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SpaceX debuts upgraded drone ship with record-breaking rocket landing

A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster has successfully completed five orbital-class launches and landings for the first time, marking the halfway point to the rocket's design goal. (SpaceX)

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SpaceX has successfully launched and landed the same Falcon 9 booster five times for the first time ever while simultaneously debuting an upgraded drone ship formerly stationed on the West Coast.

With this launch under SpaceX’s belt, the company has fully proven that the March 2020 in-flight engine failure suffered during the inaugural fifth launch of a Falcon 9 was a fluke. Even more importantly, with Falcon 9 B1049.5 safely aboard drone ship Just Read The Instructions (JRTI), SpaceX can now begin preparing for the booster’s sixth launch – a first for the company as it pushes towards a 10-flight goal.

Now passing the halfway point almost a little over 24 months after SpaceX debuted Falcon 9’s Block 5 upgrade, there is a strong chance that at least one booster – perhaps even B1049 – will either cross the 10-flight mark or get within a few launches of it by the end of the year. SpaceX has some 18 more launches nominally planned over the next 7 months, a number that doesn’t even include 14-18 additional Starlink launches targeted in 2020.

(SpaceX)
(SpaceX)
Falcon 9 B1049 streaks into the sky on its fifth orbital-class launch and third Starlink mission. (Richard Angle)

Just 15 minutes after liftoff and six minutes after Falcon 9 B1049’s record-breaking landing, the rocket’s second stage successfully deployed SpaceX’s eighth batch of 60 Starlink satellites, also the 7th batch of upgraded v1.0 spacecraft. With this launch complete, after a several-week period of orbit-raising, SpaceX will soon have ~475 operational satellites in its space-based internet constellation.

According to comments made by COO and President Gwynne Shotwell in a May 25th interview with Aviation Week’s Irene Klotz, SpaceX aims to complete 14 Starlink launches – ~840 satellites worth – before it starts to roll out Starlink internet service to customers around the world.

Given that SpaceX has another two Starlink missions planned in June alone, the company could easily cross the 14 launch mark in August or September, opening the constellation for an alpha, beta, or possibly even wider release by the end of Q3 2020. In typical SpaceX fashion, its record-breaking eighth Starlink launch and the start of a potential four-launch month has come four days after the company successfully launched astronauts into orbit for the first time, arguably the single most important mission in its 18-year history.

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60 new Starlink satellites depart Falcon 9’s second stage and begin to spread out ahead of orbit-raising. (SpaceX)

Now with that historic launch safely behind SpaceX and a new, gently-used booster nearly back in the stable, the company can get back to tackling an extremely busy Starlink and commercial launch manifest over the next several months. Stay tuned!

The Starlink-8 webcast can be rewatched here.

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Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

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Ford considers drastic move with F-150 Lightning: ‘The demand is just not there’

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Credit: Ford Motor Company

Ford is considering a drastic move with its F-150 Lightning, which was the best-selling EV pickup on the market last quarter, beating out Tesla’s Cybertruck.

Ford has had a tumultuous entrance into its more expanded electric vehicle strategy over the past several years. At one point, the company was widely considered to be the most invested legacy automaker in the transition to electrification, but as the company has seen some real backtracking in terms of its sales and demand, it is cooling down its commitment.

At the end of Q3, it seemed to already be considering making some moves to cool off its EV ambitions, especially as the $7,500 EV tax credit was removed and it appeared that consumers would be less attracted to its vehicles without this sizeable discount.

Now, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal, Ford is considering scrapping the F-150 Lightning altogether, as one employee said “the demand is just not there.”

Despite it being the best-selling EV pickup in the U.S. last quarter, the sales simply do not match up with the pricing, and financially, it is not the time to try to dive further into a project that is not making a profit. Ford has been dwindling in its commitment to EVs over the past several quarters, and its profits are reflecting a slowing interest in its electric vehicles.

Simply put, Ford’s combustion engine lineup of pickups in the F-Series is, by far, the best-selling division of trucks globally. Ford brought an awesome product forth with the Lightning, a mirror of the gas-powered F-Series that had a variety of trim levels for whatever the truck would be used for by the consumer.

However, the demand and sales have caused Ford to take a loss on its electric truck: figures from early last year indicated it was losing between $100,000 and $132,000 per vehicle.

It is not an official announcement, as Ford has not publicly said anything regarding its plans for the Lightning at this time.

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Elon Musk

Tesla schedules Roadster unveiling event, and you won’t believe when it is

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Tesla has tentatively scheduled its unveiling event for the Roadster’s next-generation iteration, and you will not believe the date the company picked for it.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said during the 2025 Annual Shareholders Meeting that the company is aiming for an April 1 demo event.

Yes, April Fools’ Day.

Tesla originally aimed for its “most epic demo” to take place at the end of this year. However, the writing on the wall as 2025 winds down seemed to indicate the company was not quite ready to show off everything it plans to implement into the Roadster.

Its capabilities have been teased quite heavily throughout most of the year, but the biggest hints came last week when Musk appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience Podcast.

He said:

“Whether it’s good or bad, it will be unforgettable. My friend Peter Thiel once reflected that the future was supposed to have flying cars, but we don’t have flying cars. I think if Peter wants a flying car, he should be able to buy one…I think it has a shot at being the most memorable product unveil ever. [It will be unveiled] hopefully before the end of the year. You know, we need to make sure that it works. This is some crazy technology in this car. Let’s just put it this way: if you took all the James Bond cars and combined them, it’s crazier than that.”

The Roadster has been somewhat of a letdown, at least in its newest version, thus far. Tesla has routinely delayed the project, putting those who put lofty down payments on the car in a weird limbo, lost at what to do.

One notable pre-orderer cancelled his reservation last week and got in a spat with Musk about it.

Now that there is a definitive date for the Roadster unveiling, Musk and Co. should have a more definitive cutoff date for features and capabilities. Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen said earlier this year that when they showed Musk what they had done with the Roadster, the CEO encouraged them to do even more with it.

This delayed things further.

Musk also said he believes production would begin between 12 and 18 months after the unveiling, putting it out sometime in 2027.

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Elon Musk

Tesla (TSLA) shareholders officially approve Elon Musk’s 2025 performance award

To earn his landmark pay package, Musk would be required to lift Tesla’s market capitalization from about $1.1 trillion today to $8.5 trillion over the next decade.

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Justin Pacheco, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk has officially approved his 2025 Performance Award, a landmark pay package that could make him the world’s first trillionaire and make Tesla the most valuable company in the world by a mile. 

The 2025 CEO Performance Award was officially approved by Tesla shareholders at the 2025 Annual Shareholder Meeting.

Elon Musk‘s landmark pay package

As per Tesla, more than 75% of the shareholders approved Elon Musk’s 2025 CEO Performance Award. It was then unsurprising that the approval of Elon Musk’s pay plan received overwhelming applause from the event’s attendees.

The CEO took to the stage with much enthusiasm, welcoming every shareholder to the event and dancing briefly on stage. Optimus also danced on stage smoothly, demonstrating its improved movements to much appause.

Elon Musk’s 10-year targets

To earn his 2025 CEO Performance Award, Musk would be required to grow Tesla’s market capitalization from about $1.1 trillion today to $8.5 trillion over the next decade. At that level, Tesla would surpass every major public company in existence. The compensation plan also requires Tesla’s operating profit to grow from $17 billion last year to $400 billion annually. 

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Apart from leading Tesla to become the world’s biggest company in history, Musk is also required to hit several product targets for the electric vehicle maker. These include the delivery of 20 million Tesla vehicles cumulatively, 10 million active FSD subscriptions, 1 million Tesla bots delivered, and 1 million Robotaxis in operation.

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