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SpaceX record-setting booster returns to Port in remarkable condition (photos)
SpaceX has successfully recovered its second Falcon 9 in less than a week. Just four days after it launched, booster B1049 returned to sailed into Port Canaveral. The veteran booster is the first to launch and successfully land five times. On June 3, at 9:25 p.m. EDT (0125 GMT on June 4), B1049 took to the skies, delivering another batch of Starlink satellites into orbit.
Now, just three days after a flawless mission, the veteran rocket sailed triumphantly into port. Perched atop SpaceX’s newly remodeled drone ship, Just Read the Instructions (JRTI), B1049’s exterior was visibly more charred after its most recent trip through the atmosphere. This successful landing marks the first mission that JRTI was active in the Atlantic Ocean, as well as the third successful sea recovery in a row for SpaceX.
So far this year, SpaceX has successfully launched nine boosters this year. All but two of them have been recovered—two failed to land on the drone ship. One of those botched attempts was due to some residual cleaning agents trapped inside the engine. That booster, B1048, was SpaceX’s only other booster (so far) to fly five times.
But it surely won’t be the last. B1051 has already completed four successful missions and could see flight again soon. SpaceX has at least two other launches planned for June, including another Starlink launch and the launch of a GPS satellite for the Air Force. That flight will be on a new booster, B1060, per the Air Force’s request.
As it stands now, government payloads require SpaceX to use a new booster, versus a previously flown one. That was also the case for NASA’s commercial crew program. On May 30, astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley flew to the International Space Station atop a Falcon 9 rocket. The booster, which returned to Port just a few days ago, what a shiny new booster. However, in a recent development, NASA amended the agreement, saying that SpaceX could use previously flown boosters as well as reuse its Crew Dragon spacecraft.
Currently, SpaceX reuses its cargo version of Dragon, but each upgraded cargo (and Crew) variant can be reused as many as five times. Each booster is currently rated for ten flights, with minimal refurbishments in between.
Flying for the 5th time, the #SpaceX #Falcon9 launches from SLC-40 to bring another batch of #Starlink sats to orbit! The first stage was also recovered, marking the first time a booster has landed after 5 flights! pic.twitter.com/KcsNecEoI3
— Richard Angle (@RDAnglePhoto) June 4, 2020
SpaceX’s fleet of veteran rockets has dwindled a bit, with the loss of B1048 and B1056. Those losses came on the heels of two planned expenditures: B1046 and B1047. B1046was purposefully detonated as part of the company’s In-flight Abort test that occurred in January. That test was a lead up to the Demo-2 mission and proved that SpaceX’s launch escape system worked while B1047 carried the AMOS-17 satellite into orbit and was expended after depositing the satellite into space.
However, the California-based rocket builder should have some new Falcons rolling off the assembly line this summer, which will help support its ambitious Starlink launch manifest. This year, SpaceX has launched six Starlink missions, with at least one more planned for June, possibly two.
To date, SpaceX has launched a total of 482 Starlink satellites, but the company needs between 400-800 satellites on orbit to begin rolling out minimal coverage. To provide the coverage it wants, SpaceX is going to have to keep up the launch pace. And to do so, it will test the reusability factor of its rockets.
So far, we’ve seen two rockets fly five times, but when will B1049 fly a sixth time? How soon will we see a booster reach the 10-flight mark? What sort of refurbishments will it need then? With many more Starlink flights on deck, it will be interesting to see which boosters fly on which missions.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
SpaceX’s Starship flew successfully Friday, landing both stages and deploying its first Starlink V3 satellites.
Starship’s thirteenth test flight delivered exactly what SpaceX needed with a clean liftoff, two successful stage recoveries, and the first real payload the vehicle has ever carried to space. Booster 20 and Ship 40 lifted off at 5:51 p.m. CT from Starbase, and by the time the mission wrapped roughly an hour later, both halves of the rocket had done exactly what they were supposed to do.
Booster 20 separated from Ship 40 a few minutes into the flight and stuck a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico about six minutes after liftoff. That is a meaningful turnaround from Flight 12 in May, when the booster lost several engines during its boostback burn before a hard water landing attempt.
Starship as seen from Starlink satellites pic.twitter.com/e2hvfmnewh
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 25, 2026
Starship 40’s performance was arguably the bigger win. The vehicle deployed the first 20 operational Starlink V3 satellites Starship has ever carried, then flew a suborbital arc to a landing in the Indian Ocean that SpaceX commentator Dan Huot called the company’s softest splashdown yet. “This is a dream scenario for this team that’s trying to get this heat shield data,” Huot said on the live broadcast, according to Space.com’s live coverage. “I’m a little over the moon right now. Wow. Lucky number 13.”
Unlike the mass simulators SpaceX flew on Flight 12, these were production Starlink V3 satellites, meant to extend solar arrays and antennas and attempt to link with the broader constellation before reentering minutes later. Getting real hardware through a full deploy sequence on only the second flight of the V3 generation keeps Starship on schedule for the payload work NASA is counting on for future Artemis lunar landings.
What an awesome launch, really seems like everything went super well and it was all incredibly smooth.
SpaceX is awesome. Very interested to see how the market will respond on Monday pic.twitter.com/KSHmyBfV55
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 25, 2026
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 25, 2026
The flight also arrives at a moment when SpaceX needed a win. SPCX has traded below its $135 IPO price since mid-July, as Teslarati reported when the mission slipped to Friday, and short interest has climbed to roughly a third of the tradable float. A clean flight will not fix a balance sheet, but it does answer the one question SpaceX absolutely needed answered this week: whether the fixes made after the July 16 abort would hold up under real flight conditions. They did, on both stages, on the first try after the redesign.
SpaceX has not set a target date for Flight 14, though the company has said it wants to push toward an orbital attempt on the next mission. After Friday, that goal looks a lot more within reach.
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner in Los Angeles dominated the company’s global usage rankings after just one year, proving the concept is more than just a one-off novelty location that will fade away.
The performance could incite the company to build more locations, something that CEO Elon Musk has hinted at for some time.
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner delivered 21.2 GWh of energy in its first year of operation, the company’s head of Charging, Max de Zegher, revealed on X. Of the top 10 most utilized Supercharger locations in Tesla’s global infrastructure, the Diner in Los Angeles was the most used by drivers, and it wasn’t particularly close:
Tesla Diner opened exactly 1 year ago. Inspiring that futuristic places like this exist.
It’s our highest usage Supercharger in the world: 21.2 GWh delivered in a year, 1.6k sessions/day.
Top 10 Superchargers by energy delivered: https://t.co/9YvJ8lw696 pic.twitter.com/koB3AUJHws
— Max (@MdeZegher) July 21, 2026
On its launch day one year ago, nobody was too sure what the Tesla Diner would be about. It seemed like an interesting concept, and considering it had been in the works for years, it was a highly anticipated launch that many were looking forward to.
Based on its success, we could see additional Diners with Superchargers built throughout the United States, and potentially beyond. Musk has said on several occasions that the company would be willing to bring the Diner idea to more markets.
Tesla makes major change at Supercharger Diner amid epic demand
Of the markets that Musk has mentioned, both Palo Alto and Austin have come to be perceived as ideal selections. However, there are no concrete plans as of now to build new Supercharger Diners anywhere; the location on Santa Monica Boulevard will remain the exclusive spot to pick up Tesla-inspired eats, at least for the time being.
Tesla short sellers won big following the company’s massive fall on Wall Street after it reported subpar Earnings on Wednesday.
Tesla short sellers collected about $4.12 billion in single-day profits on Thursday, according to Bloomberg. Shares fell as much as 15 percent during Thursday’s session. It closed as one of the worst days for Tesla on Wall Street in the past three years.
Investors sold off the stock after Tesla said it would aggressively direct its spending toward AI and its Optimus robot project. The company had record revenues, which were driven by one of the strongest quarters in terms of vehicle deliveries in company history.
However, it missed EPS estimates by reporting just $0.33, a far cry from the $0.53 analysts expected.
S3 Partners reported that about 3 percent of Tesla’s outstanding stock is sold short. Managing Director at S3, Ihor Dusaniwsky, provided the short seller’s potential profit, as well as another figure: shorts have likely had paper gains of $8.92 billion this year, as Tesla shares are down 30 percent in 2026.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla has burned short sellers many times in the past, but the company’s latest Earnings Call was a chance for those skeptics to taste some payback. Although the company gave some very transparent information regarding future projects, the rollout of Robotaxi, Optimus, and Semi, many investors took their profits on Thursday.
Notable short sellers like Michael Burry have been transparent about their skepticism around Tesla shares. Burry just revealed three weeks ago that he had opened up a new short on the stock, stating he shorted Tesla shares at $416.22. “Happy it jumped back to this level,” he said in a blog post.
At the time of publication, Tesla shares were down about 3 percent and the stock was trading at $309.92.
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner probably just secured more locations
