News
SpaceX’s recovery boat Mr Steven has a new net to catch Falcon 9 fairings
While photographer Pauline Acalin just barely missed a toasty Cargo Dragon returning to roost earlier that morning, a routine checkup on SpaceX’s Port of Los Angeles facilities revealed a hefty new net installed on the recovery boat Mr. Steven, as well as noteworthy activity at the huge tent currently harboring the rocket company’s BFR tooling.
After completing a thrillingly routine International Space Station resupply mission (SpaceX’s fourteenth) and spending a month on orbit, the commercial spacecraft reentered Earth’s atmosphere at a respectable 7.5 km/s before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean for the second time. Currently, SpaceX’s Dragon capsule is the only operational spacecraft capable of returning an appreciable amount of cargo from the ISS, and Capsule 110 (1 referring to Dragon 1, 10 referring to the tenth integrated spacecraft) returned even more cargo (nearly 2 mT) than it delivered to the ISS, including the space robot Robonaut 2, various completed experiments, and expired hardware. As of CRS-12, SpaceX has effectively ended production of new Cargo Dragon capsules, and has since flown two additional missions using refurbished capsules, perhaps paving the way for the first-ever triple reuse of an orbital commercial spacecraft. CRS-15, Dragon’s next flight, is currently scheduled for early July.
Here’s the SpaceX Dragon capsule that came back to Earth over the weekend being unloaded in San Pedro’s Outer Harbor this morning. Photo by Chuck Bennett. pic.twitter.com/GBypff51MW
— Megan Barnes (@meg_barnes) May 7, 2018
Although Pauline missed the battle-scarred capsule’s second return to Port of San Pedro, her travels were not for naught. Berthed at SpaceX’s leased dock space, SpaceX recovery technicians appeared to have installed and rigged a brand new net aboard fairing recovery vessel Mr. Steven in the several days between her visits. While he has yet to catch a fairing out of the sky (the ultimate goal of the program), the vessel has returned to land two of three largely intact fairing halves, the only payload fairings to have ever been recovered in one piece after an operational rocket launch. The first successful recovery followed PAZ, and although – per sources familiar with the matter – that particular half experienced catastrophic cracking while being hoisted from the ocean onto Mr. Steven’s deck, it appears that the second intact half (following Iridium-5) did not meet the same fate. It’s probable that – assuming Musk does mean to conduct helicopter drop tests – the structurally-intact Iridium-5 half is thus a prime candidate for air drop tests to perfect the system’s accuracy, as fairings immersed in saltwater are not candidates for operational reuse.
-
- It’s good to first remember just how huge Falcon payload fairings are. (NASA, 2018)
-
- Soon after parafoil deployment, a payload fairing is captured gliding gently ahead of a soft ocean landing. (Elon Musk)
-
- PAZ’s recovered fairing half sadly cracked beyond repair while being hauled aboard Mr Steven. (Pauline Acalin)
-
- The Iridium-5 half, however, is not believed to have suffered any significant structural damage during recovery ops. (Pauline Acalin)
Meanwhile, several thousand miles to the East, SpaceX nailed their first intact recovery of a fairing half in the Atlantic following the historic and successful launch of NASA’s TESS, an exoplanet observatory that will more than fill the boots soon to be left empty by forlorn Kepler. Likely to discover thousands upon thousands more planets orbiting other stars, it is perhaps fitting that the mission also featured a successful Falcon 9 booster recovery and the first-ever (more or less…) intact recovery of both halves of a payload fairing. One half was absolutely shredded, but USLaunchReport reported that the half not caught on video was in comparatively perfect condition.
Returning to Mr. Steven’s visibly-upgraded catcher’s mitt, the newly-installed net is by all appearances magnitudes larger, heavier, and stronger than the minimal mesh specimen it is clearly replacing. Given the fact that SpaceX thus far has self-admittedly failed to catch a gliding fairing half in the net, it seems unlikely that such a drastic upgrade would be necessitated by any field-testing that occurred since Mr. Steven’s debut late last year. Rather, a significantly more capable net seems to more readily fit alongside CEO Elon Musk’s tweet reveal three weeks prior that SpaceX would attempt to close the final major loop of Falcon reusability by recovering the orbital upper stage (S2). Estimated to weigh approximately 4000 kilograms empty, the upper stage is a minimum of four times heavier than Falcon 9’s payload fairing halves, Mr Steven’s current meal of choice. Judging from the new net’s beefy rigging, broader bars, and general appearance, one could safely argue that it looks at least several times stronger than the mesh net before it. One could also argue that the absolutely massive metal arms installed on Mr. Steven are far larger than what might be required to catch the extremely low mass-to-area ratio payload fairings, with structural heft and bulky netting more reminiscent of safety nets present on naval vessels that are designed to catch aircraft and helicopters weighing five metric tons or more.
-
- Although both halves clearly attempted soft-landings with parafoils (evidenced by the black metal bars sticking up here), only one of them made it back intact. (USLaunchReport)
-
- The half not pictured in these photos was reportedly more or less intact, successfully landing in the ocean after launching NASA’s TESS. (USLaunchReport)
-
- Mr Steven is currently undergoing arm surgery (upgrades) at SpaceX’s future BFR factory lot, known as Berth 240. (Elon Musk)
-
- Mr Steven and his fancy net 2.0, caught on May 7. Bright yellow…for style. (Pauline Acalin)
Currently scheduled to liftoff around 4:12 p.m. EST May 10 from SpaceX’s LC-39A Florida launch pad, the company’s next mission will send Bangladesh’s first communications satellite – Bangabandhu-1 – to a geostationary transfer orbit. Equally significant, it will hopefully become the successful inaugural flight of Falcon 9 Block 5, a highly reliable and reusable collection of upgrades to the workhorse SpaceX rocket. Soon after, SpaceX will likely aim to complete two additional launches in late May, one from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base (Iridium-6/GRACE-FO) and the other from LC-40 in Cape Canaveral (SES-12). While the latter two launches – per their flight-proven boosters – will be expended, the first Block 5 booster (B1046) will attempt to land aboard drone ship Of Course I Still Love You, already on station in the Atlantic.
Follow us for live updates, behind-the-scenes sneak peeks, and a sea of beautiful photos from our East and West coast photographers.
Teslarati – Instagram – Twitter
Tom Cross – Twitter
Pauline Acalin – Twitter
Eric Ralph – Twitter
Elon Musk
SpaceX (SPCX) IPO is live today at $135: Here’s exactly what you need to know
SpaceX priced its historic IPO at $135 per share today, raising a record $75 billion.
SpaceX officially priced its initial public offering at $135 per share, offering 555,555,555 shares of Class A common stock and raising $75 billion in what is the largest IPO in stock market history. Shares are set to begin trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on Friday, June 12, under the ticker symbol SPCX. The previous record holder was Saudi Aramco’s 2019 offering at $29 billion, followed by Alibaba’s $22 billion offering in 2014.
At $135 per share and roughly 555.6 million shares, the implied valuation sits near $1.75 trillion, which would make SpaceX roughly the seventh largest company in the United States, just above Tesla’s current market cap. Regular investors can request shares at the IPO price through Robinhood, Fidelity, Charles Schwab, SoFi, and E*TRADE, though the deal is heavily oversubscribed and most retail allocations will be partial or unfilled. Once trading opens June 12, anyone with a brokerage account can buy SPCX on the open market.
SpaceX’s amended S-1 is sparking a major Tesla merger conversation
The valuation is anchored primarily by Starlink. Starlink crossed 10 million subscribers as of February 2026 and is adding 750,000 to 1.5 million new users per month, with the connectivity segment already posting a $1.19 billion profit last quarter. The offering also bundles in xAI following SpaceX’s all-stock merger earlier this year, adding Grok and the Colossus supercomputer to the investment thesis. As Teslarati reported, Starlink ended 2025 with $10 billion in revenue, a figure analysts project could reach $24 billion by end of 2026.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives has been vocal in his support. “I think the time is right,” Ives said, adding that the offering expands the Elon Musk ecosystem rather than competing with Tesla. An average 12-month price target of $165 per share represents roughly 22% upside from the IPO price. Not everyone agrees – Motley Fool noted xAI is spending $1 billion per month playing catch-up to OpenAI and Anthropic.
Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 with a single stated purpose. “Elon founded SpaceX with a goal to change humanity, to make us a multi-planet species,” CFO Bret Johnsen said in the company’s retail roadshow video this week. Musk himself has been more direct: “We are building the systems and technologies necessary to provide global connectivity on Earth and beyond, to understand the true nature of the universe, and to extend the light of consciousness to the stars.”
Investor's Corner
Tesla unfolded its first European “folding Supercharger”
Tesla’s folding Supercharger just arrived in Europe and it changes how fast charging expands.
Tesla’s Folding Unit Supercharger has officially landed in Europe, with the company teasing a new installation in its effort for a broader rollout targeting major motorway rest stops across the European continent in Q3 2026. The arrival marks a notable shift in how Tesla is thinking about network expansion, moving from hardware performance alone to engineering the logistics chain itself.
While Tesla did not reveal the exact location for the new folding Supercharger in Europe, the photo shared on X heavily suggests that this maybe somewhere in Norway. Historically, whenever Tesla rolls out an entirely new infrastructure architecture in Europe, whether it was the original Supercharger stalls years ago or these brand-new modular V4 “Folding Units”, Norway is almost always the designated launch pad because of its unmatched EV adoption rate and supportive infrastructure
The Folding Unit, introduced in March 2026, is a factory pre-assembled V4 charging station built on an industrial hinge system mounted to a heavy-duty concrete base. The entire assembly arrives on site ready to unfold and connect. Tesla confirmed the units feature telescopic light poles specifically designed for easy transportation and fast on-site deployment, a detail that signals how carefully the logistics chain has been engineered alongside the hardware itself. The design allows 33% more stalls per delivery truck, cuts installation time roughly in half, and reduces overall deployment costs by more than 20% compared to traditional installations.
Tesla’s newest “Folding V4 Superchargers” are key to its most aggressive expansion yet
Tesla also noted telescopic light poles which provide benefits over traditional Supercharger installations that require fixed-height poles that are awkward to ship, slow to position on site, and often require separate crews and equipment to erect before charging hardware can even be staged. By engineering poles that compress for transit and extend on arrival, Tesla has removed one of the quieter bottlenecks in the physical deployment process. Every hour saved on a light pole installation is an hour redirected toward getting stalls energized. At scale, across dozens of new sites per quarter, those hours add up to a meaningful acceleration in how quickly a location goes from approved permit to serving its first customer.
Each Folding Unit pairs a single V4 power cabinet with eight charging posts. The V4 cabinet delivers up to 500 kW per stall for passenger vehicles and up to 1.2 MW for the Tesla Semi, supporting twice the stalls per cabinet at three times the power density of its predecessor. Longer cables make every new station immediately usable by non-Tesla vehicles, a priority as Tesla continues opening its network to Ford, GM, Rivian, Hyundai, Stellantis, and others.
As Teslarati reported when the Folding Unit was first unveiled, Tesla’s Gigafactory New York produced its final V3 Supercharger cabinet in March 2026 after more than seven years and 15,000 units, completing a full pivot to V4 production. The European arrival of the folding design is the next chapter in that transition.
Faster and cheaper deployment means Tesla can justify building in markets and corridors that were previously too expensive to serve, filling the coverage gaps that have slowed EV adoption outside major urban centers.
First Folding Unit Superchargers in Europe 🇪🇺 https://t.co/KNfYWJukkL pic.twitter.com/YR1udIpH1i
— Tesla Charging (@TeslaCharging) June 10, 2026
Tesla has stunned by gaining yet another approval for its Full Self-Driving suite in Europe, its second in two days and its fifth overall.
Belgium will be the latest country to allow Tesla owners to utilize FSD on public roads in Europe, joining a quickly growing list that started with the Netherlands, Lithuania, and Estonia.
On Tuesday, Denmark announced its approval of the FSD suite, which has now been followed by Belgium just one day later.
The country’s Minister of Mobility, Annick De Ridder, announced the approval on her X account, stating that she had just signed the approval of Tesla FSD. It now goes to the country’s homologation department for the last step of the approval process.
De @Tesla community houdt hier al geruime tijd de vinger aan de pols over de toelating voor de FSD-technologie op onze Vlaamse en Belgische wegen.
Uit waardering voor jullie niet-aflatende interesse (en aanmoediging 😉), krijgen jullie hierbij de primeur: ik heb net de toelating… pic.twitter.com/Yrps4OHTj8— Annick De Ridder (@AnnickDeRidder) June 10, 2026
The Belgian approval is one of mighty importance because it truly shows how quickly countries in Europe could greenlight the FSD suite consecutively. Approvals are already coming in relatively quickly, which is a great sign.
Perhaps the next big development that could come from FSD approvals in Europe is an approval from a country like England, Italy, France, Spain, or Germany. It would be something to see how FSD would perform in a major European metro, such as London, Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Rome, or Berlin.
Getting Full Self-Driving in Spain and England will be such huge milestones for Tesla. I am so excited to see how FSD performs in Madrid, Barcelona, and London, specifically.
The ultimate test will always be Mumbai or New Delhi. Excited for India’s eventual approval! https://t.co/paw9Ch1qmL pic.twitter.com/9RdDERVSSJ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 9, 2026
Full Self-Driving does an excellent job of roaming around major U.S. cities like New York and Los Angeles, but other high-profile international cities of significance would truly mark a line in the sand for Tesla, which can simply enable any vehicle in its customer-owned fleet to run FSD with the correct approvals.
SpaceX (SPCX) IPO is live today at $135: Here’s exactly what you need to know
Tesla unfolded its first European “folding Supercharger”
