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SpaceX, Rocket Lab, ULA all have rocket launches planned this weekend
The final weekend of August 2020 is shaping up to be an exciting one in the world of rocket launching. United Launch Alliance (ULA) looks to kick off weekend activities early on Saturday morning with the launch of its Delta IV Heavy rocket carrying a classified satellite payload for the National Reconnaissance Office at 2:04 am EDT (0604 UTC) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 37. Following a successful ULA launch, the weekend’s activity will kick into high gear. Even SpaceX founder and CEO, Elon Musk, agrees that this weekend could be “intense” as stated in a post to his Twitter account Friday, August 28.
Good chance something will slip, but, yeah, Sunday is intense— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 28, 2020
According to weather Launch Mission Execution Forecasts provided by the 45th Weather Squadron and confirmed via the company’s Twitter account, SpaceX aims to get two Falcon 9’s launched from the Florida coast just nine hours apart. The company also has a possible flight test of its Starship prototype vehicle on the books from Boca Chica, Texas this weekend. Rocket Lab looks to join in the launching activity with the return to flight mission of its Electron rocket following the wrap-up of its recent in-flight anomaly investigation.
Pending Range availability, targeting back-to-back Falcon 9 launches from Florida on Sunday, August 30—another flight of Starlink from LC-39A at 10:12 a.m. EDT followed by the SAOCOM 1B mission from SLC-40 at 7:18 p.m. EDT pic.twitter.com/uV9MN2Nq2X— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 28, 2020
SpaceX can only launch this weekend if ULA does too
As SpaceX and ULA both launch from what is referred to as the eastern range – the location of all launches originating from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station or Kennedy Space Center – only one launch provider can be supported at a time by the 45th Space Wing and 45th Weather Squadron which oversee eastern range operations.
As a part of the reservation process ahead of securing a launch date with the eastern range, each launch provider chooses a targeted launch date and secures a number of back-up launch opportunities should a delay occur.
In the case of ULA’s NROL-44 mission, a primary launch opportunity and two back-up opportunities – 24 hours and 48 hours after the initial launch attempt – have been identified. This means that should the Delta IV Heavy suffer another critical issue resulting in a delay during its Saturday, August 29 primary launch attempt, both of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch opportunities will be delayed as well.
ULA’s NROL-44 Delta IV Heavy carries a classified satellite payload for the National Reconnaissance Office, a national security division of the United States government. As such, the NROL-44 mission is a matter of national security and takes precedence over both SpaceX’s internal Starlink mission and SAOCOM-1B payload for customer Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales, Argentina’s national space agency.
If the ULA NROL-44 mission is delayed through both back-up launch opportunities SpaceX, presumably, would have to wait until no earlier than Tuesday, September 1 to launch a Falcon 9.
Rocket Lab “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Optical”
While SpaceX will have to wait for ULA’s Delta IV Heavy to clear its pad before attempting either of the planned Falcon 9 launches, Rocket Lab will attempt the return to flight mission of its Electron rocket – the fourteenth flight overall – regardless (weather permitting).
The launch attempt initially scheduled for 11:04pm ET (0304 UTC) Friday, August 28 was rescheduled due to high winds and heavy cloud cover over Launch Complex-1A in Mahia, New Zealand. The next available launch attempt at 11:05 pm ET Sunday, August 30 (0305 UTC Monday, August 31) lines up for Electron to take off just four hours after SpaceX’s SAOCOM-1B mission.
Launch Update: Ground winds remain high at LC-1 tomorrow, so we're now targeting no earlier than Aug 31 UTC for the #ICantBelieveItsNotOptical mission. 🚀🛰️
Mission info https://t.co/zI36drt64x
Launch timing:
ET: 23:05, Aug 30
PT: 20:05, Aug 30
NZT: 15:05, Aug 31 pic.twitter.com/2RRwpxhDSl— Rocket Lab (@RocketLab) August 28, 2020
Following an in-flight anomaly during Electron’s thirteenth mission in July, Rocket Lab was forced to stand down from active launching status to complete a full investigation into the incident. In about a month’s time, Rocket Lab was able to track down and remedy an overheating issue with a single electrical connection on Electron’s second stage.
After receiving clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration to resume operational launches, Rocket Lab has announced that Electron’s fourteenth flight -nicknamed “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Optical” – will be a dedicated mission for Capella Space, a California-based company that utilizes Earth observation data to provide information services.
According to a statement provided by Rocket Lab, the satellite payload called “Sequoia” is “a single 100 kg class microsatellite which will be the first publicly available satellite in the company’s commercial Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) constellation.”
A big goal of Rocket Lab’s is to join competitor SpaceX in a class of launchers that regularly recovers and reuses orbital-class boosters. Rocket Lab intends to catch an Electron first-stage booster in-flight once it has been dispensed by catching the falling booster’s parachute canopy with a grappling hook secured to a helicopter.
However, the company has stated that a full-scale demonstration of this effort is targeted for no earlier than the seventeenth mission of Electron currently slated to occur in Fall 2020.
If all proceeds as planned, this weekend could end up as a launchfest of rockets and spaceship prototypes. At the time of publishing, all is proceeding as expected for ULA’s Delta IV Heavy launch attempt and the weather looks good on Saturday, August 29.
ULA has confirmed that the previous issues that caused a launch attempt delay have all been cleared and weather outlook remains at an 80% chance of favorable launching conditions.
The launch attempt will be streamed live and is expected to begin at 1:43 am EDT (0543 UTC) on the company’s website or viewed below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx5GjjCtcgo&feature=youtu.be
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 massive beat on vehicle deliveries for the second quarter, delivering 489,126 vehicles and building 451,758 cars during the three-month span.
This was a major shock for those on Wall Street as they anticipated somewhere around 400,000 deliveries for the quarter, and showed Tesla still has plenty of demand for its vehicles around the world and in the U.S. despite losing the $7,500 EV Tax Credit last year.
Tesla Q2 2026 Earnings Results
- Non-GAAP EPS – $0.33 reported vs. $0.53 expected
- Revenues – $28.236 billion reported vs. $26.4 billion expected
- Free Cash Flow- -$1.092B
- Profit -$ 4.751B
Tesla (beat/missed) analyst expectations, so the market response to the company’s quarter is what we will look for next.
Tesla shares closed today down just over 1 percent, trading at $374.01.
In the past, it has been anyone’s guess with what Tesla shares will do after they report earnings. Strong quarters have resulted in sharp drops, while lackluster quarters have seen the stock shoot up considerably.
Tesla will hold its Q2 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.
Q2 2026 Earnings Call https://t.co/zZS6ii2TWK
— Tesla (@Tesla) July 22, 2026
Tesla is about to make parking in busy parking lots at businesses and other points of interest less stressful than ever by allowing drivers more control over where they park and how, CEO Elon Musk confirmed on X.
Tesla has been working to improve the parking performance of vehicles utilizing the Full Self-Driving suite, but now it is looking to add more customization, allowing drivers to choose the specific space they park in, but also potentially the orientation the car pulls into the spot:
It’s coming soon
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 21, 2026
Musk has reiterated on X twice over the past several weeks that Tesla is working to make things with the FSD suite based more on the driver’s specific preferences and behaviors that were seen in past drives.
Essentially, it sounds like if you tend to park away from a business to avoid other vehicles, Tesla FSD will soon recognize that preference of yours and start parking further away as well. Additionally, the prospect of assigned parking spaces has been something many owners have voiced concerns about.
Living in a community with assigned parking spaces makes using FSD incredibly difficult as it will rarely park in the correct spot when there are so many to choose from. This is also pertinent in work settings where there are sometimes assigned parking spaces.
The updates to Tesla’s Full Self-Driving suite in terms of listening to driver preferences with parking are also extending to routing. Tesla announced yesterday that with the release of its 2026 Summer Update, it was adding Automatic Navigation and Preferred Routes:
Tesla reveals 2026 Summer Update with crazy fixes to Nav and more
Tesla has always maintained the idea that any human input is bad input, and that, ideally, Tesla Full Self-Driving will always make the right decision. Of course, this is all in theory, but the issue is that so many of Tesla’s interventions have come because it does something that is not necessarily wrong, but perhaps not what the driver would prefer.
Taking these preferences into account will help Tesla alleviate some of the potentially unnecessary interventions that drivers perform.
Tesla is starting to prepare for the launch of the Optimus robot in its smartphone app, new coding strings show. Elon Musk has referred to Optimus as what will be the greatest-selling product of any kind of all time, and now, Tesla is getting ready for its launch.
Tesla’s smartphone app had several first-time mentions of the Optimus program, according to Tesla App Updates, who intially reported on the appearance. Here’s what they found:
A Dedicated “Robot” Phone Key Authentication
Tesla is working on a Bluetooth Low Energy, or BLE, authentication that is specifically for robots. This does not only apply to Optimus, though, as Robotaxi, which is Tesla’s autonomous ride-hailing platform, might also identify vehicles within the fleet as robots as well.
Tesla shows rapid teardown of Model S and X lines, paving the way for Optimus at Fremont
Essentially, pairing your phone as a key to anything Tesla identifies as a robot to a “whitelist” of authorized devices. Optimus, Robotaxi, or other products that fall into this category will only respond if the device trying to communicate with it is authorized.
This is a great security feature that will eliminate at least face-value and low-level threats.
Home Data Collection and System Alerts
This appears to be somewhat of a neural network for Optimus within your house. There will be a dedicated screen that asks for consent to collect both video and spatial data while Optimus performs in-home tasks. Everything from vacuuming, washing dishes, dusting, and other activities will be tracked.
There will also be a comprehensive alert system that will track everything from low battery to mechanical issues.
Other Changes
Most of the changes tracked in this particular app update are related to Tesla’s 2026 Summer Update, and include things such as image assets for new features, a preview of the new custom wraps feature, and other unique features.
You can check out our coverage on what is included with the 2026 Summer Update here:
Tesla reveals 2026 Summer Update with crazy fixes to Nav and more
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla is about to make parking in busy lots less stressful than ever
