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SpaceX’s reusable rockets snag two more launch contracts
SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9 rocket has secured another two launch contracts, this time from longtime customer and prolific satellite communications provider SES.
In 2016, SES acquired satellite operator and communications provider O3B Networks, inheriting a network of 12 O3B satellites that it would later shepherd into a full 20-satellite constellation. Built by contractor Thales Alenia Space, the O3B spacecraft design was ironically quite similar to the Starlink satellites SpaceX would begin to field several years later, weighing around 700 kg (1540 lb) and each offering bandwidth of ~16 gigabits per second (Gbps).
The original O3B constellation was ultimately launched on five separate Russian Soyuz rockets arranged by Arianespace. Now, some 16 months after the final O3B launch, SES’ latest announcement confirms that SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets will launch the entirety of an upgraded constellation called O3B mPower – adding two more launches to the company’s busy manifest.
Compared to O3B, O3B mPower will be a major upgrade, beating the original medium Earth orbit (MEO; ~8000 km/5000 mi) constellation’s overall bandwidth by at least a factor of 3. SES has yet to reveal much technical detail about each spacecraft but the implication is that the overall constellation – currently expected to be 11 satellites – will add several terabits per second (Tbps) of global communications capacity.
SES (and O3B prior to acquisition) had already ordered seven ~17O3B mPower satellites from Boeing and selected SpaceX for launch services. Now, the company has purchased four more Boeing-built satellites, launch services from SpaceX, and insurance for an eye-watering ~$570 million – more than $140 million apiece. For reference, based on statements made by CEO Elon Musk in the last ~18 months, SpaceX may have built and launched nearly 600 operational Starlink satellites – each offering ~20 Gbps of bandwidth and far lower latency – for roughly the same sum, assuming ~$20 million per Falcon 9 launch, $300,000 per satellite, and at least $150 million for initial development.
Of course, for the money, SES will be getting a system that can do things SpaceX’s current generation of Starlink satellites can’t really compete with and will focus primarily on in-flight and maritime connectivity markets. Individual O3B mPower antenna beams will reportedly be capable of transmitting “multiple gigabits per second.”
Regardless, the strong, continued relationship between SES and SpaceX is not a huge surprise. SES has flown six times on Falcon 9 rockets and was both SpaceX’s first geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) launch customer in 2013 and the first company in history to launch on a flight-proven rocket booster in 2017. SES’ latest launch contracts ensure that that relationship is guaranteed to continue until 2024.
SpaceX is now scheduled to launch four separate O3B mPower missions, beginning with three three-satellite Falcon 9 launches in Q3 2021, Q1 2022, and H2 2022 and culminating (for now) with a two-satellite launch no earlier than (NET) H2 2024.
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Elon Musk
Tesla confirmed HW3 can’t do Unsupervised FSD but there’s more to the story
Tesla confirmed HW3 vehicles cannot run unsupervised FSD, replacing its free upgrade promise with a discounted trade-in.
Tesla has officially confirmed that early vehicles with its Autopilot Hardware 3 (HW3) will not be capable of unsupervised Full Self-Driving, while extending a path forward for legacy owners through a discounted trade-in program. The announcement came by way of Elon Musk in today’s Tesla Q1 2026 earnings call.
🚨 Our LIVE updates on the Tesla Earnings Call will take place here in a thread 🧵
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— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2026
The history here matters. HW3 launched in April 2019, and Tesla sold Full Self-Driving packages to owners on the understanding that the hardware was sufficient for full autonomy. Some owners paid between $8,000 and $15,000 for FSD during that period. For years, as FSD’s AI models grew more demanding, HW3 vehicles fell progressively further behind, eventually landing on FSD v12.6 in January 2025 while AI4 vehicles moved to v13 and then v14. When Musk acknowledged in January 2025 that HW3 simply could not reach unsupervised operation, and alluded to a difficult hardware retrofit.
The near-term offering is more concrete. Tesla’s head of Autopilot Ashok Elluswamy confirmed on today’s call that a V14-lite will be coming to HW3 vehicles in late June, bringing all the V14 features currently running on AI4 hardware. That is a meaningful software update for owners who have been frozen at v12.6 for over a year, and it represents genuine effort to keep older hardware relevant. Unsupervised FSD for vehicles is now targeted for Q4 2026 at the earliest, with Musk describing it as a gradual, geography-limited rollout.
For HW3 owners, the over-the-air V14-lite update is welcomed, and the discounted trade-in path at least acknowledges an old obligation. What happens next with the trade-in pricing will define how this chapter ultimately gets written. If Tesla prices the hardware path fairly, acknowledges what early adopters are owed, and delivers V14-lite on the June timeline it committed to today, it has a real opportunity to convert one of the longest-running sore subjects among early adopters into a loyalty story.
Elon Musk
Tesla isn’t joking about building Optimus at an industrial scale: Here we go
Tesla’s Optimus factory in Texas targets 10 million robots yearly, with 5.2 million square feet under construction.
Tesla’s Q1 2026 Update Letter, released today, confirms that first generation Optimus production lines are now well underway at its Fremont, California factory, with a pilot line targeting one million robots per year to start. Of bigger note is a shared aerial image of a large piece of land adjacent to Gigafactory Texas, that Tesla has prominently labeled “Optimus factory site preparation.”
Permit documents show Tesla is seeking to add over 5.2 million square feet of new building space to the Giga Texas North Campus by the end of 2026, at an estimated construction investment of $5 billion to $10 billion. The longer term production target for that facility is 10 million Optimus units per year. Giga Texas already sits on 2,500 acres with over 10 million square feet of existing factory floor, and the North Campus expansion is being built to support multiple projects, including the dedicated Optimus factory, the Terafab chip fabrication facility (a joint Tesla/SpaceX/xAI venture), a Cybercab test track, road infrastructure, and supporting facilities.
Credit: TESLA
Texas makes strategic sense beyond the existing infrastructure. The state’s tax structure, lower labor costs relative to California, and the proximity to Tesla’s AI training cluster Cortex 1 and 2, both located at Giga Texas and now totaling over 230,000 H100 equivalent GPUs, means the Optimus software stack and the factory producing the hardware will share the same campus. Tesla’s Q1 report also confirmed completion of the AI5 chip tape out in April, the inference processor designed specifically to power Optimus units in the field.
As Teslarati reported, the Texas facility is intended to house Optimus V4 production at full scale. Musk told the World Economic Forum in January that Tesla plans to sell Optimus to the public by end of 2027 at a price between $20,000 and $30,000, stating, “I think everyone on earth is going to have one and want one.” He has previously pegged long term demand for general purpose humanoid robots at over 20 billion units globally, citing both consumer and industrial use cases.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) reported its earnings for the first quarter of 2026 on Wednesday afternoon. Here’s what the company reported compared to what Wall Street analysts expected.
The earnings results come after Tesla reported a miss on vehicle deliveries for the first quarter, delivering 358,023 vehicles and building 408,386 cars during the three-month span.
As Tesla transitions more toward AI and sees itself as less of a car company, expectations for deliveries will begin to become less of a central point in the consensus of how the quarter is perceived.
Nevertheless, Tesla is leaning on its strong foundation as a car company to carry forward its AI ambitions. The first quarter is a good ground layer for the rest of the year.
Tesla Q1 2026 Earnings Results
Tesla’s Earnings Results are as follows:
- Non-GAAP EPS – $0.41 Reported vs. $0.36 Expected
- Revenues – $22.387 billion vs. $22.35 billion Expected
- Free Cash Flow – $1.444 billion
- Profit – $4.72 billion
Tesla beat analyst expectations, so it will be interesting to see how the stock responds. IN the past, we’ve seen Tesla beat analyst expectations considerably, followed by a sharp drop in stock price.
On the same token, we’ve seen Tesla miss and the stock price go up the following trading session.
Tesla will hold its Q1 2026 Earnings Call in about 90 minutes at 5:30 p.m. on the East Coast. Remarks will be made by CEO Elon Musk and other executives, who will shed some light on the investor questions that we covered earlier this week.
You can stream it below. Additionally, we will be doing our Live Blog on X and Facebook.
Q1 2026 Earnings Call at 4:30pm CT https://t.co/pkYIaGJ32y
— Tesla (@Tesla) April 22, 2026
Tesla confirmed HW3 can’t do Unsupervised FSD but there’s more to the story
Tesla isn’t joking about building Optimus at an industrial scale: Here we go
