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SpaceX’s Mr. Steven preparing for first Falcon 9 fairing catch attempt in months
SpaceX recovery vessel Mr. Steven has spent the last several weeks undergoing major refits – including a new net and arms – and testing the upgraded hardware in anticipation of the vessel’s first fairing catch attempt in more than four months.
Required after a mysterious anomaly saw Mr. Steven return to Port in February sans two arms and a net, the appearance of a new net and arms guarantees that SpaceX is still pursuing its current method of fairing recovery. Above all else, successfully closing the loop and catching fairings could help SpaceX dramatically ramp its launch cadence and lower costs, especially critical for the affordable launch of the company’s own Starlink satellite constellation.
The Saga of Steven
For a few months of 2019, it was entirely conceivable that SpaceX had all but given up on catching Falcon fairings, having spent the better part of 2018 without a single success during both post-launch and experimentally controlled catch attempts. Admittedly, a year may feel like a huge amount of time, but SpaceX has demonstrated just how hard the reliably successful recovery of orbital-class rocket hardware really is.
Depending on how one examines the history of Falcon 9, it took SpaceX anywhere from ~30 and ~70 months and either 7 or 9 failed recovery attempts before the first Falcon 9 booster successfully landed in December 2015. Excluding helicopter-based fairing drop tests, Mr. Steven and SpaceX’s fairing recovery team have made five attempts to catch fairings in the vessel’s net after Falcon 9 launches. All have been unsuccessful, with the closest miss reportedly landing in the Pacific Ocean just 50 meters away from Mr. Steven’s massive net.
In January 2019, Mr. Steven sailed ~8000 km (5000 mi) from Port of Los Angeles to Port Canaveral, passing through the Panama Canal. For unknown reasons, during a trip out to sea to catch a Falcon 9 fairing in February, Mr. Steven abruptly turned around early and arrived in port missing two of four arms, four of eight booms, and the entirety of its custom net. The remaining arms/booms were removed and the vessel spent roughly three months docked with just a handful of excursions.
In late May, technicians rapidly installed new arms and booms, as well as a new (and blue) net, bringing about the end of months of inactivity. Mr. Steven has yet to venture beyond the safety of Port Canaveral since its new ‘catcher’s mitt’ was installed, but SpaceX has been testing the new setup by repeatedly lowering a Falcon fairing half into the net. It’s too early to raise expectations but it seems plausible that the iconic recovery vessel will be ready to attempt its first fairing catch in ~4 months as part of Falcon Heavy’s next scheduled launch, currently NET June 22.
A challenger approaches…
Although Mr. Steven’s prospects look better than they have in months, SpaceX’s fairing recovery engineers and technicians have not been sitting on their hands. Begun as a check against the growing possibility that reliably catching fairings in a (relatively) small net is just too difficult to be worth it, SpaceX has been analyzing methods of reusing fairings without Mr. Steven. Most notably, despite the failure to catch fairings out of the air, the fairing halves themselves – relying on GPS-guided parafoils – have proven to be capable of reliably performing gentle landings on the ocean surface.
This consistently leaves the fairings intact and floating on the ocean but at the cost of partial saltwater immersion and exposure to surface-level sea spray and waves. At least in today’s era of highly complex large satellites, customers typically demand that payload fairings (like Falcon 9’s) offer a clean room-quality environment once the satellite is encapsulated inside. Sea water is full of salt, organic molecules, and water, all three of which do not get along well with extremely sensitive electronics. The whole purpose of recovering and reusing fairings is to make their reuse more efficient and less expensive than simply building a new fairing. The task of cleaning composite structures to clean room-standards after salt water exposure and immersion tends to be less than friendly to both aspirations.
According to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, however, that challenge may be distinctly solvable and could even be easier than the Mr. Steven approach. After Falcon Heavy’s commercial Arabsat 6A launch debut in April 2019, Musk again confirmed that SpaceX would be ready to test that alternate method of fairing reuse very soon and plans to do so on an “internal” (i.e. Starlink) launch later this year. As noted below, this is helped by the fact that SpaceX’s internally-developed Starlink satellites apparently have no need for the acoustic insulation panels that normally protect sensitive spacecraft from the brutal acoustic environment produced by rockets while still in Earth’s atmosphere.
For fairing reusability, the lack of those panels is just one less thing to have to worry about cleaning or replacing. Intriguingly, it’s easy to imagine that – much like SpaceX has apparently designed Starlink satellites to be resistant to intense acoustic environments – the company could have also required that they be tough enough to tolerate a less-than-pristine fairing environment. With that approach, SpaceX could continue to build new fairings for every customer launch, entirely amortizing their production cost before transferring the ‘dirty’, flight-proven fairings to internal Starlink launches.
In essence, SpaceX’s customers would quite literally be paying the company to build the very Falcon 9 boosters and fairings it will ultimately use to launch its massive Starlink constellation, requiring hundreds of launches over the next decade. The faster and more efficiently SpaceX can build and launch Starlink, the faster it can develop Starship/Super Heavy and entirely transcend any concerns of salty fairings (let alone expendable upper stages). But in the meantime, Mr. Steven will return to his catching duties and SpaceX will continue to attempt to reuse payload fairings.
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Despite many recent rumors and various reports, Elon Musk confirmed today that SpaceX is not developing a phone based on Starlink, not once, but twice.
Today’s report from Reuters cited people familiar with the matter and stated internal discussions have seen SpaceX executives mulling the idea of building a mobile device that would connect directly to the Starlink satellite constellation.
Musk did state in late January that SpaceX developing a phone was “not out of the question at some point.” However, He also said it would have to be a major difference from current phones, and would be optimized “purely for running max performance/watt neural nets.”
Not out of the question at some point. It would be a very different device than current phones. Optimized purely for running max performance/watt neural nets.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 30, 2026
While Musk said it was not out of the question “at some point,” that does not mean it is currently a project SpaceX is working on. The CEO reaffirmed this point twice on X this afternoon.
Musk said, “Reuters lies relentlessly,” in one post. In the next, he explicitly stated, “We are not developing a phone.”
Reuters lies relentlessly
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 5, 2026
We are not developing a phone
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 5, 2026
Musk has basically always maintained that SpaceX has too many things going on, denying that a phone would be in the realm of upcoming projects. There are too many things in the works for Musk’s space exploration company, most notably the recent merger with xAI.
SpaceX officially acquires xAI, merging rockets with AI expertise
A Starlink phone would be an excellent idea, especially considering that SpaceX operates 9,500 satellites, serving over 9 million users worldwide. 650 of those satellites are dedicated to the company’s direct-to-device initiative, which provides cellular coverage on a global scale.
Nevertheless, there is the potential that the Starlink phone eventually become a project SpaceX works on. However, it is not currently in the scope of what the company needs to develop, so things are more focused on that as of right now.
Tesla has added a notable improvement to its Dashcam feature after complaints from owners have pushed the company to make a drastic change.
Perhaps one of the biggest frustrations that Tesla owners have communicated regarding the Dashcam feature is the lack of ability to retain any more than 60 minutes of driving footage before it is overwritten.
It does not matter what size USB jump drive is plugged into the vehicle. 60 minutes is all it will hold until new footage takes over the old. This can cause some issues, especially if you were saving an impressive clip of Full Self-Driving or an incident on the road, which could be lost if new footage was recorded.
This has now been changed, as Tesla has shown in the Release Notes for an upcoming Software Update in China. It will likely expand to the U.S. market in the coming weeks, and was first noticed by NotaTeslaApp.
The release notes state:
“Dashcam Dynamic Recording Duration – The dashcam dynamically adjusts the recording duration based on the available storage capacity of the connected USB drive. For example, with a 128 GB USB drive, the maximum recording duration is approximately 3 hours; with a 1 TB or larger USB drive, it can reach up to 24 hours. This ensures that as much video as possible is retained for review before it gets overwritten.”
Tesla Adds Dynamic Recording
Instead of having a 60-minute cap, the new system will now go off the memory in the USB drive. This means with:
- 128 GB Jump Drive – Up to Three Hours of Rolling Footage
- 1TB Jump Drive – Up to 24 Hours of Rolling Footage
This is dependent on the amount of storage available on the jump drive, meaning that if there are other things saved on it, it will take away from the amount of footage that can be retained.
While the feature is just now making its way to employees in China, it will likely be at least several weeks before it makes its way to the U.S., but owners should definitely expect it in the coming months.
It will be a welcome feature, especially as there will now be more customization to the number of clips and their duration that can be stored.
With the news of a merger between SpaceX and xAI being confirmed earlier this week by CEO Elon Musk directly, the first moves of an umbrella company that combines all of the serial tech entrepreneur’s companies have been established.
The move aims to combine SpaceX’s prowess in launches with xAI’s expanding vision in artificial intelligence, as Musk has detailed the need for space-based data centers that will require massive amounts of energy to operate.
It has always been in the plans to bring Musk’s companies together under one umbrella.
“My companies are, surprisingly in some ways, trending toward convergence,” Musk said in November. With SpaceX and xAI moving together, many are questioning when Tesla will be next. Analysts believe it is a no-brainer.
SpaceX officially acquires xAI, merging rockets with AI expertise
Dan Ives of Wedbush wrote in a note earlier this week that there is a “growing chance” Tesla could be merged in some form with the new conglomeration over the next 12 to 18 months.
“In our view, there is a growing chance that Tesla will eventually be merged in some form into SpaceX/xAI over time. The viewis this growing AI ecosystem will focus on Space and Earth together… and Musk will look to combine forces,” Ives said.
Let’s take a look at the potential.
The Case for Synergies – Building the Ultimate AI Ecosystem
A triple merger would create a unified “Musk Trinity,” blending Tesla’s physical AI with Robotaxi, Optimus, and Full Self-Driving, SpaceX’s orbital infrastructure through Starlink and potential space-based computer, and xAI’s advanced models, including Grok.
This could accelerate real-world AI applications, more specifically, ones like using satellite networks for global autonomy, or even powering massive training through solar-optimized orbital data centers.
The FCC welcomes and now seeks comment on the SpaceX application for Orbital Data Centers.
The proposed system would serve as a first step towards becoming a Kardashev II-level civilization and serve other purposes, according to the applicant. pic.twitter.com/TDnUPuz9w7
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) February 4, 2026
This would position the entity, which could ultimately be labeled “X,” as a leader in multiplanetary AI-native tech.
It would impact every level of Musk’s AI-based vision for the future, from passenger use to complex AI training models.
Financial and Structural Incentives — and Risks
xAI’s high cash burn rate is now backed by SpaceX’s massive valuation boost, and Tesla joining the merger would help the company gain access to private funding channels, avoiding dilution in a public-heavy structure.
The deal makes sense from a capital standpoint, as it is an advantage for each company in its own specific way, addressing specific needs.
Because xAI is spending money at an accelerating rate due to its massive compute needs, SpaceX provides a bit of a “lifeline” by redirecting its growing cash flows toward AI ambitions without the need for constant external fundraising.
Additionally, Tesla’s recent $2 billion investment in xAI also ties in, as its own heavy CapEx for Dojo supercomputers, Robotaxis, and Optimus could potentially be streamlined.
Musk’s stake in Tesla and SpaceX, after the xAI merger, is also uneven. His ownership in Tesla equates to about 13 percent, only increasing as he achieves each tranche of his most recent compensation package. Meanwhile, he owns about 43 percent of the private SpaceX.
A triple merger between the three companies could boost his ownership in the combined entity to around 26 percent. This would give Musk what he wants: stronger voting power and alignment across his ventures.
It could also be a potential facilitator in private-to-public transitions, as a reverse merger structure to take SpaceX public indirectly via Tesla could be used. This avoids any IPO scrutiny while accessing the public markets’ liquidity.
Timeline and Triggers for a Public Announcement
As previously mentioned, Ives believes a 12-18 month timeline is realistic, fueled by Musk’s repeated hints at convergence between his three companies. Additionally, the recent xAI investment by Tesla only points toward the increased potential for a conglomeration.
Of course, there is speculation that the merger could happen in the shorter term, before June 30 of this year, which is a legitimate possibility. While this possibility exists but remains at low probability, especially when driven by rapid AI/space momentum, longer horizons, like 2027 or later, allow for key milestones like Tesla’s Robotaxi rollout and Cybercab ramp-up, Optimus scaling, or regulatory clarity under a favorable administration.
Credit: Grok Imagine
The sequencing matters: SpaceX-xAI merger as “step one” toward a unified stack, with a potential SpaceX IPO setting a valuation benchmark before any Tesla tie-up.
Full triple convergence could follow if synergies prove out.
Prediction markets are also a reasonable thing to look at, just to get an idea of where people are putting their money. Polymarket, for example, sits at between a 12 and 24 percent chance that a Tesla-SpaceX merger is officially announced before June 30, 2026.
Looking Ahead
The SpaceX-xAI merger is not your typical corporate shuffle. Instead, it’s the clearest signal yet that Musk is architecting a unified “Muskonomy” where AI, space infrastructure, and real-world robotics converge to solve humanity’s biggest challenges.
Yet the path is fraught with execution risks that could turn this visionary upside into a major value trap. Valuation mismatches remain at the forefront of this skepticism: Tesla’s public multiples are unlike any company ever, with many believing they are “stretched.” On the other hand, SpaceX-xAI’s private “marked-to-muth” pricing hinges on unproven synergies and lofty projects, especially orbital data centers and all of the things Musk and Co. will have to figure out along the way.
Ultimately, the entire thing relies on a high-conviction bet on Musk’s ability to execute at scale. The bullish case is transformative: a vertically integrated AI-space-robotics giant accelerates humanity toward abundance and multi-planetary civilization faster than any siloed company could.
Elon Musk confirms SpaceX is not developing a phone
Tesla adds notable improvement to Dashcam feature
