News
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.
Check out Teslarati’s Marketplace! We offer Tesla accessories, including for the Tesla Cybertruck and Tesla Model 3.
Tesla revealed a major new Cybercab detail in a guide it released for First Responders, showing new territory in its beliefs and intentions for the ride-hailing-focused vehicle that entered production in April.
The First Responders Guide is released to give fire departments, paramedics, and other emergency personnel the proper guidance on what to do in the event of an accident, entrapment, or other situation that would require immediate attention.
On one of the pages of the First Responders Guide, Tesla revealed a stark detail about the Cybercab, which could help personnel enter the vehicle more easily in case of an emergency.
Tesla Cybercab has one important piece that AI4 cars might need for FSD
It shows Tesla has no intention of releasing any Cybercab units that were initially proposed for ride-hailing services for the general public with any manual controls, meaning a steering wheel or pedals:
“A Cybercab equipped with steering wheel, brake pedal, and an acceleration pedal is typically an engineering or test vehicle, and operates at SAE Level 2 autonomy. Cybercab is not typically equipped with a steering wheel or acceleration and brake pedals.”
New official Cybercab documentation from Tesla:
“A Cybercab equipped with steering wheel, brake pedal, and an acceleration pedal is typically an engineering or test vehicle, and operates at SAE Level 2 autonomy. Cybercab is not typically equipped with a steering wheel or… https://t.co/P6ut1mZyzr pic.twitter.com/yq6skl9s2J
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) June 27, 2026
This is a major development for those who continue to believe Tesla planned to release the Cybercab with any sort of manual controls so that passengers could take over if needed. However, when Tesla started manufacturing production versions of the Cybercab in Giga Texas earlier this year, they were spotted without a steering wheel or pedals.
It essentially confirms the company has no intentions of bringing manual controls to the car’s production versions. Some have argued that the likelihood of Tesla having something
There still are some Cybercab units out there with a steering wheel and pedals, and as Tesla said, these cars are engineering or test vehicles, which have Safety Monitors on board to help the car out of a precarious situation or emergency.
Tesla released the Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ suite to owners of Hardware 3 or AI3 vehicles today, adding several new features to the vehicles that were once believed to be capable of unsupervised self-driving.
Now, Tesla has released this modified suite to older Tesla vehicles, adding plenty of new features and capabilities.
Here are the full release notes for the suite:
- Distilled the intelligence from HW4 V14 into HW3. This allows HW3 to directly learn how to handle scenarios using HW4 V14 as a guide. This process unlocks the improvements that have been made to HW4 including Reinforcement Learning (RL) and offline models for HW3.
- Improved both proactive and reactive responsiveness across a wide variety of categories including navigation handling, merges and forks, pedestrian interactions, traffic lights, and vehicle cut-in scenarios.
- Improved general comfort in nominal scenarios through fewer false slowdowns, smoother steering and more consistent lane centering.
- Introduced parking, unparking, and reversing capabilities.
- Added Arrival Options for you to select where FSD should park: in a Parking Lot, on the Street, in a Driveway, or at the Curbside.
- Speed Profiles are now available at all times, to further customize driving style preference.
These improvements, according to Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, help distill the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute configurations of AI3.
Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ for older cars finally gets released
He added:
“It includes destination options and speed profiles on city roads, but more importantly significantly improved safety. We hope you’ll enjoy it, once the build ships wide.”
FSD v14 Lite is now rolling out to AI3 early-access customers. Based on the feedback, will rollout to more customers over the next few weeks.
This build distills the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute config of AI3. It includes destination…
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) June 29, 2026
Tesla will continue to roll out the v14 Lite suite more widely in the coming weeks, the company said.
Tesla has finally released its Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ suite for older cars that equip the Hardware 3 or AI 3 chip, which have not been able to handle the newest versions of the company’s driver assistance software.
Tesla officially started releasing the v14 Lite suite to owners in the Early Access Program last night. The company’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, said that the rollout will continue over the next few weeks. The build distills the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute configurations of an AI3 car.
🚨 Tesla is releasing v14 Lite for AI3 owners who are in early-access
This will give AI3 cars the ability to experience new FSD features like parking preferences. https://t.co/pp6Q5FOKoz pic.twitter.com/tqexMB8SVy
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 29, 2026
It also includes a variety of new features that were available to AI4 cars running v14, including:
- Start Self-Driving from Park
- Arrival and Parking Options
- Speed Profiles
The release is highly anticipated because those owners with AI3 vehicles were early adopters into the FSD platform and were promised that their cars would be capable of achieving Full Self-Driving.
However, Tesla CEO Elon Musk admitted during the company’s recent Q1 Earnings Call that these vehicles would not be capable of achieving unsupervised Full Self-Driving, which is what Tesla had originally said.
Owners were not pleased with this answer, or the idea that their commitment to buying the suite outright for thousands of dollars would not yield the ability to drive without operating the car. Tesla gave some solutions for this, including a discount on a new car, or an upgrade to an AI4 or AI5 self-driving computer and new, upgraded cameras.
Tesla owners do not seem pleased with these options, as they require giving the company more money.
Nevertheless, it is important to note that Tesla came through for owners here by releasing v14 Lite before the end of Q2, something it had promised owners during the previous Earnings Call. Tesla has had trouble keeping up with timelines, but this is a big achievement for the team.
Tesla reveals huge Cybercab detail in new guide for First Responders
Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ Release Notes: new capabilities and features
