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SpaceX set for second weekend launch, new titanium grid fins to be tested
After a highly successful Friday launch and recovery of a reused Falcon 9, a second vehicle is preparing to launch on the opposite coast of the United States. Scheduled to lift off at precisely 1:25 p.m. PST, this mission will see a brand new Falcon 9 lift Iridium’s second set of ten NEXT satellites, after which the first stage will attempt to land in the Pacific Ocean aboard Just Read The Instructions, SpaceX’s West Coast drone ship.
If the schedule holds, the 46 hours separation between launches will make SpaceX one of very few entities to have launched the same vehicle in such close succession. While Russia/USSR and the Republic of China have tended to routinely launch missions with as few as a handful of hours in between, it is extremely rare in the United States, and such an accomplishment will likely make SpaceX the second private company to ever conduct two launches in under 48 hours.
This turnaround, which COO Gwynne Shotwell clarified could safely be as few as 24 hours, bodes extremely well for SpaceX’s and Musk’s goal of being able to launch every 24 hours. With the COO of the company already under the impression that 24 hours would be safely and reliably achievable, all that lies in the way of 24 hour cadence is pad availability. With current cadence suggesting that at least two weeks of down time is needed after a launch to verify pad health, the late-fall reactivation of Launch Complex 40 and eventual activation of SpaceX’s planned Boca Chica, Texas launch facility will give SpaceX three general-purpose pads and one limited use-case pad (Vandenberg Air Force Base) to launch from by late 2018 or early 2019. Three general purpose pads would allow SpaceX to launch every four or five days, assuming no improvements in pad resilience and autonomy, and this weekend’s back to back launches will demonstrate that SpaceX is easily capable of fully taking advantage of those three (or four) pads once they are all active.
Falcon 9’s fancy new titanium grid fins. (SpaceX/Instagram)
As for the launch today, it will debut some intriguing new hardware intended to improve the ease of reusability for the first stage. Musk offered a tweet storm last night and SpaceX one or two photos to explain the utility of the vehicles distinctive and unusual black grid fins. Ready to launch in just over an hour from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Falcon 9 and its new grid fins will place the next ten iridium NEXT satellites in Low Earth Orbit. The first stage will then proceed to the autonomous spaceport drone ship Just Read The Instructions, while testing its rather fancy titanium grid fins. Considerably larger than their aluminum predecessors, this new iteration of grid fins will is intended to both provide more control authority and glide capability in anticipation of the Falcon Heavy, while also offering improve resilience to the extreme heat and forces grid fins must necessarily cope with during reentry. You may have noted grid fins appearing to glow red and orange with the heat of reentry in past live coverage, and recovered stages demonstrate just how harsh high temperatures can be to aluminum. Titanium is famously resistant to heat and will thus optimally be able to be reused with no refurbishment or replacement whatsoever.
With the launch just over an hour out and no current known issues, you can watch SpaceX’s regularly amazing live coverage of the launch at spacex.com/webcast.
Elon Musk said he is planning to give “every one of his SpaceX shares to every kid in America” in 2027, stating that “this will be the first of many.”
SpaceX went public earlier this year, and its stock price has been relatively stable since leveling off shortly after its IPO. Based on its current price, it’s a gift of just over $10 billion to children across the United States.
It appears to be closely related to President Donald Trump’s bank accounts for children, which were set up earlier this year as Trump Accounts.
Just hours earlier, Anthropic had announced the establishment of its Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, “a new wholly-owned entity dedicated entirely to public benefit.” Musk responded by stating he recommended “giving the shares directly to the public,” and that he would be doing it that way.
Just a little bit later, Musk said children across the U.S. would be getting a share from him:
Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America.
This will be the first of many.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026
There are roughly 70 million children, meaning someone under the age of 18, in the United States, according to the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. Musk’s ownership of SpaceX stock shows he has around 849 million Class A shares of SpaceX stock, according to filings with the SEC.
Elon Musk revealed in a post on X that “Permits were impossible to get,” explaining the fate of The Boring Company’s most ambitious East Coast proposal.
The comment responded to a query about what became of his July 20, 2017 announcement that he had “just received verbal govt approval” for an underground Hyperloop connecting New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., capable of carrying passengers from the Big Apple to the Nation’s Capital in just 29 minutes.
The Boring Company receives verbal ‘approval’ to build NY to DC Hyperloop tunnel
The 2017 post, which envisioned city-center stations and multiple elevators in each city, sparked immediate scrutiny. Local and state officials in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and D.C. said they had no knowledge of any approval. A White House spokesperson confirmed only “promising conversations” about the transformative infrastructure.
Musk clarified shortly after that there was “still a lot of work” to do for formal approvals.
@cybrtrkguy Permits were impossible to get
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026
Limited progress followed, as Maryland Governor Larry Hogan’s administration issued a conditional utility permit and supported work near Fort Meade. In 2018, Washington, D.C., granted a preliminary permit for site preparation and excavation on a vacant lot at 53 New York Ave. NE in the NoMa neighborhood, which The Boring Company said could become a station.
A draft environmental assessment for a D.C.-Baltimore segment was released in 2019. Yet, by April 2021, the company had removed the project from its website, and the Federal Highway Administration reported receiving no indication of further interest. Communication with Maryland officials had ceased.
The full corridor would have required coordination among the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, the Federal Highway Administration, the Army Corps of Engineers, the National Park Service, and other agencies.
Environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, utility clearances, and approvals for novel infrastructure added to the overall complexity of the project and its approval.
Speculation on the permitting barriers centers around a few factors, but a multi-state, multi-level route involving unproven high-speed vacuum-tube technology inherently triggers exhaustive safety, environmental, and engineering reviews that can stretch for years, even for conventional projects.
There are also other elements, of course, like officials who may face political exposure if a privately funded, untested system encountered anything such as cost overruns, delays, or safety issues. On the outset of this project, there were limited things such as engineering plans or demonstrated technology maturity, which also added to the potential skepticism.
The East Coast vision for Boring Co., once framed as a privately funded revolution that could reshape Northeast travel, quietly ended without construction of the promised network. Musk’s recent statement frames the outcome as a regulatory impasse, unfortunate but not unexpected.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to his social media platform X on Sunday to remind everyone that the Roadster’s true meaning is not about company growth or adding dollars to shareholders’ pockets. Sometimes, you just do things because you can.
Following the Roadster’s epic unveiling event last Thursday, skeptics and critics of the company or the project itself came out to say that the vehicle is a pointless project because it is not geared toward growing the company, delivering supreme margins for profitability, nor does it contribute to the big picture of Artificial/Super Intelligence.
But that’s just the thing: Roadster is not meant to be some shareholder dream; it’s meant to be a vehicle that people buy just because it is something awesome, unique, and the first of its kind.
Tesla Roadster: Three configs, one can fly, 0-60 in 0.8 seconds
Musk had to remind those who are skeptical about the Roadster’s importance to the company mission that while it is not a major contributor to Tesla’s long-term goals, it is something that is being built just because it can be:
“Optimus and Cybercab will be the vast majority of Tesla’s value. The only things that will scale to incredible size (K2 and beyond) economically are super intelligence, robots, solar power, and mass to space. And, of course, if you have the first two, the rest will follow. But Roadster is super cool, so we’re doing it anyway.”
Musk has said on many occasions that Optimus would be the project that would make up the vast majority of Tesla’s value in the coming years.
Robotics will be a major focus of Tesla over the coming years, especially as Musk believes Optimus will enable work to be optional for humans and will enable what he calls “High Universal Income.”
Optimus and Cybercab will be the vast majority of Tesla’s value.
The only things that will scale to incredible size (K2 and beyond) economically are super intelligence, robots, solar power and mass to space.
And, of course, if you have the first two, the rest will follow.
But Roadster is super cool, so we’re doing it anyway.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 18, 2026
Cybercab will be a passive income opportunity for owners, Musk and Tesla have said for a very long time, as a fleet of self-driving vehicles will operate within a ride-hailing Robotaxi service that won’t require a human driver to be present.
Tesla investors are more than enthusiastic about the company’s future projects, at least from a general consensus perspective. However, it is important to note that the Roadster is a fun and cool project that pushes the boundaries of what people thought was possible for an automobile.
What we saw last week was the first true example of a flying car, and despite the backlash about how it might not contribute to Tesla’s grand ambitions, it’s okay to have fun sometimes, too.
Elon Musk will give ‘every kid in America’ a SpaceX share in 2027
Elon Musk reveals why Boring Co’s biggest East Coast project never happened
Tesla CEO Elon Musk reminds everyone about Roadster’s true meaning
SpaceX reveals how its 1 Million AI satellite network will work and prevent space collisions
Tesla Roadster: Three configs, one can fly, 0-60 in 0.8 seconds
