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SpaceX bests Boeing to become NASA’s largest for-profit vendor
Fourteen years after winning its first major NASA contract, data shared by Aviation Week reporter Irene Klotz shows that SpaceX has usurped every other major aerospace company in the US to become the space agency’s largest for-profit vendor.
SpaceX’s ascension up those ranks has been arduous and far from guaranteed, but the company now provides NASA with a wide range of relatively affordable spaceflight services. SpaceX was paid a record $2.04 billion for those services in the 2022 fiscal year. Only the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), a nonprofit that includes the entirety of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and received $2.68 billion in the same period, ranks higher on NASA’s list of FY2022 vendors. Boeing came in third with $1.72 billion, followed by Lockheed Martin with $1.34 billion.
Cargo
NASA kickstarted its relationship with SpaceX in December 2008 when it awarded the company a $1.5 billion contract to develop the first versions of the Cargo Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket and deliver cargo to the International Space Station (ISS). Famously, founder and CEO Elon Musk once told 60 Minutes that, to a degree, NASA’s contract saved SpaceX from imminent bankruptcy and possible dissolution.
Saved by the infusion of resources, SpaceX successfully debuted Falcon 9 in June 2010 and began operational ISS cargo deliveries under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program in October 2012. Aside from a survivable engine failure on CRS-1 (2012) and one catastrophic Falcon 9 failure on CRS-7 (2015), NASA and SpaceX’s CRS cooperation has been a thorough success. SpaceX is just a few weeks away from CRS-26, which will likely become Cargo Dragon’s 26th successful ISS cargo delivery in 10 years.
NASA ultimately paid SpaceX $3.04 billion to complete its first 20 CRS missions. SpaceX’s newer CRS-2 contract, which bore launches in January 2021, has 15 missions on contract and will likely cost NASA another $3.5 billion by the mid-2020s. SpaceX launches an average of three CRS missions per year, likely translating to about $700 million in annual revenue. SpaceX completed two Cargo Dragon launches for NASA in FY2022.
Crew
The second biggest contributor to SpaceX’s NASA revenue is Crew Dragon. In 2014, NASA contracted with SpaceX and Boeing to independently develop spacecraft capable of safely transporting astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS), taking over the role the Space Shuttle and Russian Soyuz spacecraft filled from 2000 to 2020. Crew Dragon completed its first uncrewed orbital test flight in March 2019 and its first crewed test flight in May 2020. Operational launches began in November 2020.
Subverting all expectations, Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule completed its first fully successful uncrewed test flight in May 2022, a full three years behind SpaceX. Starliner’s first crewed test flight is now scheduled no earlier than (NET) February 2023, while its first operational astronaut launch is tentatively scheduled for Q3 2023 at the earliest. Thanks to Boeing’s woeful performance, SpaceX has been responsible for launching every NASA astronaut (save one) since late 2020 and will continue to do so well into 2023. That means that SpaceX is on call for two Crew Dragon launches per year for NASA, whereas the Commercial Crew Program originally hoped that SpaceX and Boeing would each launch once per year.
In 2022, NASA took the extraordinary step of purchasing eight additional Crew Dragon launches while buying zero extra Starliner launches. Through 2030, SpaceX is now under contract to complete 14 operational Crew Dragon missions for NASA for $4.93 billion – less than the $5.1 billion NASA will pay Boeing for just six operational Starliner launches. For its first six operational missions, SpaceX is charging NASA about $220 million apiece. For Crew-7 through Crew-14, SpaceX will charge approximately $290 to $300 million per mission.
SpaceX completed two Crew Dragon launches for NASA in FY2022.
Falcon
Aside from launching Dragons for NASA, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets are also heavily relied upon to launch a wide range of scientific spacecraft through the Solar System. Since 2010, NASA’s Launch Services Program (LSP) has paid SpaceX almost $1 billion to complete six launches (worth about $400M) and prepare for at least nine others. The nine additional LSP launches SpaceX is scheduled to complete between November 2022 and June 2026 will cost NASA around $1.4 billion. Five of those missions will use SpaceX’s larger Falcon Heavy rocket and represent more than $1 billion of that $1.4 billion.
In FY2022, SpaceX completed two NASA LSP launches for about $120 million.
Starship
Finally, the last major line item on NASA’s SpaceX expenditures is focused on Starship. In April 2021, NASA awarded SpaceX a $2.9 billion Human Landing System (HLS) contract (~$3 billion including previous funding) to develop a Starship-derived Moon landing system capable of transporting astronauts to and from the lunar surface. Since 2020, NASA has paid SpaceX $1.26 billion for its work on HLS, more than $800 million of which was disbursed in FY2022.
All told, a rough estimate of the four programs above accounts for about $1.82 billion of the $2.04 billion NASA paid SpaceX in FY2022. SpaceX was also paid about $50 million for work on its 2024 launch of Europa Clipper, leaving about $170 million that can probably be explained by other advance payments for work on upcoming Dragon and LSP launches.
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Tesla Model S completes first ever FSD Cannonball Run with zero interventions
The coast-to-coast drive marked the first time Tesla’s FSD system completed the iconic, 3,000-mile route end to end with no interventions.
A Tesla Model S has completed the first-ever full Cannonball Run using Full Self-Driving (FSD), traveling from Los Angeles to New York with zero interventions. The coast-to-coast drive marked the first time Tesla’s FSD system completed the iconic, 3,000-mile route end to end, fulfilling a long-discussed benchmark for autonomy.
A full FSD Cannonball Run
As per a report from The Drive, a 2024 Tesla Model S with AI4 and FSD v14.2.2.3 completed the 3,081-mile trip from Redondo Beach in Los Angeles to midtown Manhattan in New York City. The drive was completed by Alex Roy, a former automotive journalist and investor, along with a small team of autonomy experts.
Roy said FSD handled all driving tasks for the entirety of the route, including highway cruising, lane changes, navigation, and adverse weather conditions. The trip took a total of 58 hours and 22 minutes at an average speed of 64 mph, and about 10 hours were spent charging the vehicle. In later comments, Roy noted that he and his team cleaned out the Model S’ cameras during their stops to keep FSD’s performance optimal.
History made
The historic trip was quite impressive, considering that the journey was in the middle of winter. This meant that FSD didn’t just deal with other cars on the road. The vehicle also had to handle extreme cold, snow, ice, slush, and rain.
As per Roy in a post on X, FSD performed so well during the trip that the journey would have been completed faster if the Model S did not have people onboard. “Elon Musk was right. Once an autonomous vehicle is mature, most human input is error. A comedy of human errors added hours and hundreds of miles, but FSD stunned us with its consistent and comfortable behavior,” Roy wrote in a post on X.
Roy’s comments are quite notable as he has previously attempted Cannonball Runs using FSD on December 2024 and February 2025. Neither were zero intervention drives.
Elon Musk
Tesla removes Autopilot as standard, receives criticism online
The move leaves only Traffic Aware Cruise Control as standard equipment on new Tesla orders.
Tesla removed its basic Autopilot package as a standard feature in the United States. The move leaves only Traffic Aware Cruise Control as standard equipment on new Tesla orders, and shifts the company’s strategy towards paid Full Self-Driving subscriptions.
Tesla removes Autopilot
As per observations from the electric vehicle community on social media, Tesla no longer lists Autopilot as standard in its vehicles in the U.S. This suggests that features such as lane-centering and Autosteer have been removed as standard equipment. Previously, most Tesla vehicles came with Autopilot by default, which offers Traffic-Aware Cruise Control and Autosteer.
The change resulted in backlash from some Tesla owners and EV observers, particularly as competing automakers, including mainstream players like Toyota, offer features like lane-centering as standard on many models, including budget vehicles.
That being said, the removal of Autopilot suggests that Tesla is concentrating its autonomy roadmap around FSD subscriptions rather than bundled driver-assistance features. It would be interesting to see how Tesla manages its vehicles’ standard safety features, as it seems out of character for Tesla to make its cars less safe over time.
Musk announces FSD price increases
Following the Autopilot changes, Elon Musk stated on X that Tesla is planning to raise subscription prices for FSD as its capabilities improve. In a post on X, Musk stated that the current $99-per-month price for supervised FSD would increase over time, especially as the system itself becomes more robust.
“I should also mention that the $99/month for supervised FSD will rise as FSD’s capabilities improve. The massive value jump is when you can be on your phone or sleeping for the entire ride (Unsupervised FSD),” Musk wrote.
At the time of his recent post, Tesla still offers FSD as a one-time purchase for $8,000, but Elon Musk has confirmed that this option will be discontinued on February 14, leaving subscriptions as the only way to access the system.
Tesla has initiated Cybertruck deliveries in a new region for the first time, as the all-electric pickup has officially made its way to the United Arab Emirates, marking the newest territory to receive the polarizing truck.
Tesla launched orders for the Cybertruck in the Middle East back in September 2025, just months after the company confirmed that it planned to launch the pickup in the region, which happened in April.
I took a Tesla Cybertruck weekend Demo Drive – Here’s what I learned
By early October, Tesla launched the Cybertruck configurator in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, with pricing starting at around AED 404,900, or about $110,000 for the Dual Motor configuration.
This decision positioned the Gulf states as key early international markets, and Tesla was hoping to get the Cybertruck outside of North America for the first time, as it has still been tough to launch in other popular EV markets, like Europe and Asia.
By late 2025, Tesla had pushed delivery timelines slightly and aimed for an early 2026 delivery launch in the Middle East. The first official customer deliveries started this month, and a notable handover event occurred in Dubai’s Al Marmoom desert area, featuring a light and fire show.
Around 63 Cybertrucks made their way to customers during the event:
First @cybertruck deliveries in the UAE 🇦🇪 pic.twitter.com/sN2rAxppUA
— Tesla Europe & Middle East (@teslaeurope) January 22, 2026
As of this month, the Cybertruck still remains available for configuration on Tesla’s websites for the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other Middle Eastern countries like Jordan and Israel. Deliveries are rolling out progressively, with the UAE leading as the first to see hands-on customer events.
In other markets, most notably Europe, there are still plenty of regulatory hurdles that Tesla is hoping to work through, but they may never be resolved. The issues come from the unique design features that conflict with the European Union’s (EU) stringent safety standards.
These standards include pedestrian protection regulations, which require vehicles to minimize injury risks in collisions. However, the Cybertruck features sharp edges and an ultra-hard stainless steel exoskeleton, and its rigid structure is seen as non-compliant with the EU’s list of preferred designs.
The vehicle’s gross weight is also above the 3.5-tonne threshold for standard vehicles, which has prompted Tesla to consider a more compact design. However, the company’s focus on autonomy and Robotaxi has likely pushed that out of the realm of possibility.
For now, Tesla will work with the governments that want it to succeed in their region, and the Middle East has been a great partner to the company with the launch of the Cybertruck.
Tesla Model S completes first ever FSD Cannonball Run with zero interventions
Tesla removes Autopilot as standard, receives criticism online
