a rider has reason to hand over something personal in the back seat.
The new Spam-Call Scrubber skill can be downloaded for free and works on sites that honor removal requests, while noting that listings can reappear, and illegal robocallers do not check any registry. Whether Spam-Call Scrubber cuts anyone’s call volume is something the first wave of users will find out, and Musk’s endorsement guarantees that wave is coming.
Investor's Corner
Tesla’s flying Roadster just revealed something bigger than the car
Analysts say the Roadster demo puts a Tesla and SpaceX merger back on the table.
The Roadster unveiling near Waco ended Thursday night, and by Friday morning much of the investor reaction had less to do with the car than with who owns the rocket technology inside it.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said the event “puts the Tesla/SpaceX relationship on the table in a tangible way,” pointing to the propulsion, pressure vessel and control hardware sitting on a Tesla product. Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management called the demo “a ridiculous display of engineering” with “no commercial value” beyond embarrassing traditional automakers, though he said it showed Musk wants the two companies together.
The more specific forecast came a day earlier from Barclays. Analyst Dan Levy told clients a deal could be announced before Tesla’s annual meeting, which must happen by December 6, and that an announcement in late October or early November could make shareholder approval harder. Barclays expects SpaceX to be the buyer in an all stock deal, with Tesla holders receiving SpaceX shares at a premium, based on market values of roughly $2.1 trillion for SpaceX and $1.5 trillion for Tesla. If nothing lands around the meeting, the bank still sees an announcement within 6 to 12 months.
The Roadster demo just added more weight to merger speculations. Tesla’s demo used cold gas thrusters and pressure tanks of the kind SpaceX uses on Falcon 9, and Musk described the car as a collaboration between Tesla and SpaceX engineers, as we mentioned in our breakdown of the three Roadster configurations.
Musk has not publicly addressed a deal since the event, as far as we have seen. His most direct answer remains the one he gave at the All In Summit, when he said that with so much collaboration, “who can imagine what action one might take” without ruling anything out. Ives has held to a 2027 timeline since his March note, and Musk pushed back on the China piece of the speculation when ARK floated a year end announcement in August.
The next test is Tesla’s third quarter earnings call on October 21. However, we recall in July that Musk told analysts, “we can’t talk about combining companies and that kind of thing on an earnings call,” so a clear answer wouldn’t be expected.
Tesla Roadster owners to get “Flying Stunt Mode” and looping track access
How to use Grok Bot to block spam calls and texts
Tesla’s flying Roadster just revealed something bigger than the car
SpaceX reveals how its 1 Million AI satellite network will work and prevent space collisions
Elon Musk’s Boring Company lands a new Middle East deal, and Nashville is about to get faster
