SpaceX is set to make history by returning southern trajectory polar corridor launches to Florida’s Space Coast with the launch of the Argentine SAOCOM-1B radar observation satellite later this month. Tentatively set to get off the ground no earlier than Saturday, July 25 the SAOCOM-1B mission has suffered delays ranging from hardware processing and integration to international launch team travel restrictions as a result of the global coronavirus pandemic.
In late February 2020, the SAOCOM-1B satellite departed Argentina aboard a Russian Antonov AN 124 cargo aircraft and arrived at the Shuttle Landing Facility in Cape Canaveral, Florida. It was expected that launch and processing teams from Argentina’s National Commission for Space Activities (CONAE) would quickly follow to meet a March launch timeline. However, international travel restrictions imposed by the Argentine government in early March meant that SpaceX would have to wait an indeterminant amount of time to attempt the historic polar launch from Florida. As a result, the satellite was put into storage in one of SpaceX’s satellite processing facilities in Florida to await the arrival of its launch team.
A change in launch plans
The SAOCOM-1B satellite was initially thought to launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) in California just as its twin predecessor, the SAOCOM-1A satellite did in October of 2018. At the time VAFB was the only US-based launch site used for polar orbit launch corridor services. However, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station had previously announced the option to re-open a southern polar orbit launch corridor from Florida in 2017, a launch trajectory that hadn’t been used in over half a century.
The option of polar trajectory launches from Florida increased SpaceX’s capacity to streamline its launch manifest to the company’s dual launchpad locations on Florida’s East Coast. In 2019, as reported by Michael Baylor of NASASpaceflight.com, SpaceX formally requested to move the launch of the SAOCOM-1B satellite from VAFB to Florida utilizing a southern, coast-hugging dog-leg trajectory over Cuba to a final polar orbital inclination.
For those asking for a visual of what a southward, doglegged polar launch trajectory out of Cape Canaveral will look like, here you go. https://t.co/FTTW8mbq0J pic.twitter.com/59YXoERkQl— Chris G (@ChrisG_SpX) October 9, 2019
The SAOCOM-1B satellite will join its L-Band, synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) SAOCOM-1A sister satellite in a sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) – essentially an orbit over the poles of the planet that allows the solar arrays of the satellite to be in sunlight at any given time. The satellites operate in SSO and use L-Band and synthetic-aperture radar to create two-dimensional, all-weather Earth observation imagery to assist in global disaster-monitoring efforts. The sister satellites will also work in conjunction with a constellation of four Italian satellites already in orbit operated by COSMO-SkyMed.
Return to operational status
Following the easement of certain international travel restrictions in mid-July, a slim crew of 18 team members from CONAE and SAOCOM-1B satellite manufacturer INVstigacion APlicada (INVAP) was permitted to travel to Florida. The team members tested negatively for the COVID-19 virus prior to commercially traveling to Florida from Argentina, as well as, after their arrival at Miami International Airport. The team observed a two-week period of quarantine prior to traveling to SpaceX facilities at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station to begin pre-operational tasks.
On Monday, July 13 the team was able to get to work on launch campaign tasks with the satellite that had endured months of storage. The team ensured the health of the satellite and completed a full launch day simulation managed remotely from locations in Florida and Argentina. Following a successful run through and check of the satellite’s operational status, the launch campaign has just a few remaining steps before rocketing SpaceX into the history books once again.
SpaceX and CONAE teams will work together to safely encapsulate the satellite inside of a protective Falcon 9 payload fairing and mate the payload with the first stage Falcon 9 booster. Furthermore, the teams will complete a joint integration test of the payload and launch vehicle before finally transporting it to the launch pad.
The SpaceX launch manifest has recently undergone some schedule shuffling potentially leaving the SAOCOM-1B mission to be third in line behind the launch of the South Korean ANASIS-II military communications satellite and the delayed Starlink-9 mission. However, earlier in the week, the Starlink-9 booster was lowered from launch position at LC-39A and returned to the horizontal integration facility following a scrubbed launch attempt with SpaceX citing that more time was necessary to perform final check-outs. This most likely suggests that SpaceX plans to push the SAOCOM-1B mission ahead of Starlink-9 in the launch manifest.
According to CONAE, the SAOCOM-1B mission launch window extends from Saturday, July 25 to Thursday, July 30 with a targeted liftoff at approximately 7:19 p.m. EDT (2319 GMT) from SLC-40.
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Elon Musk
Ford CEO Farley says Tesla is not who to look at for EV expertise
Interestingly, Farley has been one of the most hellbent CEOs in terms of a legacy automaker standpoint to push the EV effort. It did not go according to plan, as Ford took a $19.5 billion charge and retreated from its EV push in late 2025.
Ford CEO Jim Farley said in a recent podcast interview that Tesla is not who Americans should look at to beat Chinese carmakers.
The comments have sparked quite a bit of outrage from Tesla fans on X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk.
Farley said that Chinese automakers are better examples of how to beat competitors. He said (via the Rapid Response Podcast):
“If you’re an American and you want us to beat the Chinese in the car business, you’re all going to want to pay attention, not necessarily to Tesla. Nothing against Tesla—they’ve been doing great—but they really don’t have an updated vehicle. The best in the business for us, cost-wise and competition-wise, supply chain, manufacturing expertise, and the I.P. in the vehicle, was really BYD. In this next cycle of EV customers in the U.S., they want pickups and utilities and all these different body styles. But they want them at $30,000, not $50,000. Like the first inning, they want them affordably.”
Despite Farley’s synopsis, it is worth mentioning that Tesla had the best-selling passenger vehicle in the world last year, and in China in March, as the Model Y continued its global dominance over other vehicles.
Musk responded to Farley’s comments by stating:
“This is before Supervised FSD is approved in China. Limiting factor is production output in Shanghai.”
This is before supervised FSD is approved in China. Limiting factor is production output in Shanghai.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 19, 2026
Interestingly, Farley has been one of the most hellbent CEOs in terms of a legacy automaker standpoint to push the EV effort. It did not go according to plan, as Ford took a $19.5 billion charge and retreated from its EV push in late 2025.
Ford cancels all-electric F-150 Lightning, announces $19.5 billion in charges
Instead, Ford is “doubling down on its affordable” EVs and said it would pivot from its previous plans.
Reaction from Tesla fans was pretty much how you would expect. Many said they have lost a lot of respect for Farley after his comments; others believe he is the last CEO anyone should be taking advice on EVs from.
Nevertheless, Farley’s plans are bold and brash; many consider Tesla the most ideal company to replicate EV efforts from. It will be interesting to see if Ford can rebound from this big adjustment, and hopefully, Farley’s plans to replicate efforts from BYD work out the way he hopes.
Elon Musk
SpaceX wins its first MARS contract but it comes with a catch
NASA awarded SpaceX a $175 million Mars rover contract while the White House proposes cutting the mission.
NASA just signed a $175.7 million contract with SpaceX to launch a Mars rover that the White House is simultaneously trying to defund. The contract, awarded on April 16, 2026, tasks SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy with launching the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosalind Franklin rover from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, no earlier than late 2028. It would mark the first time SpaceX has ever sent a payload to Mars.
Under NASA’s Rosalind Franklin Support and Augmentation project, known as ROSA, the agency is providing braking engines for the rover’s descent stage, radioisotope heater units that use decaying plutonium to keep the rover warm on the Martian surface, additional electronics, and a mass spectrometer instrument, as noted by SpaceNews.
Those nuclear heating units are the reason an American rocket was required at all. U.S. export controls on radioisotope technology mean any payload carrying them must launch on a domestic vehicle, which narrowed the field to SpaceX and United Launch Alliance. Falcon Heavy’s pricing made it the practical choice.
SpaceX is quietly becoming the U.S. Military’s only reliable rocket
Falcon Heavy debuted in February 2018 and has 11 launches to its record. The rocket has not flown since October 2024, when it sent NASA’s Europa Clipper toward Jupiter. The three-core design, built from modified Falcon 9 first stages, gives it the lift capacity needed for deep space planetary missions that a single Falcon 9 cannot reach.
The Rosalind Franklin rover has been sitting in storage in Europe for years. It was originally due to launch in 2022 as a joint mission with Russia, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine ended that partnership, leaving the rover built but stranded without a launch vehicle or landing hardware. NASA stepped back in through a 2024 agreement with ESA to rescue the mission. The rover is designed to drill up to two meters below the Martian surface in search of evidence of past life, a science objective no previous mission has attempted at that depth.
The contradiction at the center of this story is hard to ignore. The White House’s fiscal year 2027 budget proposal included no funding for ROSA and did not mention the mission at all in the detailed congressional justification document released April 3.
Musk has long argued that reaching Mars is not optional. “We don’t want to be one of those single planet species, we want to be a multi-planet species.” Whether this particular mission survives Washington’s budget fight, the Falcon Heavy contract means SpaceX is now formally on record as the rocket that could get humanity’s next Mars science mission off the ground.
The timing of this contract carries extra weight given that SpaceX filed confidentially with the SEC in early April and is targeting an IPO roadshow in the week of June 8. It would be the largest public offering in history.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) is set to hold its Earnings Call for the first quarter of 2026 on Wednesday, and there are a lot of interesting things that are swirling around in terms of speculation from investors.
With the company’s executives, including CEO Elon Musk, answering a handful of questions that investors submit through the Say platform, fans want to know a lot of things about a lot of things.
These five questions come from Retail Investors, who are normal, everyday shareholders:
- When will we have the Optimus v3 reveal? When will Optimus production start, since we ended the Model S and Model X production earlier than mid-year? What’s the expected Optimus production rate exiting this year? What are the initial targeted skills?
- What milestones are you targeting for unsupervised FSD and Robotaxi expansion beyond Austin this year, and how will that drive recurring revenue?
- How will Hardware 3 cars reach Unsupervised Full Self-Driving?
- When do you expect Unsupervised Full Self-Driving to reach customer cars?
- When will Robotaxi expand past its current limited rollout?
Additionally, these are currently the three questions that are slated to be answered by Institutional Firms, which also answer a handful of questions during the call:
- Now that FSD has been approved in the Netherlands and is expected to launch across Europe this summer, can you discuss your Robotaxi strategy for the region?
- What enabled you to finish the AI5 tapeout early and were there any changes to the original vision? Last week, Elon said AI5 will go into Optimus and the Supercomputer, but one month ago said it would go into the Robotaxi. Has AI5 been dropped from the vehicle roadmap?
- Given the recent NHTSA incident filings, can you update us on the Robotaxi safety data? If safety validation remains the primary bottleneck, why not deploy thousands of vehicles to accelerate the removal of the safety driver?
The questions range through every current Tesla project, including FSD expansion and Optimus. However, many of the answers we will get will likely be repetitive answers we’ve heard in the past.
This is especially pertinent when the questions about when Unsupervised FSD will reach customer cars: we know Musk will say that it will happen this year. Is Tesla capable of that? Maybe. But a more transparent answer that is more revealing of a true timeline would be appreciated.
Hardware 3 owners are anxiously awaiting the arrival of FSD v14 Lite, which was promised to them last year for a release sometime this year.
The Earnings Call is set to take place on Wednesday at market close.
Ford CEO Farley says Tesla is not who to look at for EV expertise
SpaceX wins its first MARS contract but it comes with a catch
