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SpaceX a bastion of independent US, European spaceflight amid Russian threats
Russia has invaded Ukraine without provocation, triggering a series of diplomatic responses – sanctions in particular – that recently culminated in the aggressor deciding to cut ties with Europe on a number of cooperative spaceflight projects.
Dmitry Rogozin, director of Russia’s national ‘Roscosmos’ space agency, went as far as implying that the country might respond to the West’s aerospace sanctions by ending its support of the International Space Station (ISS), a move that could cause the football-field-sized structure to gradually deorbit and reenter Earth’s atmosphere. Were it not for the existence of two extraordinarily successful NASA programs and SpaceX in particular, Russia’s response – which, today, reads like a child’s tantrum – could easily have been a grave threat with far-reaching consequences.
In response to sanctions after its unprovoked invasion, Russia announced that it was withdrawing support from Europe’s French Guinea Soyuz launch operations, effectively killing Arianespace’s Soyuz offering and potentially delaying several upcoming European launches indefinitely.
As a quick side note, it’s worth noting that ULA’s lack of readily available rockets and the fact that Arianespace is likely at least a year or more away from regular Ariane 6 launches means that SpaceX may be the only Western launch provider in the world capable of filling in the gap that Arianespace’s Soyuz loss will leave. Aside from pursuing Chinese launch services, which is likely a diplomatic non-starter, the only alternative to rebooking former European Soyuz payloads on SpaceX rockets is to accept one or even several years of expensive delays.
On the other half of the coin is the International Space Station. NASA signed its first major contract with SpaceX in 2008, awarding the company $1.6 billion (and up to $3.5 billion) to launch a dozen Cargo Dragon supply missions to the ISS. Aside from effectively pulling SpaceX back from the brink of dissolution, those funds also covered a large portion of the development of its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft and simultaneously funded Orbital Science’s (later Orbital ATK and now Northrop Grumman) Cygnus cargo spacecraft and Antares rocket.
Despite suffering two failures in 2014 and 2015, NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program has been an extraordinary success. Together, Cygnus (17) and Dragon (24) have completed 41 deliveries in the last 12 years, carrying more than 110 tons (~240,000 lb) of cargo to the ISS.
Out of sheer coincidence, on February 19th, mere days before Russia’s act of war, Northrop Grumman launched the first Cygnus spacecraft designed to help ‘re-boost’ (raise the orbit of) the International Space Station. Since NASA’s premature 2011 retirement of the Space Shuttle, that task has been exclusively conducted by a combination of Russian spacecraft and the station’s Russian Zvezda module. Without regular Russian re-boost support, the station would deorbit and be destroyed. In other words, if push came to shove, the ISS could very literally fail without direct Russian involvement. Rogozin’s threat, then, was that Russia might cease to support ISS re-boosting if sanctions went too far.
However, even while ignoring the fact that NASA itself actually paid for and owns the ISS Zvezda propulsion module and in light of the first Cygnus spacecraft upgraded with a re-boost capability berthing with the station the very same week of the invasion, Russia’s threat rang decidedly hollow. Further, if Cygnus weren’t available, it’s still difficult to imagine that SpaceX wouldn’t be able to quickly develop its own Dragon re-boost capability if asked to do so.
While re-boosting is crucial, the situation has also emphasized just how little leverage Russia now has over even more important aspects of the International Space Station. Were it not for the existence of SpaceX and NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP), the situation could be even direr for Europe and the US. Despite some pressure from lawmakers to only award the CCP contract to Boeing, NASA ultimately selected Boeing and SpaceX to develop independent crew capsules capable of carrying US astronauts to and from ISS in 2014. Following a near-flawless uncrewed Crew Dragon test flight in 2019 and an equally successful crewed demo mission in 2020, SpaceX completed its first operational Crew Dragon launch in November 2020.
Since then, SpaceX has launched another two operational ‘crew rotation’ missions, meaning that the company has now singlehandedly supported all US astronaut launch and recovery operations for 16 months. Due in part to extensive mismanagement, Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft was nearly destroyed twice during its first catastrophic uncrewed test flight in December 2019. The spacecraft is still months away from a second attempt at that test flight, likely at least 9-12 months away from a hypothetical crewed test flight, and potentially 18+ months away from even less certain operational NASA astronaut launches. Further, though ULA CEO Tory Bruno claims that the company doesn’t need any support from Russia, all Atlas Vs – the rocket responsible for launching Starliner – depend on Russian-built RD-180 engines.
Further adding to the mire, even Cygnus is not immune. The first stage of the Antares rocket that mainly launches it is both built in Ukraine and dependent upon Russian Energomash RD-181 engines. Northrop Grumman only has the hardware on hand for the next two Cygnus-Antares launches, at which point the company will have to either abandon its NASA contract or find an alternative launch provider. Once again, SpaceX is the only US provider obviously capable of filling that gap on such short notice and without incurring major delays of half a year or more.
In fewer words, without SpaceX, NASA would still be exclusively dependent upon Russian Soyuz rockets and spacecraft to get its astronauts to and from the space station it spent tens of billions of dollars to help build. Even in a best-case SpaceX-free scenario, NASA might instead be dependent upon a rocket with Russian engines to launch its own astronauts. Needless to say, the presence of US astronauts on Russian launches and ULA’s use of Russian engines were already extremely sensitive issues after Russia ‘merely’ invaded Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014.
It’s hard not to imagine that US and European responses to Russia’s aggression would have been weakened if NASA and ESA astronauts were still entirely dependent upon Russia to access the International Space Station. Further, in the same scenario, given its withdrawal from French Guinea, it’s also not implausible to imagine that Russia might have severely hampered or even fully withdrawn its support of Western access to the ISS.
Put simply, Crew Dragon – now a bastion of independent European and US human spaceflight in an age of extraordinary Russian recklessness – has arguably never been more important and SpaceX’s success never more of a triumph than they are today.
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 CEO Elon Musk recently confronted worries about orbital data centers and launching satellites in mass quantities in space, as some voiced concerns about crowding.
Musk’s SpaceX plans to combat the issue of needing data centers by launching them into space instead of taking up valuable real estate on Earth. It has been a major point of SpaceX’s future, including its looming IPO, which could be the largest ever.
In a recent interview filmed at SpaceX’s Starlink terminal factory in Bastrop, Texas, Elon Musk directly addressed concerns that deploying large numbers of AI satellites for orbital data centers could crowd Earth’s orbit. His message was straightforward and reassuring: space is vast beyond human intuition.
“Space is really big,” Musk said. “It’s not like space is gonna get crowded. Space is enormous. If you actually look at it relative to the Earth, the satellites are so tiny you can’t even see them.” He emphasized that even zooming in makes a satellite appear large, but from a planetary perspective, they are minuscule specks.
Elon on concerns that AI satellites will crowd space:
“Space is really big. It’s not like space is gonna get crowded. Space is enormous. If you actually look at it relative to the earth, the satellites are so tiny you can’t even see them.” https://t.co/Mvr7NpL25Q pic.twitter.com/5Fi629Rii7
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) June 8, 2026
Musk pointed to SpaceX’s real-world experience operating roughly 10,000 Starlink satellites as evidence that large constellations can be managed safely. “We’ve got a pretty good idea of how to operate just really large constellations and do it safely,” he noted. SpaceX remains the only operator with meaningful experience at this scale, giving the company unique insight into tight orbital packing without compromising safety
The discussion highlighted SpaceX’s plans for “AI1” satellites—essentially orbiting racks of AI compute powered by massive solar arrays and cooled via radiative panels in space’s vacuum.
These satellites leverage proven Starlink V3 technology, making them simpler to design than communications satellites. A first-generation unit targets around 150 kW peak power, with a 70-meter wingspan for solar panels and radiators. Laser links will connect them to each other and the Starlink network, delivering low-latency access (on the order of a few milliseconds from low-Earth orbit).
FCC accepts SpaceX filing for 1 million orbital data center plan
Musk framed orbital data centers as a practical solution to Earth’s constraints on AI growth. Ground-based facilities face power shortages, water demands for cooling, and grid limitations. In space, constant sunlight (no day-night cycle), vacuum radiative cooling, and abundant solar energy offer clear advantages.
Production will ramp up at an expanded “Gigasat” factory in Bastrop, with solar manufacturing already underway and full AI satellite output expected at reasonable volume by the end of 2027. Starship’s rapid, high-volume launch capability, aiming for multiple flights per hour, will make massive deployment feasible.
Critics sometimes raise risks like space debris or Kessler syndrome, but Musk’s response underscores scale: even a million satellites would represent an imperceptible fraction of available orbital volume when viewed against Earth’s size. SpaceX’s automated collision avoidance and deorbiting designs for Starlink further mitigate concerns.
This vision ties into broader ambitions. Musk sees orbital AI compute as a step toward harnessing more of the Sun’s energy, advancing humanity on the Kardashev scale from a Type 0 civilization toward Type 1 and eventually Type 2. By moving power-hungry data centers off-planet, SpaceX aims to unlock orders-of-magnitude more compute while preserving Earth’s resources.
Musk’s comments should ease public anxiety. With proven operational expertise, incremental engineering, and the immensity of space itself, orbital data centers represent not overcrowding, but smart expansion into the final frontier.
Tesla Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is currently listed as a Level 2 suite in terms of its passenger cars. As its Robotaxi platform continues to move quickly, it has been recognized as a Level 4 ride-sharing program by the State of Texas, as Tesla recently self-certified itself.
However, a Wall Street analyst is arguing that Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) has effectively achieved Level 4 autonomy in most conditions in all of its vehicles, drawing on personal experience and data released by the company.
Alex Potter of Piper Sandler said in a note to investors on Wednesday that “Tesla has solved the self-driving puzzle,” pointing to decisions to offer insurance discounts for FSD-enabled policies as a signal of confidence, which is backed up by stellar safety records compared to human driving.
Investing.com initially reported on Potter’s new note.
Additionally, Potter looks at the recent start of Cybercab production at Giga Texas as a potential indication that Tesla is ready to offer some level of unsupervised driving at least in the near future. The Cybercab has no steering wheel or pedals, completely eliminating the ability for human input.
He also sees Tesla’s allocation of “several hundred million USD (if not $1B+)” as confidence internally, seeing as it would be tough to set aside that amount of capital toward a project that the company does not see as relatively near-term.
Forward thinking, especially as Cybercab has no human controls, it would make sense that Tesla is at least close to self-driving. How close is another question.
Tesla has routinely teased that unsupervised FSD is close, but there are still a lot of things it feels as if the company has to roll out some more capability, including unsupervised parking features, known as “Banish,” better operation with regional self-driving performance, and other improvements.
That is not to say that Tesla FSD is super impressive already. It has already completed coast-to-coast drives across the United States and Canada, it routinely takes the stress out of driving for most people, and it has proven through Tesla Safety Reports that it is safer and involved in accidents less frequently than humans.
🚨 These are the first-ever FSD safety statistics out of the Netherlands, showing it was over 3.5x safer than human driving on Dutch roads.
The most recent numbers out of Tesla for North America show:
-Over 5.5 million miles between accidents for Teslas using FSD
-660k miles… https://t.co/XKlRzgSGEh pic.twitter.com/HX6kzh0ZKc— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 9, 2026
Even Potter believes it is capable, as he used it to go from Missoula, Montana, to Minneapolis, Minnesota, back in April.
“There’s no substitute for personal experience,” he wrote.
Tesla stuns with another FSD approval in Europe, its second in two days
SpaceX’s Elon Musk relieves worries about orbital data centers
