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SpaceX sends Falcon 9’s West Coast drone ship to the Panama Canal in surprise move
In a surprise turn of events, SpaceX has decided to send Just Read The Instructions (JRTI) – one of the company’s two autonomous spaceport drone ships (ASDS) – from Port of Los Angeles to either the Gulf or East Coast.
The likely destination: either Port Canaveral, Florida or Port of Brownsville, Texas. This move comes as the company enters a major lull in launch activities from its West Coast SLC-4 pad, situated in California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB). Lacking manifested launches, SpaceX has gone as far as redistributing almost all of its VAFB-based launch team and laying off those that could not move to Texas or Florida. As early as the first half of 2020, this major move east could easily culminate in the end of all West Coast SpaceX fleet activity, aside from a rare fairing retrieval or two.
On June 12th, SpaceX successfully launched what is expected to be its last West Coast mission for at least 6-9 months, while drone ship JRTI was most recently used to recover a VAFB-launched Falcon 9 booster during the January 11th launch of Iridium NEXT-8. Unexpectedly, it appears that Falcon 9 B1049.2’s landing aboard JRTI will be the drone ship’s last West Coast recovery for quite some time.
On August 1st, the approximately 300 foot by 170 foot converted barge departed its well-worn Port of Los Angeles berth behind tugboat “Alice C”. In fact, the drone ship’s departure went unknown for a solid 12-24 hours before a member of the unofficial SpaceX subreddit (/r/SpaceX) discovered paperwork filed with the Panama Canal Authority for an August 15th passage.
Back in January 2019, SpaceX fairing recovery vessel Mr. Steven (now GO Ms. Tree) – in a bit of what now is obvious foreshadowing – began a very similar ~5000 mi (8000 km) journey, traveling from Port of LA to Port Canaveral via the Panama Canal. Mr. Steven, however, is a far faster ship and sustained a solid 15-20 knots (17-22 mph) over the entire voyage, while drone ship JRTI – towed the entire way – will have to suffice with an average speed less than half that.
Where to?
Assuming a day-long canal passage, JRTI’s journey to Port Canaveral or Brownsville would take no less than three weeks (~22 days) from start to finish, indicating a likely arrival at the unknown final destination in the third week of August. The two probable destinations, Texas and Florida, would both arguably make sense.
In Florida, SpaceX drone ship Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY) is now tasked with handling the vast majority of SpaceX’s non-LZ booster recoveries, including Falcon Heavy center cores. In February 2018, CEO Elon Musk noted that a third drone ship (aside from JRTI & OCISLY) was “under construction” with the intention of allowing SpaceX to conduct Falcon Heavy launches where the center core is expended and both side boosters land at sea.
Perhaps SpaceX analyzed its fairly short West Coast manifest and decided that it would be even faster (and cheaper) to simply send JRTI East. Falcon Heavy’s next (public) launch is scheduled no earlier than late 2020, ruling out that as a primary motivation, but SpaceX is also about to begin operational Starlink launches that will demand an unprecedented cadence. Starlink’s cadence requirements could be so high that a second dedicated drone ship is necessary to prevent SpaceX’s internal manifest from delaying and generally disrupting its customers’ launches, thus explaining JRTI’s move.
At the same time, the spectacular pace of SpaceX’s orbital Starship prototype construction could very well demand the use of a large ocean-based landing platform in the near-term, at least according to Elon Musk’s recent comments on the subject of the first Starship test flights. Per Musk, either or both of SpaceX’s two Starship Mk1 (technically Mk1 & Mk2) prototypes could be ready for their first significant flights as early as September 2019, initially targeting altitudes of at least 20 km (12 mi).
Somewhat coincidentally, Starship’s tripod fin-legs – circa. a September 2018 design update – would actually almost fit inside the span of a Falcon 9 booster’s deployed landing legs (~18m diameter). This is to say that SpaceX’s two drone ships may already be large enough (give or take) to support Starship and Super Heavy booster landings. Given that the SpaceX plans to eventually put one or both of the in-work orbital Starship prototypes through an increasingly intensive series of high-speed, high-altitude (but still suborbital) tests before the first orbital flights, a drone ship may be necessary for the same reasons that not all Falcon 9 boosters can conveniently return to land during recovery.
Regardless of the ultimate purpose of drone ship JRTI’s move, it is undoubtedly a sign that things are about to get even more interesting and exciting in the world of SpaceX.
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SpaceX will report second quarter results after the market closes on Tuesday, August 4, marking the first time the company has opened its books to the public since its record IPO in June. Management will host a live audio only webcast at 4:30 p.m. ET, streamed on X, with no dial in option.
The debut carries more weight than a typical first quarter as a public company. Two trading days after the release, on August 6, the first tranche of SpaceX’s lockup expires, freeing roughly 911.5 million insider and employee shares, worth well over $100 billion at current prices and the largest such release in Wall Street history. A second, larger tranche tied to the stock trading 30 percent above its $135 IPO price never triggered, since shares have spent most of July trading below that price.
Wall Street’s models point to revenue near $6.9 billion for the quarter, up sharply from the $4.69 billion SpaceX reported in the first quarter, with a narrower per share loss than the $1.27 posted three months earlier, according to estimates compiled by Motley Fool. Those numbers will be the first look at how SpaceX’s three segments, Starlink, launch and AI, are performing independently.
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Investors heading into the call have a specific list of questions. How many net new Starlink subscribers did SpaceX add after ending March with 10.3 million, and is average revenue per user holding up as the service expands into lower income markets. How much of the AI segment’s revenue reflects contract signings with Anthropic, Google and Reflection AI this year, deals that combined could annualize to nearly $28 billion if fully ramped. Whether capital expenditures, which nearly doubled in the AI segment alone between 2024 and 2025, are still accelerating or starting to plateau. And whether management offers any forward guidance at all, something SpaceX has never done publicly.
The report will also land days after Elon Musk publicly denied a Wall Street Journal report describing internal planning to separate Tesla’s China business ahead of a potential Tesla-SpaceX merger. Whether Musk or SpaceX executives address that speculation on the call, even indirectly, maybe something investors will be listening for on Tuesday.
As Teslarati reported after Musk’s own warning to short sellers last week, the CEO has made clear he expects skeptics to be proven wrong over time. Tuesday will be the first chance for the numbers themselves to make that case.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s Starship just got filmed by its own cargo
SpaceX released new footage of Starship in space captured by the Starlink satellites it deployed.
SpaceX released a new video Friday evening showing Starship from an angle showcased by its own Starlink satellites, watching the rocket drift away in orbit.
The 65 second clip, posted on X, stitches together footage from four cameras mounted on a single Starlink V3 satellite. It opens with a close view of Starship’s 171 foot upper stage, still catching sunlight, then pulls back as the two spacecraft separate.
The footage comes from Starship’s 13th flight test, which launched July 24 from Starbase after a scrubbed attempt and an abort caused by an engine issue the week before. When Flight 13 finally flew, it carried the first batch of functional Starlink V3 satellites Starship has ever deployed, twenty of them, with six equipped with cameras meant to scan the ship’s heat shield during reentry.
View of Starship in space from a Starlink V3 satellite on Flight 13.
This composite is made of imagery from four separate cameras on a single satellite. Six of the satellites were equipped with cameras to scan Starship’s heat shield and transmit imagery down to operators to… pic.twitter.com/sNTHHz5vLr
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 31, 2026
Flight 13 checked most of its boxes. Starship deployed all 20 satellites, relit a Raptor engine in space, and splashed down softly in the Indian Ocean off Western Australia. Musk’s longer term plan calls for a Starlink V3 constellation of 100,000 satellites, according to a recent FCC filing, with Starship as the only vehicle capable of launching them at the volume that requires. Each Starship flight is designed to carry up to 60 V3 satellites once the vehicle reaches routine service, well beyond what Falcon 9 can carry in a single mission.
Starship is next expected to fly with an attempt at catching the ship itself with the launch tower’s mechanical arms, a maneuver SpaceX has so far reserved for the Super Heavy booster.
Tesla flexed the new features of the Model Y L with a dedicated media event at the company’s Diner on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles.
The Model Y L is the extended-wheelbase version of the all-electric crossover, which has been voted the best-selling car in the world on three occasions. The vehicle is already rolling off production lines at Gigafactory Texas, and first deliveries are slated to take place later this year.
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Teslarati was invited to the event, but due to some scheduling conflicts, we could not make it to Los Angeles. Instead, we will have our hands on a media unit sometime in August, so we’ll be able to spend some more extended time with the Model Y L.
However, plenty of those who made it to LA shared some cool features that set the Model Y L apart from the Model Y.
Multi-Row Climate Control
Tesla fitted the Model Y L with full climate control on all three rows on the front screen. It can be adjusted by selecting which row you’d like to modify on the right-hand side of the touch screen:
The Model Y L has a little row of icons on the right side of the climate screen so the front passenger can more quickly jump to whatever row they want to control. pic.twitter.com/uJS44mgCvk
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) July 30, 2026
Better Rear Window Visibility
One of the strangest things about the Model Y, especially the Juniper iteration, is the rear window has extremely limited visibility when looking into the rearview mirror.
Tesla has improved upon this with the Model Y L:
This is a drastic difference. https://t.co/wTdhitD5aA pic.twitter.com/z6hFs0Jkss
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 30, 2026
PowerShare will be included
Model Y L will come with PowerShare in North America, with an 11.5kW output to your home. Tesla said it would require Powerwall 3 for operation.
Wireless Charging Pad
There has been some speculation that Tesla would upgrade the wireless charging pads in the United States, but this is not the case.
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Tesla confirmed that it does not come with the cooled pads as the Y L in China does. This is because North America has not adopted Qi charging yet.
Thermal Management Improvements
These improvements in the Model Y L were seen with thermal management:
- Up to 15% faster cabin cooling
- +23% thermal efficiency gained in hot weather, 7 miles of real-world range gained
- 8x more solar energy reflection off of glass roof
- 30% reduction in solar energy entering the cabin
Some of the thermal management improvements in the new Model Y L Premium:
• Up to 15% faster cabin cooling
• Up to 15 min faster cabin cooling in sunny conditions
• +23% thermal efficiency gained in hot weather +7 miles of real-world range gained
• +10 miles recovered after… pic.twitter.com/jZirFWFdtO— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) July 31, 2026
Demand
Tesla said the Model Y L is almost sold out in the U.S. It comes with
- 1 year of FSD Supervised
- 1 year of Supercharging
- 1 year of Premium Connectivity
- Free exterior paint color, interior, and wheel option at no additional cost
SpaceX’s biggest test yet arrives this week and it’s not a rocket launch
SpaceX’s Starship just got filmed by its own cargo
