SpaceX
SpaceX’s first dedicated Starlink launch announced as mass production begins
SpaceX has announced a launch target of May 2019 for the first batch of operational Starlink satellites in a sign that the proposed internet satellite constellation has reached a major milestone, effectively transitioning from pure research and development to serious manufacturing.
R&D will continue as SpaceX Starlink engineers work to implement the true final design of the first several hundred or thousand spacecraft, but a significant amount of the team’s work will now be centered on producing as many Starlink satellites as possible, as quickly as possible. With anywhere from 4400 to nearly 12,000 satellites needed to complete the three major proposed phases of Starlink, SpaceX will have to build and launch a minimum of ~2200 satellites in the next five years, averaging 37 high-performance, low-cost spacecraft built and launched every month for the next 60 months.
A shift in the Stars
Despite the major challenges ahead of SpaceX, things seem to be going quite smoothly with the current mix of manufacturing and development. As previously reported on Teslarati, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk forced the Starlink group through a painful reorganization in the summer of 2018, challenging the remaining leaders and their team to launch the first batch of operational Starlink satellites no later than June 2019. As a consequence, a sort of compromise had to be reached where one additional group of quasi-prototype satellites would be launched before settling on a truly final design for serious mass-production.
According to SpaceX filings with the FCC, the first group of operational satellites – potentially anywhere from 75 to 1000 or more – will rely on just one band (“Ku”) for communications instead of the nominal two (“Ku” and “Ka”), a change that SpaceX says will significantly simplify the first spacecraft. By simplifying them, SpaceX believes it can expedite Starlink’s initial deployment without losing a great deal of performance or interfering with constellations from competitors like OneWeb.
Somewhere along the line, SpaceX would iteratively improve each subsequent ‘generation’ of Starlink satellites until they reached the nominal performance characteristics outlined in the company’s original constellation application. Knowing SpaceX, improvements would continue for as long as lessons continued to be learned from operating hundreds and eventually thousands of orbital spacecraft.
As one concrete example, recent SpaceX FCC documents stated that the first 75 Starlink spacecraft would feature a less-optimized reentry design, meaning that a select few components will not entirely burn up during reentry, creating debris that poses a
While the FCC has yet to grant SpaceX’s requested modifications, the other major goal is to reduce the operating orbit of the first phase of 1584 satellites to 550 km (340 mi), a change that SpaceX says will drastically reduce the potential lifespan of any orbital debris in the unlikely event of their creation. A lower altitude also places a major cushion between SpaceX’s first ~1500 satellites and the orbits of several other planned constellations, including OneWeb and Telesat.
Hello, Production Hell, my old friend
Meanwhile, SpaceX’s Starlink program has begun the often painful steps of transitioning from a venture primarily focused on research and development to one focused mainly on building production lines and supply chains and manufacturing hardware. SpaceX’s Starlink facilities are currently housed in three nearby buildings located in Redmond, Washington, likely offering approximately 150,000 square feet (14,000 m^2) for a mix of office, development, and production spaces. At least one of the three non-office buildings could potentially become dedicated to production while one building – approximately 40,000 ft^2 (~3500 m^2) – has already been completely transformed into a prototype of a Starlink satellite production line, supporting manufacturing for first several dozen quasi-prototype spacecraft. For reference,
Mass-producing spacecraft at the scale needed to build even half of those needed for the first phase of ~4400 Starlink satellites will be a feat unprecedented in the history of the space industry. Barring FCC exemptions (possible but unlikely), SpaceX needs to launch ~2200 Starlink satellites between now and April 2024. To complete the first phase, the final number of satellites rises to ~4400. Adding on a proposed constellation of very low Earth orbit (
Perhaps SpaceX will be able to garner invaluable insight from the lessons its sister company learned during Model 3’s torturous “production hell”, in which the car company had to grow its production volume by almost a magnitude as quickly as possible. Ironically, it may even be the case that SpaceX has the easier task relative to Tesla.
Check out Teslarati’s Marketplace! We offer Tesla accessories, including for the Tesla Cybertruck and Tesla Model 3.
Elon Musk
SpaceX nails “Lucky 13” astronaut launch, leaning into Tesla tradition and superstition
SpaceX launched Crew-13 astronauts to the ISS Thursday, setting up a record fast Dragon docking.
SpaceX launched NASA’s Crew-13 mission to the International Space Station on Thursday morning, getting four astronauts to orbit despite a forecast of thunderstorms and gusty winds that had threatened to push the flight to Friday.
Falcon 9 lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 11:10 a.m. ET carrying Dragon Grace, NASA confirmed. On board are NASA commander Jessica Watkins, NASA pilot Luke Delaney, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov. The first stage booster, B1101, landed at Landing Zone 40 beside the pad on its third flight after previously supporting Crew-12 and a Starlink mission.
Liftoff of Crew-13! pic.twitter.com/vteT0DXMTh
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 1, 2026
It was the first spaceflight for Delaney, Kutryk and Teteryatnikov. Watkins, who flew on Crew-4 in 2022, became the first NASA astronaut to launch aboard a Crew Dragon twice.
Before launch, the crew rode to the pad in Teslas, a tradition on NASA’s SpaceX crew flights since 2020. This time the cars carried specialty plates reading “Lucky 13.” Watkins said the mission patch leans into the number on purpose, as a nod to Apollo 13 and the resilience of that crew.
Grace is now on a short trip to the station. Docking at the forward port of the Harmony module is scheduled for about 7 p.m. ET, roughly 7 hours and 50 minutes after liftoff, which Space.com notes would be the fastest Crew Dragon transit to the ISS yet. Most Dragon flights take around 15 to 24 hours to catch the station. Hatch opening is planned for 8:25 p.m. ET.
The launch came more than two weeks later than originally planned. An oxidizer leak was found in Grace’s propulsion system in August, and NASA and SpaceX added time for tests. That pushed back the return of Crew-12, which has been aboard the station since February and is now set to splash down off Southern California next week. Crew-13 is expected to stay about six months.
SpaceX rescue mission for stranded ISS astronauts nears end — Here’s when they’ll return home
SpaceX already holds NASA orders for crew rotations through Crew-17, while Boeing is preparing an uncrewed Starliner flight to the station as early as December.
Crew-13 was only the first of three SpaceX launches planned for Thursday, as Teslarati previewed on Wednesday. A Falcon 9 launched its Transporter-18 mission from California today, where Google will be launching its first orbital artificial intelligence (AI) test satellite. Meanwhile, Falcon Heavy is set to launch the classified NROL-97 mission for the National Reconnaissance Office from Launch Complex 39A at 11:53 p.m. ET. Its two side boosters will return to Landing Zones 1 and 2, which means Central Florida could hear up to three sonic booms in a single day. The busy stretch follows Starship’s Flight 14 on Monday, which reached orbit for the first time.
Elon Musk
The Pentagon taps Elon Musk to design the battlefield of the future
Hegseth named Elon Musk to help lead Project Meridian, a Pentagon study of future warfare.
Elon Musk has a new role in the Trump administration. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on war.gov Wednesday that Musk will help lead Project Meridian, a new Pentagon study meant to identify the weapons and technologies the U.S. military will need to fight wars decades from now.
Hegseth unveiled the project during his State of the Force address at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia. Musk will direct the effort alongside Anduril founder Palmer Luckey and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, working under Pentagon Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael. All three men were in attendance, and Hegseth said their first meeting would take place directly after the speech inside a secure compartmented facility, according to The Hill.
Hegseth said the group “will be focused on discovering, developing, and fielding the weapons and systems that our children and our grandchildren will need in their lifetimes, without any creative limitations or restrictions, on any future battlefield, from under the Earth to beyond the Moon.” He added that Meridian is not meant to produce new strategy or policy documents.
SpaceX to become America’s Military data backbone for missiles, drones, and warfighters
A memo released after the announcement gives Michael until January 28, 2027, to deliver findings, a window of 120 days. It names artificial intelligence, autonomy, directed energy, robotics and biotechnology as the fields expected to change how wars are fought. The results will come as a public report with a classified annex. The memo says the study will run through a partner organization it does not name, and it does not mention Musk directly. His role comes from Hegseth’s speech and a Pentagon press release.’
Musk had not commented publicly on the appointment as of Wednesday evening. This will be Musk’s first official advisory role in the administration since he left DOGE last year.
The mandate overlaps heavily with Musk’s companies. SpaceX is one of the Pentagon’s largest contractors, with 2026 defense awards topping $8 billion, much of it tied to launches and a suspected Starshield buildout out of Vandenberg. The Pentagon’s release says Meridian will examine domains “from subterranean depths to the cislunar frontier,” which maps onto The Boring Company’s tunneling and Starship’s lunar plans. Tesla’s work on autonomy and Optimus falls within the fields the memo lists.
Meridian was one of six initiatives Hegseth announced Wednesday. Another is a new Autonomous Warfare Command, which the department wants operating as a four-star combatant command by October 1, 2027.
The news lands a day before SpaceX is scheduled to fly a classified National Reconnaissance Office payload on Falcon Heavy, one of three launches the company has planned for Thursday.
News
SpaceX set to launch astronauts and a classified Falcon Heavy mission on the same day
SpaceX plans three launches Thursday, including Crew-13 astronauts and Falcon Heavy’s first classified NRO mission.
SpaceX is lining up one of the busiest single days in its history, and the company offered a preview on Wednesday morning with a simple post on X: “Sunrise at pad 40.” The video and photos show Falcon 9 standing at Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral, roughly a day before it is scheduled to carry four astronauts to the International Space Station.
That launch is only the first of three SpaceX missions planned for Thursday, October 1, across both coasts.
Sunrise at pad 40 pic.twitter.com/J7Qme4VvIX
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 30, 2026
Crew-13 is targeting liftoff at 11:10 a.m. ET, with a backup opportunity Friday at 10:47 a.m. ET. NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins will command the mission, with NASA’s Luke Delaney as pilot and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov serving as mission specialists. According to NASA, Dragon is set to dock with the forward port of the station’s Harmony module around 8 p.m. ET, less than nine hours after launch. Watkins is the only member of the crew who has flown before, and Kutryk will become the first Canadian to reach orbit through NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
The Falcon 9 booster is flying for the third time after supporting Crew-12 and a Starlink mission, and it will attempt a landing at Landing Zone 40 beside the pad. That site made its debut in February when the Crew-12 booster touched down there, as Teslarati reported at the time. Crew-13 will relieve the Crew-12 astronauts, who have been aboard the station since the middle of February.
On the West Coast, another Falcon 9 is scheduled to lift off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in a window running from 2:18 to 3:16 p.m. ET, a flight NASASpaceflight lists as a Transporter rideshare mission.
The day is set to close at 11:53 p.m. ET, when Falcon Heavy launches from Launch Complex 39A with NROL-97, the first National Reconnaissance Office payload ever to fly on the rocket. SpaceX rolled the vehicle out to the pad Tuesday night. Its two side boosters, which previously flew GOES-U, ViaSat-3 F3 and NASA’s Roman Space Telescope, will return to Landing Zones 1 and 2, while a new center core will be expended in the Atlantic. The Roman launch took place on August 30, so NROL-97 will come barely a month later as Falcon Heavy’s third flight of 2026 and 14th overall.
NASA taps SpaceX to launch the telescope that could unlock new worlds
If all three Florida boosters land as planned, it would be the first time the Space Coast has seen landings at LZ-40, LZ-1 and LZ-2 on the same day, according to the Orlando Sentinel, which has warned residents in Brevard, Orange and Volusia counties that more than one sonic boom is possible.
The schedule arrives just three days after Starship reached orbit for the first time on Flight 14 from Starbase, Texas, deploying 26 Starlink V3 satellites. If Thursday’s missions stay on time, SpaceX will have flown Starship, Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy from four different pads in about four days.
Crew-13 is also the start of a longer run for Dragon. NASA recently added Crew-15, Crew-16 and Crew-17 to SpaceX’s contract in a $946 million modification, keeping Dragon as the agency’s only operational ride to the station while Boeing’s Starliner remains grounded.
SpaceX nails “Lucky 13” astronaut launch, leaning into Tesla tradition and superstition
Tesla moves forward on Wireless Charging for vehicles
